Whew. That was a day. The most miles I've ever ridden in one day.

I’ve been studying and pondering the stretch of road between Mamou and Faranah for a while, trying to figure out how to approach it. The only community of any size between the two is a dusty little road town called Marella. There isn’t all that much of interest between the two cities. I could always camp. But until this morning I hadn’t really decided with any conviction how I would approach this section.

I slept great. Last night I checked out some cheaper hotels in Mamou, but they weren’t cheap enough to make up for the poor quality. I’ll go for a dive if its priced like a dive. But the place I looked at had a crappy mattress, no functioning shower, and no AC, yet still cost only marginally less than the nice hotel in town. So I went with the nice hotel, and it delivered. I was very pleased. AC pumped all night, devices charged up. It was very much worth the $11 difference with the crappy hotel. To be sure— I am a big fan of low cost/high value gems, but no such luck here.

I don’t exactly get an early start to the day. I spend about an hour and a half in my room eating tomatoes and carrots from the farm I visited yesterday near Dalaba, and peanuts and bananas, and writing about my ride and the strawberry adventures from yesterday. Finally at about 10 I emerge from the hotel to face the daily challenge of finding something to eat for breakfast. There are no beans anywhere. I miss my breakfast beans.

Ramadan…

Eventually I find an open café. The coffee is as good as ever, and the guy has bread and mayonnaise, which I adorn with a tin of sardines. This is not my favorite thing to eat but it get the job done today, as it has many times on this trip. Bread and tin can sardines is the meal of last resort in West Africa. I also buy some little muffin type things from a nearby boutique. I’m now eating all the random equivalents of gas station foods that I usually skip over.

I sit at this café for a full 30 minutes eating and drinking coffee and water continuously. I must look ridiculous to the other clients, ravenously stuffing my face. But if someone were to have asked, I’d explain to them, between bites, mouth full of sardine bread, that I am biking to Faranah today. All the way. I can’t place the exact moment, but at some point I mentally committed to doing this. One thing that occurred to me is that it could be a good opportunity to gain a day, in a sense. I feel like I spent too much time in Labé, so doing two days of biking in one will get me closer to the schedule I want to be on.

Finally, at 10:45, I creak onto the road heading east of Mamou. This road will take me decidedly off of the Guinean plateau, and down onto the plains and the into the watershed of the upper Niger River. This region, known as “Haute Guinea” is a vast land of rolling savanna, low hills, and plains— the Guinean savanna and Sahel ecosystems that stretch uninterrupted (broken only by national boundaries) all the way across West Africa. This is the buffer between the desert to the north, and the rainforests farther to the south and the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. Savanna comprises at least 1/3rd of Guinea’s land.

Guinea is typically described as comprising four geographic regions. These are not administrative regions, or official designations-- just broad geographic areas. Kind of like how the US has the Great Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, the Midwest, etc. So far on this trip I’ve explored two of the four zones. The region I am most familiar with is “Moyenne Guinea,” (middle Guinea) which is coincident with the Fouta Jallon Mountains and foothills. I also spent time in “Bas Guinea,” (Lower Guinea) AKA “Guinea Côtier,” (Coastal Guinea), which designates the coastal plains and hills. I visited Boké, Boffa, and Kamsar, which are all in this region. The last two are “Moyenne Guinea” (Middle Guinea), the savanna and plains to where I’m headed now, and finally “Guinea Forestiere,” (Forest Guinea), which is the area all the way to the south bordered by Côte d’Ivoîre, Liberia, and Sierra Leon.

Each of these regions is dominated by a different ethnic group. The Futa Jallon, as we know, is dominated by the Pulaar, who brought their cows up into the mountains starting around the 15th century, and over the next few hundred years successfully Jihaded, assimilated, converted, and otherwise displaced the indigenous populations of the mountains, particularly the Jallunké. I’ve spent the most time in this region for a few reasons: it’s closer to Kédougou, I love mountains, and most Guinean Jaxankés live in this region, their villages little islands in the wider sea of Pulaar.

