Why I even wanted to go to Korhogo. Not sure. There is the name which is unusual. I had a student in Abidjan, named Ferhana (another unusual name) who was somehow different from all the others female students, apart from also being beautiful – I guess you’d call it je ne sais quoi – and somehow I remembered she was from Korhogo. I’m not chasing a student – she’s in Abidjan anyway for all I know – just it triggered my memory. Also there was lately some military stand off in the country and it started in Korhogo. Also, it’s in the North, soon desert starts, borders with Burkina and Mali are not far, and these are colourful places. Also, Bradt Guide mentions it in highlights, artisans and féticheurs galore. And Bradt Guide for Ivory Coast is quite thin, barely over 200 pages, for such a big country it isn’t much.When I got off the minibus from Danane in Man I asked the driver for the place where busses to Korhogo leave from. He directed me to a place he called gare de Korhogo and it happened to be next door from my hotel in Man, hotel de la Paix. The day before the travel I went there – the price of the ticket being the strange 10100cfa (it’s the 100cfa that’s strange, people won’t sell you things here if you don’t have change, such is the shortage of coins). I wanted to buy ticket in advance. But I did ask to get a seat not by window but by the aisle. Little I knew there is another seat on that bus – in the middle – and I used the word au milieu which means in the middle but which was used before for me when I wanted aisle seat. I have my scratched knee and I want to be able to stretch my legs. The man selling tickets said he’d have to call the boss but then he said I should come back the next day and buy the ticket before departure and I should be there at 6:30am coz that’s when they start loading up the baggage into the bus and there won’t be a problem with tickets. And I did ask twice about 6:30am because the piece of paper on the wall says “every Monday at 6am” and he did 6:30am is fine and it’s better to buy ticket before departure.Same day, a day before departure, while enjoying espresso and croissant aux amandes in the bakery in town, about 10min walk from the hotel, across the street I saw another agence – here it seems every company has its own depot – with a big sign saying “Man – Korhogo direct”. Of course I go there and ask. The two men sitting there tell me the ticket is 12000 and there is a big bus (I make a point of asking about it, they say it has 45 seats) and I can buy it before departure and the journey is “if there are no problems, 12 hours long”. Departure is at 7am.Later on I see a big bus pulling over at that agency and it looks new and shiny and nice. Ah finally. I might even be able to read a book on board.Also later on the same day the driver from Danane – the one who told me about gare de Korhogo – sees me on the street and asks me about I found the bus. I tell him there are actually two places that have bus going to Korhogo and he says he doesn’t know the one that’s actually near where he stops, only the depot next to my hotel.I get up at 5am, there is running water so I wash myself. At 6:05am I am at the gare. The bus is there. More of a wreck of a bus. It didn’t look particularly horrible but it didn’t look good. I see there are three narrow seats in a row, 3+2. I think. There is still time. The other agency had a nice bus. It’s more expensive but it will be more comfortable. I walk down the road there.10mins later the man around the other agency call people “Abidjan, Abidjan”. Abidjan is South at the coast, Korhogo is far North. I ignore them telling them “me, I go to Korhogo”. There is a big bus looking shiny and inviting and I can hear it calling me. Behind the bus stands a minibus.The ticket counter in the agency is a window of literally 20cm by 20cm and no window, placed at the height of my hips. I have to almost crouch to be able to communicate with he person inside, all that on French which I barely understand. The man inside tells me he can sell me a ticket to Korhogo but I’ll change a bus in a town called Bouaké. Wait, I thought it was direct.
I consult Google Maps. Bouaké is almost straight to the East from Man, 6:30hrs/330kms away. From there it’s 3:40hrs/225km to Korhogo. Google Maps also shows direct route to Korhogo, 7hrs/500kms away. I think a bit and decide to go back to the gare for the direct bus that doesn’t look good.I reach the gare at 6:25am. There is a crowd and they are already loading bags in. I find the man who sells tickets, he tells me to sit down while he’ll call the boss. And I sit. And I think it doesn’t look good. At transport sites people want money from you immediately you come in and here I’m supposed to wait? At about 6:40am I decide to ask straight if they have a seat for me. The man with tickets directs me to another man and the other man directs me to the other man who starts talking and talking. I interrupt him and ask again – do you have tickets or no? No we don’t.
