Day started with me caring for my newly reopened wound. Hydrogen peroxide, iodine then some sterile gauze that I had from home and two pieces of plaster I also had from home were supposed to hold it together till I am on the other side off the border.
Just before I even managed to wash myself, at about 7:40am, there was a knock on my door – the guesthouse man telling me someone wants to see me, a moto driver. I thought maybe it was Prince who carried me to the village yesterday but it was the man who showed me the guesthouse yesterday. “Border is open.” Oh man, these people don’t count time but they are always in rush! I told him I’m not ready, he got a bit confused. I asked him about the price. He said 8000cfa, I asked for Liberian dollars, he said over 2000. That’s more than I paid for triple the distance on a bike yesterday! Oh well, sorry man I am not yet ready, he left.
The plaster started falling off about 5 minutes after I constructed my wound dressing. I walked up to the same shop I had my dinner bread the night before and I had a three-egg-omelette for 160L$. From the stroll a day before I remembered I saw a house that said “pharmacy.” I left the big rucksack in the shop and I went looking for the pharmacy.
It was on the other side of the village. I also saw a clinic but when I entered the compound someone saw me and told me it’s not working on Saturdays. By that time my wound dressing completely fell off and I walked with my wound bare to a small house that said “Mom and Son Drug Store”.
The picture is done after I left it, of course a big white man having his wound redressed and crying under the painful stinginess of iodine attracted a crowd of curious children (and not only children).
A man came out of the house. I only wanted a proper plaster but he said he didn’t have it. He also didn’t have gauze but he can put bandage on my knee. He also said something that I generally agreed with, that the scratch wound should be left open without any cover so it dries quickly but I wanted to cover it because there is at least one more bike ride waiting for me today and there is so much dust around and it shouldn’t get into the wound. Even if I finally sit in a sort of car transport behind the border, the space will be tight and the knee will be disturbed by a seat in front of me, someone’s back or a rogue piece of metal protruding from anywhere, as usual.
The man used my hydrogen peroxide and iodine again, cut off a piece of skin that was hanging loose after yesterday’s accident and wrapped it up with the bandage. The crowd of children was getting thicker. I laughed that they will never come to him with a scratched knee after they see me crying when the iodine was poured over the scratch. And the best way to disperse a crowd of onlookers? Take out the camera! Notice a grown up wam hiding on the left.
The man then took out the plaster – the same sort I was looking for! – and wrapped it around bandage. He was telling me his brother is in Holland, his mother (of the mother and son drug store) is in Minnesota. I wondered what he was doing in this village himself if his people had left.
I paid 350L$ for the service and walked back. Now with the flamboyant bandage around me knee everyone was looking at it till the end of the day.
Here is the slightly slippery slope where I managed to slip and fall. If you think it’s completely flat, you are not too wrong.
I took my rucksack and walked to the border which you can see on the right side of the picture above. The bike men were all about 7000cfa bike ride. I told them I could pay 3000cfa – it’s only about 20-30kms to Danane, the first town in Ivory Coast, they went down to 5000cfa, I walked on.
I changed the money, I got 31500cfa for 9650L$ which is a lousy rate but what can a man do? The money changer was a bit open to negotiation but it didn’t help me much.
Xe.com has an app that tells you how much you lose (or gain) vs. average exchange rate when you type how much you paid in one currency and how much you were paid in the other currency. I lost 7.28%, like I was in a bank. Dollar rate he however had quite good, 570cfa to a dollar.
Liberian side was easy, registration in a first building, then another building a passport stamp, vaccination card check (on exit, great idea) then a short chat with customs and LDEA, they glanced at my small bag and told me to go. The customs woman was very beautiful.
Then across a rudimentary bridge to Ivorian side. There a passport check, I had to dig into Bradt Guide to tell them which hotel I would be staying in, then vaccination card check. The mean in the post de santé had blank vaccination cards and he even had what looked like a cooler which looked like it possibly contained vaccine injections. Things are improving.
Then a short walk to customs, they didn’t look my bags. Border time: 30mins. A man walked up to me and offered to show my wild pigs in the bush if I paid him money. Another man, a young one, followed me through the border, an Ivorian bike driver. His price to Danane: 7000cfa. My price: 3000cfa. We met at 4000 and left.
Just in the village outside the border, littered with plastic and generally looking drearier than the one I had spent a night in in Liberia he paid some money to someone and got a ticket – could it be that transport is already formalised – some young men sitting around managed to ask me for 1000cfa for food, and we left.
This young driver wasn’t Prince of the previous day and he didn’t ride so fast. Which was good. The road was similarly bad, up and down, seemed dustier than in Liberia and the villages we passed didn’t look better.
There were two checkpoints. The second one, just before Danane held us a bit as there was no chéf and the soldiers (or policemen) were calling him but before they could call him they had to get his number. It took a while. Then suddenly they let us go but it turned out that we were sent to the police station. I spent 30 mins being registered there by possibly the very chéf.
