Korhogo to Kong: pas de monnaie

There is a phrase that I already learned to expect in Ivory Coast when buying something: il n y a pas de monnaie. There is no change. It seems so severe that women refuse to sell you things when there is no change and it keeps on happening.

I took a moto to gare de Ferké. As it also keeps happening around here, what I heard the previous day regarding transport to a village town of Kong, that there is transport there, turned out to be false. Or in other words, the caretaker of my hotel said there would be no direct (i.e. non stop, coz direct means many things in Ivory Coast) car but instead I should go to a nearby town of Ferkéssedougou also known as Ferké and there get a car to Kong.

I took the moto to la gare. The name gare indicates some terminal but it’s simply a side of the road from which the busses depart. It has some sort of organisation as well – tickets are sold, boys load up the bags (and ask money for that), there is often food and drink infrastructure.

The moto driver was the same driver who took me yesterday to the police. His moto uncomfortable, with no place to put feet on. He kept asking me to take him to Ferké and find him job there. I wasn’t in the mood. He didn’t really get what I was doing there.

Anyway, the price was 500cfa, he had no money on himself, everyone kept saying pas de monnaie, si he asked me to buy ticket to Ferké – 1500cfa – and we’d get change this way. We did.

While we were waiting for the bus to get full – I got a front seat! – I wanted to buy ginger juice and I saw a woman making sandwiches and she had avocado on her table and when I asked her if she can do avocado sandwich she showed me a pot full of some kind of avocado paste, Ivorian guacamole! I salivated. The sandwich is 100cfa. I have 500cfa. Il n y a pas de monnaie. Next door, ginger juice. Il n y a pas de monnaie.

I was thinking what’s the reason for that. Couldn’t the women go to the bank and get the coins? Don’t the banks have coins? The man who changed my euros had rolls of 5CFA coins. Do the banks refuse to do such? Possibly. But in the end I thought the reason might be simpler – the women may come in the morning like my moto driver – without any money to change. They come early before the banks close, with all their stuff on their heads. Going to bank with all this? In Sierra Leone there were young men “selling” change. I was wondering how much they charge.

The journey to Ferké was an hour. There I was told the first bus has left for Kong, am I comfortable with the second bus? Can I wait? Ummm, of course I can. The ticket was 2500cfa. I wanted to buy ginger juice, there was no food around, only dry bread, pas de monnaie. The bus has come and I got front seat again. It’s two hours to Kong. While going to the bus I saw another woman selling ginger juice and I asked her if she has change from 500cfa. She first thought I was asking her to change 500cfa and she brought out 5 coins. Wow, unexpected. I gave her one and took the juice.

The journey was through dry bush. Bush was very green but the soil was parched and brownish. We passed some plastic-infested villages and arrived in Kong. The whole time a man sitting next to me was trying to decipher what it is that I’m doing in the country.

Kong has its own asphalt, shiny new, complete with lines and even space for pedestrians. It’s also quite spread out and there are no moto taxis. And it has only one hotel, Auberge de Kong, which is 1.5km away from where the busses stop.

The auberge is a complex of bungalows and it’s the most expensive hotel I had so far after Ceuta. 15000cfa. I get AC for that, shower has hot water. There is even WiFi but it doesn’t reach my room. The restaurant prices are in 4000-6000 range, so maybe it’s good that “chef has left and will be back at 6pm”. My 15k room has door that won’t close until it’s locked. So much luxury. But the toilet has a plastic seat so one can’t have everything.

I soon leave for food and to see the mosque. Kong has a mud mosque, similar to the famous ones in Mali. Since Mali is a no-go, Kong has to do. It’s very beautiful, brownish in colour, its gently curving arcs adored with ostrich eggs. It’s not very big and it’s quite empty. There is another even smaller mosque across the road, darker in colour. There is noone around. I looked up prayer times to catch some people but the times are not fixed and I think it’s too late for the “late afternoon” prayer.

I eat in a restaurant. The man lists so much food but anything I ask for “needs time to prepare”. So the only ready food is beef soup with rice but then he comes back and even rice needs to be cooked. I’m having atiéké, a very Ivorian staple which is fermented cassava ground somehow to look like rice. It’s okay but it’s also heavy and I feel it my stomach walking back to hotel.

The woman I bought ginger juice when I got off from the bus in Kong recognises me (let’s face it, it’s easy) and asks if I really walked all the way to hotel. I buy more ginger juice, water and mangoes. Mangoes are 100cfa for three. That’s $0.18, €0.15, 67gr. For three. Let that sink in.

As I’m walking back to hotel, a man pulls up on his moto and pulls up and offers a ride, for free. I take it, though I’d do well to burn the atiéké in me.

There is a small maquis some 200m from where I stay. There was no chéf when I was there, someone was just drinking beer. From the maquis I saw a house with the name Hotel La Refuge. It didn’t look like 15000cfa, it looked like a guesthouse or even rooms in someone’s house, I didn’t ask for prices or anything although I wish they’d put a sign on the road.

Back in hotel I kneel on one knee on the bed, to somehow avoid using the scratched knee and… The bed crashes down under me. Aaaah yeah. I have two conflicting thoughts: stay put don’t say you’ve broken it and suffer through the night and leave in the morning. Second thought: you paid so much they will have to change the room. “So much” is €23. I once stayed in €150/night “residence” in Congo when the moment I sat on bed after arrival it crashed and it was a big issue.

I did tell the staff and a man came with me, looked at the bed and changed my room.

About 7pm I go back to the mosque, unfortunately the people are already inside and they don’t wanna go out. Nevertheless I snap some pics and with the moon near full Google’s Night Shot does its job. I hang around but the people are still inside and don’t wanna come out.

Walking back I see my neighbour from the bus to Kong lying down under an arcade on a prayer mat. His transport to wherever he was going never arrived and he will sleep over there. Whoa.

I walk back to the hotel, stopping for a Guinness in the restaurant. It’s quite a grand building for such a small village/town, not sure what Kong is. It’s full this time, with people watching match. I walked back, my dinner 2 hard boiled eggs, two tiny packets of groundnuts and I throw in the mangoes. Mangoes are delicious. The maquis next to my hotel was full of patrons, same with a shop named “cave sans fin” that implies a wine shop. I sleep well with AC doing its job.