I run down to the other agency. There a woman converses with the ticket window for ever. For ever. Then I crouch in order to talk to the man inside, he tells me to go in through the door. I say I wanna go to Korhogo. He says “but you’ll have to go via Bouaké, is that OK for you?” Yes. The ticket is 10,000cfa, is that the big bus? No, the big bus goes to Abidjan, you go in a small bus. Wtf!I take my seat, 2nd row and not by the window, there are four seats in the row but in the middle there’s a seat that’s folded and if there is no such seat they put a stool in.Somehow the folded seat in the middle next to me is empty.I manage to grab coffee and croissant aux amandes to sweeten the bitterness of my transport situation. The boys loading up bags demand 1000cfa, I pay 500cfa.
We start about 7:30am. About half an hour later we stop and what seems like a crowd of women, each with a small child in their hands enters, one of them sits next to me.I counted 37 people in the minibus, so indeed with children it was 45 people.The seats are narrow and there is quite enough space for my legs.While I’m looking at the road to Bouaké, I notice that the 6:30hrs alternative has a small ship sign next to it. There is a ferry on the road! But some ferries are nothing else but pirogues which don’t carry anything bigger than maybe a motorbike. The next alternative is 7:40mins/425km, with no ferry. And because the driver’s helper is asking if anyone is going to a town of Daloa, I know which road we are taking, the longer one.The roads so far have been of many kinds, but few were particularly bad. Asphalt is not a common sight but usually if it was there, it was smooth. Forest roads I took on a bike or back of the truck in Bissau. The dirt roads were not really so bad for the dirt roads. A few very bad stretches were in Guinea and these were remains of the asphalt, rough and spiky stones, huge potholes. The stretches of the road like this were not particularly long, 30-50kms.Then there are roads with asphalt cut out as if for preparation to patch it up. Huge rectangles of it missing on either side of the road, the bus violently moving to the other side of the road to pass them if possible. Or stretches of sometimes just few metres of asphalt completely missing. The problem is that those cuts are quite deep and the bus grinds to a halt before or goes down from the asphalt to the dirt in order to save suspension. Then while on the dirt it drives those few meters and grinds to a halt in order to climb back onto the asphalt. And there are simply huge and deep potholes which have to be negotiated. Stop. Climb down. Drive two meters. Stop. Climb up. Front wheels. Back wheels.For 372km we were going like this with maybe one stop for toilet. 372km is where Yamoussoukro is, the newly (1960s) purpose-built capital city, with the largest church in the world.35kms before Yamoussoukro roadworks begin and we drive in white dust fog. Add to it that often traffic is only allowed only one way while the other direction stops.Just after we left Man, we saw a man lying next to his motorcycle on the side of the road, a victim of an accident. We pass many broken busses, big and small being fixed on the roadside.Due to the pothole jumps and pothole skipping maneouvres (left-right-left-right) or maybe because some people were ill, the woman sitting next to me starts vomiting. She seems to be ready for this, she has a plastic bag with a small plastic bucket, complete with a cover. She can barely hold her child on her knees and the boy spends long time standing up. A boy sitting next to the woman throws up at his father. A woman behind them also throws up.It’s of course hot, people behind me keep closing the window because “too much breeze”. The woman on my left sitting by the window wants to open the windon next to us but of course that window is blocked and won’t open.We buy occasional provisions on the road, but that’s mainly water in plastic bags and I manage to snatch up a bottle of bissap juice. A man manages to get a boiled corn knob and I’m jealous, boiled corn I like but most of it here is sold roasted.When we finally stop, my thighs and feet are made from lead but the only good available is 5 boiled eggs that are quickly bought out. There are of course mangoes and avocadoes, and avocadoes are enormous, bigger than the mangoes but these are not foods to eat on the bus. Soon enough, the whole bus eats dry bread. I remember a conversation I had once with OJ, a Cameroonian from the English part of the country, who told me that French maybe have the more sophisticated food but also all they eat is bread. So very true in my bus.From Yamoussoukro – no sight of the enormous cathedral – the road gets slightly better but then it’s the main South-North road so it’s full of heavy trucks.We arrive in Bouaké at 5:30pm. I look for hotels coz I don’t think I will travel to Korhogo the same day. It makes me also wonder how the whole change of busses will work. I found a hotel on African booking.com – Jumia Travel. Later on it turns out the site is worthless.Also, when I get out of the minibus and go to the agency to ask about Korhogo, they look at my ticket, confirm it with my driver, ask me if I bought “direct to Korhogo”. Direct my ass. But there is a minibus going to Korhogo and even further, to Pogo so they tell me to board it.I wanna sit in the back where there are 6 sits on each side of the minibus facing direction of travel sidewards but they tell me to go sit in front but the seats are taken so they give me seat that’s just by the sliding door on the side so I have more legspace. Normally that seat is good but here it’s a nighmare – narrow and five of us don’t fit in the row and of course the bus is so packed with people that the driver’s helper is standing inside, his back right in my face.We have two féticheurs in the bus. Or maybe a féticheur and his helper. I’m quite ashamed that I first thought the féticheur is a beggar, he looks so wretched, his clothes dark and raggedy. But no, he is a passenger, doesn’t answer my bon soir and smokes like a chimney. His clothes are full of gris gris attached to them, he has a long knife and two fly-chasing hair things (I somehow can’t find name for these things). Appropriately for a féticheur, when I try to snap a secret pic, his face doesn’t come out well, the sun sets directly behind him.
