This week Consulmar Guine ferry ran Monday to Thursday (they publish the schedule every week) at 8am. The ferry leaves from the port of Bissau.
I arrived at the port around 7:45, there were already people at the dock. The day before when I asked at the ticket office what time I should be at the port I was told to be there at 8.
I saw David the Spanish cycler to SA. He also came for the ferry. David is on his 5th month of the trip. He did get slightly upset when I told him about the Ivorian visa that he could have gotten in Bissau, especially the fact that it was so cheap. David says the only thing he has is time. Also, he told me his friends who are ahead of him on similar trip got their Ghana visas in Abidjan, although a bit by accident. They were refused on the same grounds as always (you need to apply in the country of your residence) but as they were sitting in the embassy’s lobby waiting over the heat they were apparently asked again in and they were granted the visas!
The ferry left over an hour after the scheduled time, packed with people and goods. Even after the boarding staircase has been taken away, some people showed up and they were climbing down the dock’s planks on board.
It took us 1.5hrs to reach Enxudé, which is literally a gathering of thatched huts and nothing else. The ferry somehow reached the shore even though there was no dock, just a road slide down into the water. A ladder was attached to the front, placed on a rubber tyre lying on the ground and we had to slide/climb down to the ground.
I told David I will run and catch my transport before it gets full and I left him behind. I wonder how he managed with the bicycle and the slippery steep ladder.
Waiting on the people there were trucks. Lorries. I approached the one that looked the fullest but there were mainly small bags “reserving the seats” on the wooden benches running along the truck’s length, one on each side and one in the middle. I managed to squeeze my small backpack on the middle bench at the very end of the truck and I put my big bag underneath the bench. The ticket price was 1000cfa all the way to São João, where a boat will take us to Bolama.
People kept coming. In the end the truck was full but not as full as I thought (feared) it could get. We started. The road was a dirt road all the way to São João and all too often it was turning to a narrow bush track. Dry bushes were whipping the backs of those who were sitting on sides. The atmosphere was quite jovial. After a bit more than halfway we lost a tyre. It delayed us over an hour.
It took us almost 4 hours to cover the 30kms to San João. The road was bumpy. At São João the large pirogue / canoe / boat was waiting for us and for a 350cfa it took us to Bolama.
The history of Bolama is visible immediately. Large colonial – and crumbling, and mostly abandoned – buildings grace the waterfront. In front of them, an ugly Italian-build monument to WW2 victims. It looks very empty.
People immediately started walking towards the town but the problem was I didn’t really have an idea where to go. My Rough Guide mentioned some places to stay but I didn’t remember their names. I asked someone for help. The man directed me to someone standing by the waterside and the man took me to a hotel.
It’s marked as casa dos hospedes on Google Maps. There is no name on the gate. We had to call the proprietor. There are 3 types of rooms. Room with bath & shower is a whopping 17500cfa ($30/€27/115zł), room with shared bathroom & shower (cold water, no toilet seat, no toilet paper) is 15000cfa, breakfast (nescafe/tea, baguette with margarine and omelette) & ventilator included. Room without the breakfast and ventilator perks is 12500cfa. I tried a bit of negotiation but I was failing. I managed 14000cfa for the breakfast & ventilator (mainly for the ventilator) room. In the end, it turned out that the power is out by 10pm so the ventilator was useless.
There are some places in Bolama where food is served, some of their hours seem to be erratic. The man who showed me to the hotel also showed me where to eat.
It’s quite amazing that my Rough Guide to West Africa, AD2008, is so accurate. They do mention a woman named Maria, 200m left of the jetty (as you approach jetty from town), cooking only fish & rice and that you have to order in advance. And Maria is still there! The fish & rice costs 1000cfa, there is a mountain of rice served and the sauce is very tasty, kind of zesty lemon flavour, bien pimenté. And while she had my 3pm lunch ready, the dinner had to be ordered. Even then when I showed up again at 7:30pm and some man served me the dish in plastic boxes he told me I could pay the next day.
And I was to stay in Bolama for 2 nights. My fellow truck passengers told me the truck back to the crossroads of Nova Sintra leaves only on Saturday, 2 days later, at 8-9am.
I took an evening walk around Bolama. It’s a ghost town, full of fallen houses, looking abandoned and full of goats. There are surprisingly quite a few schools and that livens up the place. Some men played drums in front of their house. There is an evening service of Egreja classic that involves a lot of shouting from the preacher. There is an abandoned cinema – and it was just opened in 2005 – with a single blue light inside and the youth playing what sounds like proper experimental music in the empty hall. There are goats everywhere.
I found beers at a bar run by a woman named Ines. She only had small 0.25l bottles of Cristal.
I went to bed early. I have a mouse in my tiled room but I can’t think of a place where it’s hiding.
Coming back to Maman 