Bas Guinea, the area along the coast, has a lot of minority ethnic groups, but is dominated by the Susu people. Conakry, the capital, is in this area, and Susu is the lingua franca for people living there.

Guinea Forestiere, is not dominated by a single group, but a handful of different ethnicities, many of which are also present in neighboring Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.

Moyenne Guinea, where I am headed today, is dominated by the Malinké people. They represent the remnants of possibly the most well-known West African empire: the Mali Empire. Malinké means “man (ké) of Mali.” You might have heard of Mansa Musa, who was a king of the Mali Empire, and possibly controlled more gold than any other single person in history, before or since. The Mali Empire spanned a vast swath of inland West Africa comprising present day southern Senegal, The Gambia, Haute Guinea, all of southern Mali, the northern third of Côte d’Ivoire, and a chunk of western Burkina Faso. The territory, and economic base of the empire was based on numerous highly productive gold mines, lowland rice farming, slavery, and transporting salt from the deserts to the forests. The salt mines and slavery are mostly over with, but gold and rice farming continue to be activities are of central importance to the life and economy of Haute Guinea.

In terms of linguistic dispersion, the aftermath of the Mali Empire is somewhat analogous to the aftermath of the Roman Empire. The empire spread a language we now call “proto-Manding” (the analogy would be Vulgar Latin) across its territory. This was the spoken language of the Malinké at the time. After the empire dissolved the language diverged into different dialects, and, arguably languages, in different parts of the former empire. Jaxanké is one of these dialects, and is the same as the Malinké spoken in Senegal, known as “Western Malinké.” Here in Haute Guinea, they speak a dialect called “Mandin-Mori.” This has become something of a standard dialect for Guinean Malinkés (there are many smaller/regional dialects). One thing I am interested in on this trip is understanding how close Manding Mori is to the Malinké/Jaxanké that I know from Senegal. Manding Languages also include Bambara/Dioula which is spoken by upwards of 25 million people in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire.

So that is where I am headed today: off the plateau, and down to the rolling savanna of Haute Guinea, the sprawling heartland of the Guinean Malinké people. The first couple hours are mostly descent and are absolutely gorgeous. The road snakes through densely forested mountains and deep cut river valleys. This is truly a spectacular stretch of road. If it were in a more developed country with more tourism this would be a designated Scenic Highway or something. I could imagine there being pullouts or viewpoints every so often. During the rainy season you’d pass a waterfall every few kilometers.

The analysis on Strava makes it look like at a certain point I today hit the bottom of the plateau, and it abruptly became rolling hills. Riding it feels like a much more gradual transition. The mountains get less steep, less imposing, and gradually become rolling hills. It is really cool to watch the transition. The vegetation changes too, subtly but substantially through the course of the day. There is a north-south precipitation gradient in West Africa. There is also, at least around here, an inland precipitation gradient, so it gets drier as I go east, away from the coast. There may also be a rain shadow effect from the mountains. Either way, I ride down into noticeably drier lands. While things do remain fairly well wooded, it becomes what one would describe as savanna, not forest. It is, in fact, pretty similar to the landscape in Kédougou that I know so well. Most of the trees are the same, though it is somewhat more verdant here. This is the Guinean Savanna.

I have a long way to go. So, once I start riding, I don’t stop for hours. Between Mamou and Marella I do not stop. In Marella, the options for a proper lunch are scant. Restaurants are all closed because of Ramadan. Rice ladies sitting idle, pots empty. Most everyone, in fact, sitting idle. There are ladies selling small bananas, of which I eat 9, as well as the nub of my sandwich from breakfast, and several handfuls of peanuts. Then I refill water and keep moving. Marella doesn’t have much to offer. It will come vibrantly alive around sunset, and there will be better food than usually available. But during the middle of the day during Ramadan a small town like this feels totally stagnant.