In Danane you could see the country has more money. There was asphalt on the road. There was a hospital. In the police station the receptionist had a huge plasma TV on the wall. The chef in his office had a computer and the room had AC. Though the boss was typing all my details into his phone, complete with picture of me and my passport.
Outside my bike driver already complaining he was tired. We went straight to where busses for Man leave. And yes, there is a minibus, in bad shape, price of ticket 2000cfa, no baggage fee (finally). I bought myself a bottle of bissap juice for 200cfa, it was delicious not too sweet, you could taste the hibiscus in it.
We soon left, the bus of course overcrowded. 25 passengers inside and a driver and two helping men. The minibus was in bad shape. And the road was in even worse shape. Often there was no asphalt or there were asphalt remains on the road, which is the worse because it’s very bumpy and us in the back of the bus we were occasionally thrown into air. It took us over an hour to cover the first 30kms. After that, we were told to move to a different bus and the remaining 60kms was better. On the stop I managed to buy myself a bottle of gingembre for 100cfa, delicious, and a SIM card, 500cfa, Moov network. Soon there would be internet access.
My friend Angel who is now in Tangier, Morocco was promising me transport in Ivory Coast will be in much better shape than the working wrecks he saw on my pictures from Guinea-Bissau. I gladly sent him the pics of the wreck we were in and Angel said “ah, but it’s not a capital city.” Nice busses in capital city are easy to obtain my friend!
The landscape was quite pretty, hills and greenery but somehow it was behind a thin wall of haze. We got off in Man – Bradt calls it the prettiest town in Ivory Coast but maybe they mean the location among the hills coz it’s full of dust – at a bus station. I asked about bus to the North, to Korhogo, and I was told it would leave on Monday. Big. Bus. I will be sitting on a proper bus!
You can immediately tell Ivory Coast is better off than Liberia and beyond. Boulangerie on every corner. Supermarkets. Pharmacies that look like pharmacies not shacks. Restaurants where you can sit by a table and relax! So much comfort!
I went to first load up some money on my SIM card so I can finally do the internet. Then I popped into a pharmacy. Mmmm AC. I wrote H2O2 on the piece of paper and it took a manager to know it’s eau oxygénée. I bought an anti-septic liquid, plaster and some gauze and the manager talked me into a powder that is supposed to help the wound heal. Of course the powder is antibiotic. I paid a whopping 6000cfa but I’m tired of my knee so let me take care of it.
Then I walked to a bakery but there was no seating – they just sell baguettes and croissants out on the street. But around the corner I saw some men sitting around a table drinking what could be coffee so I asked. Conversations around here often looks like it: “What do you have to drink/eat?”, “What do you want to drink/eat?”, “I don’t know, what do you have?” And it goes on. This time I said café noir and just next door there was a man with a small espresso machine dishing out small cups of robusta, 100cfa each. Ah bliss! I asked him where he buys the coffee, he said in the market. I asked if I could buy coffee beans. He said I should try supermarkets. Supermarkets! I did try supermarkets but they only have ground coffee. It’s only 2000cfa for a 1kg.
Around the corner from this café there was a hotel mentioned in Bradt Guide, Hotel Leveneur. Turned out to be closed “for renovation.” I asked men standing in front of its entrance and one of them took me to Hotel de la Paix and he walked with me the whole 1km! Hotel de la Paix is also marked in iOverlander app. We passed by what’s called bombastically gare de Korhogo and is really a shack from which the bus (big bus!) departs seemingly on Mondays only, for a whopping price of 10100cfa.
The hotel has only rooms with fans left, fine with me, 7000cfa. Nice price though the room is a bit like a cell, has a very low ceiling. But there is electricity 24 hours and water runs from the shower. Or at least it did, now the taps are dry. One can’t have it too good, can one?
From the hotel I went straight to look for food, I hadn’t eaten since my omelette in the morning. Ivory Coast is good with food and one type of eating place here is a so-called maquis which normly indicates open-air eatery, or maybe covered with maquis. I found Maquis Central where I first wanted rice and potato leaves but I took tchep with chicken – a spiced rice with pieces of vegetables and chicken. It was nice though a bit cold, that maquis closes early, 8pm. I also had a beer. Large bottle for 500cfa. I’m liking it. The whole late lunch/early dinner was 1500cfa. Bargain.
Walking back to the hotel at dusk I saw a bakery which has a proper espresso machine, the big one, coffee was 500cfa. I only decided to spoil myself there with a croissant aux amandes (another 500cfa). I closed the day early, deciding I need to take care of the knee and let it dry not on the dusty streets but in bed.
What I noticed, already in the bus to Man, is that women dress beautifully here. Slightly different in colours, often they would wear a black headwrap and even some dark mascara and gold jewellery and they look beautiful. Is it because we are closer to the North?
Coming back to Maman 