Kankan
No, not a strange African dance, but Guinea’s second city – its Birmingham, I guess, though the local accent isn’t noticeably more annoying than elsewhere in the country.
This is our goal after Kouroussa, and the staging post for getting transport for Mali where we’re headed next. Like most places in Guinea, it’s very dillapidated and everything is coated in a fine patina of the pervasive red dust that makes Africa Africa. But the town has a bustling feel, and the people are friendly. More importantly, we manage to find somewhere to have our first cold beer for almost two weeks; fizzy, pishy lager never tasted so good…
Next morning we hire a boy and his hand-pushed cart to help get us and all our gear to the gare voiture, where we’ll find transport across the border. We’ve missed the first bush taxi of the day to Bamako, but are assured that another one will leave shortly, as soon as enough people arrive to fill the car up.
Four hours later, it’s clear not many people are going to Bamako today. The car (a knackered looking Peugeot) is almost full, but we’re one passenger short. Finally, after what seems an age, she arrives. And true to that African stereotype of the passenger you always end up squeezing yourself next to on public transport, she’s a whopper. What’s more, it’s me she’s going to be sitting next to – or rather, on – for the next few hours. This could get ugly.
In all the driver manages to cram 11 passengers in a car made comfortably to seat probably no more than 7. Dan’s wedged in the front with another guy, his big long legs somehow wrapped around the gearstick. I’m on the middle row of seats along with two normal sized men and Big Mumma, who’s sat half on me, half on the guy the other side of her. In keeping with her size, she spends much of the journey grazing on the contents of various bags of food she picks up along the way – nuts, oranges, bread, goat meat. Then there are four more wedged in the back row of seats – three adults and a small child. It’s going to be a long journey.
Soon we’re off. The Peugeot creaks and groans under the combined weight of passengers and their baggage slung on the roof. The road we follow to the border weaves along the Niger, crossing it once. It’s good to see the river again; we’re both missing it. And compared to the sardine-like way we’ve all been shoe-horned into this taxi, the discomforts of the river – the hard seats, the biting flies and threats from lurking hippos – seem like a holiday.
Tags: Travel
djnorwood