Made it. It was a very challenging ride, but I’m back in Dar Salaam and it’s great. I sleep well on the buggy banks of The Gambia River in the palace of my Big Agnes tent, and the morning is cool and quiet. I succeed in getting up early, getting out of my tent by 6, and on the road before 7:45, after a breakfast of sardine sandwich and coffee.
The only community of any size between me and the border is a sous-prefecture called Balaki, which is a Jallunké town set amongst large boulders near the top of a ridge, and probably the smallest, sleepiest sous-prefecture I’ve ever seen.
The country here is truly unforgiving, especially right now. The last year, as I’ve mentioned before, was drier than average, and now, getting into the end of the dry season, and the hottest part of the year, things are absolutely parchd. The air is hot and dry enough to be a noticeable presence in my mouth and lungs. Most of the trees around here are drought/ heat deciduous, meaning they are totally without leaves during this time of year, lying dormant and providing virtually shade or cooling effect at all. This drought deciduousness creates to a real desiccated, desert feeling, even when there are actually many trees around. This effect is increased by the fact that so much of the landscape has been burnt in recent months.
It really feels like a landscape in which Cormac McCarthy might set a novel. Usually I associate the term “bleak,” with grey, somber landscapes— a tundra, or the pine barrens— yet this landscape, absolutely drenched as it is in tropical light, strikes me as its own flavor of bleak. There is so little topsoil, and unless you know exactly where you’re going, to a village or watering hole, wandering around here on foot during this time of year would be as desperate an act as anything McCarthy has ever described.
It’s really such a paradoxical landscape. I’ve mentioned this before. Right now it is a desert. The trees have no leaves, and the people, in the small, sleepy villages that do exist in this area, haul water out of deep wells and wait for the seasons to change. Yet, when they do, the world will erupt with green life and cool water running everywhere. It’s got to be one of the starkest seasonal contrasts anywhere. I wish I were here for another month, so I could do before and after pictures for just a month difference in time.
My luck with tires and bike mechanics holds, miraculously, in spite of riding over jagged rocks all day long. At one point, while flying down a hill, I don’t see the sharp edge of a rock until it’s too late and jam my rear tire straight against what looks like a knife's edge, oriented straight back towards me. I register the sickening feeling of my rim, knocking, through two layers of rubber, against the rock, and I am sure that I’ve got a snakebite, if not a ripped tire. Yet somehow, the $4 Sri Lankan tire I bought in N’zerekoré holds. The rubber does not rip, and I ride all day without a flat.
As I continue north, and through the northern section of the mountain range, the climate continues to shift. There are now influences from the Sahel, north of here, sending hot dry air from off the Sahara. It’s a pretty intense day or riding, but I am locked in. The hardest parts of the whole day are a few vast, gravel plains, which are totally exposed to the sun, and composed or rock that itself radiates heat. The road, when it comes across such a plain, splinters out into half a dozen tracks, and I have to guess where I’ll find the firmest ground. I end up walking, on many occasions, through the 6-inch deep fields of pea sized laterite gravel. It feels like I am in an oven.
The border itself is preceded by a “Post Douane” (Customs). I probably could have ridden right by this post. The customs seem to have little to no authority, but I stop to be sure. I have to call out a few times to find anyone, and eventually a man and a woman wander out of a back area where they were probably napping. They are more curious about my trip than anything. We chat for a while and get a picture. There is no passport check or paperwork to be done here.
The official border post is a bit more of a thing. There is something like 8 guys in various iterations of Gendarme and Military regalia crowded into a bamboo hut. If I would have ridden by it seems likely that no one would have noticed. But I need an official exit stamp. Out of the 8 men, 7 stare at me skeptically. One, a younger guy, jumps to his feet and begins processing my passport/visa right away. While he’s doing this, one of the other guys tells me to give him my bike as a gift. I give him a grin and a nod, and direct my attention to the guy doing paperwork. He seems to think I didn’t understand, and calls out a “heeyoo,” like he’s getting my attention from across a busy street, and repeats his request, as if what I needed was simply clarification. The most bizarre part of this is how earnest this request seems. There is no over- or undertone of humor. I chuckle again and give him more of a nod.
But they continue to act as though the issue is still that I have not understood, and a guy next to him then attempts to communicate with me, with another loud, grunted “eeeyoo,” and simplified, French accompanied by frothy sign language. “You, Bike, Give. Gift!”