The bus terminal is busy, people calling me for departure to Mali and Burkina already. Ah I wish. I manage to get some food – a three egg omelette in a baguette, 700cfa. There is a man brewing Sahara tea but it’s not for sale.We leave at 7:30pm. The bus drives fast. Google says we have 3:40hrs of the journey. But occasionally we grind to a halt. Potholes! And then half way we stop in a village. The driver and his helper have to eat although I’m not really sure what it was. We stay there for an hour. My legs feel like dead meat, I’m pissed at those who gave me stories of big bus going directly to Korhogo. I should be also pissed at myself for not getting the direct big wrecked bus to Korhogo direct. But maybe it went the same road? Maybe it broke down and did so many times?We finally arrive at 40 minutes past midnight. Five hours! But it’s Africa and there are motorbikes waiting for us and we are not the only bus unloading at this ungodly hour. Hotel-wise Bradt Guide says it ain’t cheap in Korhogo. And it’s not an hour to be hotel looking either. I look at Jumia Travel, it has a Non Stop Hotel listed for 9000cfa. Not too bad, we go there, 500cfa. When we arrive the caretaker is awake but he says the only room available is for 20,000. That’s €30. I show him what’s available on Jumia to reserve but he says no, only the 20k room is there. I leave. I ask the bike rider to take me to another hotel, he says it’s far and it’s 1000cfa. I talk to him and it’s not far at all though still complains when I give him 500cfa. But there rooms are also 20k. Wow. I ask the moto rider if he knows any cheap hotels in town. He does. We go. First hotel, full. 2nd hotel is a metal gate adjacent to what looks like a warehouse, no sign. A man comes out after a while and says he’s only a gatekeeper and the boss is not there. 3rd hotel, also no sign, windows all behind closed shutters, full. Interestingly, there is life on the streets, maquis are open, people are sitting around. That’s Monday in Ivory Coast for you. I feel I have been missing on some nightlife. 4th hotel in what seems like deep in a village, but it’s still town centre, no sign again, they only have rooms but only with AC. 10,000CFA. Wow. Rooms with fan and no water and no electricity used to be 10k. I take it.It’s after 1am, I give the driver 2000cfa, 500 for each hotel, good job. I take his number just in case.I feel I should celebrate the long day. The receptionist has no beer but he says there is a maquis next door and yes it’s open. I go.Maquis has an early morning hours vibe. A man is stacking up the plastic chairs, there is a woman sleeping on two of them. He comes up to her at one point “hey, wake up it’s Tuesday”. There is a couple at one table and two men sitting at another and it’s quiet. I have a Guinness.2:20am I come back to the guesthouse, the receptionist waiting for me to close the gate. In one of the houses someone plays a weird music with drums. Africa.The AC is set to 25 degrees which for me is normally perfect for me but it’s very hot in the room. I ask the receptionist if he has a remote control for it. He does but it’s one for the whole hotel. It’s late I get to keep it till morning. I set it down to 17 which is freezing but it takes a long while to freeze the room. I cover myself and set it back to 25 somewhere in the morning. The old-school 14″ TV is green & black colour on the screen, in a cage so noone steals it. I clean the wound which is behind the awfully dirty plaster and I fall asleep immediately.
Man to Korhogo, direct, in 17 hours
Coming back to Maman 