Oh, I didn’t want to get up at 6am. I didn’t wanna get up at 6:30am. It was dark and gloomy, heavy clouds in the sky. I got back to bed and thought I could just stay another day in Nzérékoré. I lied down. I didn’t fall asleep. I got up. The rain started falling. I waited. It soon stopped.
I arrived at gare routière at 7:30am. The ticket to Gueckedou was 85,000gnf, a Renault, I was the first passenger but in the ticketmaster’s pad it looked like the first car had already left. I didn’t ask.
The moneychangers didn’t have any leones, only CFA and Liberian dollars. They told me in Gueckedou, 30kms from the border I would be able to change money.
I went for coffee. Two cups and I took breakfast, rice with leaves sauce, not too tasty but not too bad. 3,000gnf.
Time passed. Another two coffee cups consumed. I took some secret pics of people sitting next to me on a stone bench.
At about after 11am they started moving us to a van! Yay! A man came to me and told me I have to pay for the backpack. He said 20,000gnf, I said 10,000gnf, he agreed. Then as I was waiting for him to bring me change, the ticketmaster came to me and asked if I did pay. “Here, you don’t pay for the baggage”. And discussion started between the man who took my money and the ticketmaster. I got my money back! More, some time later the ticketmaster came to me and gave me 5,000gnf as because we are moving to the bus the price got lower.
A man sat next to me and asked me if I’m using Facebook on my phone. His name was Abdoulaye, he was 35, and he was a Liberian living in Guinea, driving heavy trucks. We started chatting, I told him I don’t use Facebook but on Messenger I can add him and I he gave me his name, Abdoulaye Kanata or something and I asked him to spell it and he repeated his name again and I asked him to spell it again and showed him the screen to see if I typed correctly. And then he said he never went to school so he cannot write.
How do you answer to that? A well-dressed good-looking young man. He said his father never had money to send him to school so he had went quickly to work.
I asked him how he uses Facebook then if one has to type. He said he sends pictures to friends and they call each other.
He also said he has a plantation, from how he described it it’s big, cocoa and palm trees and coffee. He showed me pictures on his phone, a non-smartphone. I asked him how he deals with papers if he cannot read. He said he can read but not write. Is it possible to separate the two?
He only spoke English, he doesn’t speak French, he communicates with people in Guinea using Mandinka, his language.
It’s the first time I actually ever spoke to a person who admitted to not being able to write. Occasionally, I saw people asking others to fill immigration forms, in Syria or on this trip in Morocco.
It’s really difficult to believe one may not be able to write even his own name.
Abdoulaye was going to Kissidougou on the same bus with me, my destination – Gueckedou – was before.
The bus left at 1pm. The distance was 250kms.
The road was picturesque: very green scenery, hills and mountains, road in good shape winding up and down. Ther was a bit of rain. We passed palm oil plantations, we started seeing pineapples for sale, I think I even saw palm wine – which for me is elusive as I never know how to find it – and I love fresh palm wine. Villages were no more than clearings in the forest consisting of a few huts.
We stopped in town of Macenta for lunch. I was just hanging around, I didn’t see any food stall except some mushy English-style (we were close to Liberia) bread when the conductor asked me if I’m not going to eat and he took me to a street joint where I had deliciously spicy rice with bean sauce. 3,000gnf.
We drove on. The stone signs were counting down the distance to Gueckedou – 40kms – and Conakry – 704km.
Soon after the 40km sign asphalt ended. I mean fresh and nice asphalt ended and we entered the remains of the road built in the times of Lucy the Mother. Crumbled pieces of asphalt turned into sharp and spiky stones full of big and bigger holes. We slowed down to a crawl.
It was the worst road on this trip. There were already strips of mud on the road and mud is where cars get stuck.
It took us over 2 hours to reach Gueckedou. We arrived after 6pm. I didn’t know exactly where to stay but when I got out of the bus and local people surrounded me – a visito and a white one! – and I started asking, they called for a man who “knew things”. IOverlander mentions a hotel but for 200,000gnf and the town doesn’t look like even 100k, the road still in horrible shape. The Rough Guide mentions Hotel Terminus and I asked about it and yes, it’s there, 5,000gnf on a moto because it’s on the outskirts, we went. The road bad, I barely managed to keep myself with the heavy backpack (after all I have 1.5kg of coffee now) when we were negotiating the potholes. We passed one hotel, then later on another and we stopped in front of the gate without a sign.
I entered the compound. The courtyard looked like of a family house. “Is this Hotel Terminus?” “Yes.” “Do you have rooms?” “For rooms you have to go to another hotel”. I didn’t quite get it and asked again. The man said I should go back to the hotel I just passed.
I walked a couple hundred metres. Hotel Sabou. A Flag (beer) sign on the door is smiling at me. The compound looks like a small house, there are men drinking drinks, one of them says it’s full. I ask where to look and I say I want something cheap: 150k is okay. They say there maybe no such hotel in town (in this shithole!) and they give me two names. I walk out, one of them offers me a ride as a moto taxi. When I sit I ask him not to drive too fast, knowing the type of road I’m going to be on. The man starts driving like crazy. At one point I almost fall off. I asked him if he’s been drinking. Of course he refuses. Later at night I met him again – a history teacher – drunk and not too happy with me that I’m laughing at the ride I had with him. He said I was too big & clumsy. Maybe but I did ask him not to drive too fast and he didn’t listen.
We arrive at a hotel called Sia Jeanette. 150k for a room, water in buckets, electricity evening only. I stay. There is a night club in the hotel but today it’s closed.
I take a walk around town but at 7pm it’s dark and dead empty, all the market stalls abandoned. Weird. I go back to hotel and take a beer (no Guinness) and order food – the roasted fish and salad is delicious and it’s only 35,000gnf. Nigeria and Cameroon have a serious competition for the best roasted fish I ever had.
Tomorrow it’s direction Nongoa and Kailahun. insha’Allah.
Coming back to Maman 