Marella is the biggest town I’ll hit during this ride, and outside of this there are only small villages, and surprisingly few even of these. This is a sparse stretch of road and for long ways it's just bush. Mountains giving way to foothills giving way to hills giving way to plains. It’s all pretty, to be sure, but there is not much of note around here. Lonely Planet does not mention anything at all in this area. I've decided that I’m going to tilt the scales a bit more towards covering ground for the next part of the trip. I’ve done lots of fantastic and in depth “site seeing,” for a couple months now. At this point I have limited time left, but still want to see lots of different cities and different regions. So I might lean more towards long, fast highway days, and less meandering through the bush.

So besides lunch, and a few breathers, I don’t stop. It’s tough to resist, a lot of the villages seem interesting, and I have no doubt I would find nice people. I also, for the first time on this trip, bask in the joy of being greeted with the Malinké “I nin ké.” For a while the villages alternate between the Pulaar “Anjarama,” and “I nin ké,” and in many I receive a mix of both, but over time, as I get down into the plains, “I nin ké becomes predominant.”

While I’d love to stop and interact with people more, I am on a serious time crunch if I want to avoid riding in the dark for hours tonight. Almost all the pictures I take today are while riding my bike. I’ve gotten pretty good at the quick draw iPhone activation from the pocket on my riding shorts. I’m best on a descent but can also do it when pedaling or climbing.

The road is basically paved, but significant stretches of it are completely washed out with potholes, rocks, gravel, etc. Whether the road is paved or not is an interesting dynamic. The line designating a highway on the map represents many different things on the ground: stretches of brand-new road with wide shoulders, serviceable but older pavement, well packed gravel, not so well packed gravel, and everything to atrociously potholed, rocky, washed-out dirt roads. The same line on a map can mean any of this. I have a suspicion that there will be mostly pavement down to N’zerekoré, since it is one of the 3 major provincial cities in Guinea, but I actually don’t know, and shouldn’t take anything for granted. I’m a little nervous about the possibility of the pavement simply ending, and reverting to a worse, and therefore slower road, in which case I’ll never make it to Faranah tonight.

I am called “Chinois” (“Chinese” in French), constantly in most villages I pass through. Men, women, and children blurt it out upon seeing me riding by. This is an interesting data point about who is the most common non-Guinean group out here. And indeed I pass by several rather nondescript Chinese worksites. Hard to tell what they are up to around here. Mineral exploration? Building roads? Telecom? I really can’t tell. But everyone, from children to grown men are confident that I am a “Chinois.” I also get called “toubab,” which is the main word for gringo in Senegal, as well as “porto,” which comes from the first white people to start exploring this part of West Africa, the Portuguese (logically all white people are Portuguese). “Foté,” which is the common term for gringo in Bas Guinea and much of the Futa Jallon, has faded out of use.

The last stretch into Faranah is a descent down a high hill. From the top I can see the lights of the city twinkling modestly. And the hum of motos below. I am very excited, among other things to see, for the first time in my life, the mighty Niger River. Hard to believe that a waterway that starts this far west, in the highlands along the border with Sierra Leon, in fact, can run all the way to Nigeria, by way of a northward swoop through the Sahara Desert.

The bridge across is an old steel affair. It’s dark and I can’t see much of anything. Most of Faranah is on the far side of the river, including the town’s hotel options. After crossing the river I get to a section of town crowded with boutiques, parked cars, people. Then I ride past an 18 wheeler parked right in the middle of the road. The road the comprises the highway running through town. It is completely blocked by this truck. There is another one parked right in front of it. What is going on? Then I see. The entire road in front of me is completely packed with people praying. Must be 2000 people. This is, again, the only road across town. They are blocking the only thoroughfare through this part of the country. It’s so dense I can’t even get through or around on my bike. There are some moto taxi drivers parked nearby, not praying. I talk to them. They tell me that when the grand mosque gets full, as will happen during Ramadan, this is what happens. This is the biggest prayer of the daily prayer cycle, the evening prayer after you have broken your fast.

I’ll be honest, I don’t love the way Islam demands such public displays of devotion. It’s all about demonstrating as publicly as possible that you are devoted. There are arms races in cities about which mosque has the tallest minarets and the loudest loudspeaker with the imam who does the earliest call to prayer and sings the longest into the microphones. Reading the Koran is almost always done out loud, whether amplified or not. I’m not religious, but it would seem to me that all of this would be unnecessary if it was really about a relationship that you have with God.