“Ok, ok, c’est drôle.” (It’s funny) I say with a chuckle. To which the men all sigh with exasperation, still, apparently feeling as though they have not been properly understood. But by this point, the younger guy is holding out my passport, with a fresh exit stamp. I thank him, and the rest of the men, and go on my merry way. Harmless, but bizarre, an appropriate way to say goodbye to Guinea.
Usually border posts are at least a couple km from the actual border. But here the post is right along the legal border, and as soon as I step out the door, I am back in Senegal. Back in Senegal! It is easy when traveling to create an exaggerated notion about your destination, and this has happened today. I’ve been daydreaming about how in Senegal, the roads are a bit better, the people a bit chiller, things are a bit easier, etc. All of this is, on the whole, true. But my first few km in Senegal are on roads every bit as rough as anything I’ve seen in Guinea, I get called toubab by multiple people, and the heat is, if anything, more oppressive. Good to be back.
The Senegalese border post is right in the town of Fongolimbi, a short ride down the hill from the border itself. Again, I have to enter the gates of the compound and call out for a little bit before I can find anyone who is working. When I do they are very professional, nice dudes, and I get my entry stamp after just a few minutes. I’ve had worse experiences with borders in W. Africa.
Fongolimbi is right at the edge of the last part of the Guinean Plateau. Just north of town the road drops very steeply for a few km, and then, that’s it, I’m off the Guinean Plateau, back onto the savanna, though here it is about 10-15 degrees hotter than it was in the plains on the south side of the Fouta Jallon mountains in Guinea near Kankan.
I don’t have a huge amount of strength left, and am not exactly sprinting, but keep a steady pace back through Kedougou, where I cross The Gambia River again, for the 3rd time in as many days, and then cut southwest towards Dar Salaam. I arrive about a half hour before sundown, which is perfect. People are happy to see me, and I am rushed by a whole squad of kids.
Yet, despite my imaginings from the road, Dar Salaam is not paradise. It is a very peaceful, pretty village. But it’s 103 degrees at sundown, and people haven’t had any water all day. More than any of that, there are the normal difficulties of being farmers in West Africa. I learn that Mamadou Minté, my best friend and main work partner in DS is at the hospital in Kedougou, because his wife went into labor two months early and apparently had to have a c section. She seems to be fine, but the baby is going to require at least a week or two of care in the hospital.
At sundown I enjoy break-fast porridge with Mamadou’s other wife, Fatoumata, and hang out with her and a handful of their kids. Then I make my way back to my hut, stopping to say hi to everyone I see along the way. I am somewhat dreading opening the door to my hut. It’s an old hut at this point, more than 20 years, which is approaching the maximum lifespan of such a structure. What this means is that it is an easy target for termites. When I was here in December/January I left at one point for a week and came back to a shocking amount of dust and termite growths everywhere. And tonight, I encounter what I was expecting on this front. It’s even worse than I had imagined. Many of the walls have massive, bowling ball sized lumps on them, where termites have eaten through the mud. Spiderwebs and dust everywhere.
It takes me about two hours of sweeping and dumping huge chunks of termite mud outside to clean the main room enough to the point where I even feel I can lay down. This is, in a certain way, the hardest part of the day. Partly because I am already so tired, partly because in the evening the hut radiates heat from its walls, after having absorbed the sun’s rays all day. The insulation works brilliantly well during the day to keep the interior reasonably comfortable during the hot season heat, but in the evening, it is a different story. The walls are hot to the touch, like pavement on a sunny day. It's like being in a sauna. I finally finish cleaning the one room, and wash off, which is an unbelievable experience, and lay on the bed I worked so hard to clean up, only to realize I can’t stay here. Even freshly out of the shower, I am pouring sweat within minutes, so I drag the mattress outside, and that’s where I’ll sleep tonight.
The next 12 days in Dar Salaam, before heading to Dakar to catch my flight, will be slow. In Peace Corps I spent much of this time of year lying on a yoga mat in the shade reading. I suspect I will pass the next 12 days in the same way: sweating and reading. You do adjust, to a certain extent, to the heat, and eventually it’s not all that unpleasant. I’ll head to Dakar on the 9th or so, and then I fly to SF on the 15th. There are a lot of people I want to see before leaving Kédougou, I just need to marshal the gumption to go see them in this heat. I’m sure it will be easier after I get some rest.
I guess this concludes my bike trip in Guinea. It’s going to take me a little while to process everything I’ve done over these last three months. These journals have been a big part of it. Thanks for reading.
P.S. I learned today (May 2nd), that Mamadou and Fatoumata’s baby, born 2.5 months premature, did not survive, after 4 days of being in the world. Fatou is fine and recovering.