I didn’t sleep very well in Hotel Armand in Koundara. The fact that the hotel was running the bar and that the power went on until 2am, and the window of my room was out onto the front, above the bar, meant the music – however nice it was at times – didn’t allow me to sleep. I burnt a mosquito coil and tossed around in the night heat.
I applied online for Sierra Leone visa. Fingers crossed.
In the morning I caught a moto taxi to the gare routière for Labé. The familiar ticketmaster was there, I just missed a taxi and we were waiting for a new one to fill up.
What goes as a sept-place in Senegal – an old Peugeot or Renault where seven passengers are fit into three rows of seats – becomes a neuf-place in Guinea. Two people on the front seat next to the driver. Four people in the middle row of the seats. Three people in the back row. I asked the ticketmaster about the car the previous evening. He said it left at 7pm. Which means it possibly arrived in Labé at 1am. Glad I hadn’t taken it.
When I arrived at the taxi stand, first thing I noticed was someone’s coffee cup. !!!! In the back of the compound there was a man brewing coffee, just like Mamadou on Gabú the day before. Soon, after I chatted to the barista, it turned out this is how you roll with coffee in Guinea. I fell in love. I had four cups. I also had rice with a tasty stew, which seems to be called soup here. 5000gnf for rice, 1000gnf for a cup of coffee. I asked the barista where the coffee comes from and he said Nzérékoré. That’s close to Liberian border, Guinée forestière, which my Rough Guide kinda describes in superlatives. Also I’m a bit fed up with dry vegetation. I guess what I’ll do on my way back from Mali towards Sierra Leone.
Just before departure I was asked if I possibly maybe didn’t intend to pay for two seats as the space is tight. The ticket to Labé, 250kms away, a 5hr journey, is 110k, the bag was quoted at 20k. I saw people fighting over the baggage fees. I am glad I am not the only one pissed off at this rip off. Anyway, I refused to pay double, I expressed my opinion about the price level and it was decided I would sit in the back.
When I was let in and sat in the back on side, the roof was so low, I couldn’t keep my neck straight. I was moved to the middle seat, still in the back. Still, the middle row was even tighter, the people sitting by the windows were sticking their heads outside in order to save space.
The journey took 5 hours, without stopping. The road was tarred except when we started climbing when it turned into a dirt road, for about 30kms. I didn’t see much but what I saw wasn’t particularly picturesque. I think I saw David’s the Spanish cycler’s bicycle on a roadside. Dry flattish hills, scrubs around, not many villages on our way. When we stopped to let someone out just before Labé, I was the first to get out of the car to stretch myself for even just a minute.
Labé is the second biggest town in Guinea and apparently it has a population of 200,000 people. Its gare routière is a dusty filthy stretch of a dirt road in town centre, lined up with shops selling meat (occupied by millions of flies) and all sorts of sandals and flip flops. There is little space to sit but I was glad to stand even if constantly someone was offering me to sit down. Back in Koundara I felt like they couldn’t stand me seeing standing and I had to constantly explain myself that I do not want to sit down.
The price to Dalaba is 50,000gnf, a two-hour-journey. I wanted to move further as the next day the journey to Kankan, a jumping point to Mali, would take the whole day easily in a car. And the cars are not comfortable.
The coffee corner was hidden and someone had to show it to me. Good coffee. I didn’t see anything to eat, the meat shops looked like they served food but the raw meat and the flies around successfully put me off. I bought some peanuts and after a longish lookout I found a lady selling jus naturel. The jus gingembre was as good as always.
The Dalaba-bound car wasn’t getting any fuller. People would come, put their bags in the trunk then later they would come back and collect their bags and go somewhere else. I was giving myself deadlines as to when to give up. 5pm. 5:30pm. 6pm. At 6:20pm the ticketmaster called me and said I would join another car, going to Mamou, an hour behind Dalaba, as they cannot fill the car going to Dalaba only. Fine.
I took my middle seat in the back row. The ceiling was so low I couldn’t keep my head up. Next to me a woman with a child on her lap. In the middle row four people, two heads stuck out of the window, another child on a lap. We went on. I managed to doze off but most of the time I fought not to fracture my neck. Thank God it was only 2 hours. The driver drove like mad and as it was getting dark o was getting concerned. Cows on the road, crazy potholes, trucks being overtaken.
I got dropped at Dalaba junction at 8:20pm and since to road towards hotel was all dark, I took a moto to take me there, although it was less than a kilometre away. The fare is 3000gnf. The hotel was well lit with Christmas style lights and it seemed a nice place. After the uncomfortable journey I felt like it’s the best place I stayed on this trip so far. Electricity! Running water! Roasted fish with delicious salad for dinner! Guinness!!! I was delighted and splurged. The room was 150,000gnf, the fish dinner was 50,000gnf, a can of Guinness 20,000gnf.
Only later I discovered there was no toilet seat, no towels (“they are locked, the person with the key left and I forgot to give it to you before”), a thick blanket in this heat was the only thing I could cover myself with (although to be fair, Dalaba is almost 1200m above sea level and I understand it may get chilly at times at night), no mosquito net or coil and the power went off at midnight.
Coming back to Maman 