I take pictures of this astounding mass of forward folding supplicants. The moto taxi guys tell me not to. I ignore them. These people are praying in the middle of the road. This is as public as it gets. After a few minutes the prayer ends. It then takes a few minutes more for the crowd to disperse enough for me to be able to get my bike through. At this point I’m quite hungry. So I stop at the first place with “restaurant” painted on the front wall. It turns out to be the same potato salad I ate last night. Which is fine, but while eating I find myself wishing I’d gotten rice and sauce. She also has some meat that I supplement my meal with.

While eating, something like 6 teenage boys come in. They are all nice enough, but it’s a bit much. None of them are buying anything. They are acting like they want to talk to the shopkeeper lady, but it’s clear they have come to check me out. I take the opportunity to launch my first forays into Guinean Malinké. It’s not encouraging at first. Strangely I can understand most of what they are saying, but they do not seem to understand my Jaxanké words. I’ve heard native Guinean Malinké speakers describe Senegalese Malinké/Jaxanké as “heavy.” I’m beginning to see what they mean. Jaxanké favors guttural “xuu” sounds (say “hello” with a Russian accent—the way the “h” drags in the throat). It also has more diphthongs, which is when you have two consonants next to each other, such as “ng,” or “nk.” Guinean Malinké seems to have done away with much of this. A perfect example of this is the name for a tree that occurs in both places— Bombax costatum (look it up, it is a very pretty tree with big orange flowers). Jaxankés call it “Bungkungko,” while in Guinean Malinké they get rid of the “ngk”s and simply call it “bu’uno.” There’s a bit of a multisyllable drag implied between the vowels, but not much. Another example is the word for “name.” Jaxankés say “toxo,” with an x so hard it could almost be transliterated as “tohko.” Meanwhile Guineans just go with “to’o.”

So in the restaurant I am in the bizarre situation of being able to mostly make out what they are saying, but I don’t know how to modify the words I know in the right way enough to be understood myself. People are, and this is no fault of their own, also just really bad at working with second language speakers, for the most part. Sometimes I’ll meet people who know how to actively listen and help me express myself. But this is a skill, and most people lack it entirely. The second I say something they don’t understand they give up on the conversation and go back to chattering with their friends or saying things in French. They are also not expecting me to be speaking Malinké, so in some cases they are simply not prepared for or expecting to decipher my Malinké words.

Faranah is an energetic city. After dinner I head south along the highway through town to check out a hotel. Things are in full swing in the post-sundown hours, and I pass right through what turns out to be the central market. Lonely Planet mentions two hotels, one on the south end of town, and one 5km north of town. The one north of town, they make clear is the best in the city. However, I will be heading south in the morning, and at this point, after already having biked 185 km today, biking another 6 north is not appealing. I decide I can abide a reasonable dive tonight. But what I find, at the spot a bit south, is the perfect combination of priced too high, and crappy accommodations. Despite how badly I just want to lay down, I can’t convince myself to go for what is obviously such a bad deal. I’ll pay a bit more for a decent accommodation. From this hotel it is a full 7.5km north to the one Lonely Planet recommends. It's outside of town along a rough gravel road, and it takes a full 25 minutes with my legs as tired as they are, and I find myself questioning my decision.

Finally, I pull into the courtyard of the nice hotel. There is a group of people near the front. I assume one of them will be reception, or at least a guard to point me in the direction of the reception, or something of the sort. I pull up nearby and say “bon soir.” Instead of a reply to this the only thing I hear is a hushed discussion as to whether I am Chinese or not. No one says anything to me, until after about 10 seconds someone blurts “Chinois!”

What a lovely greeting. It makes me somewhat furious. I don’t know if it’s the fatigue or the African heat, or what, but it takes everything I have to keep from taking one of their little stools and dashing it against the compound wall. But doing this would not help me with my goal of taking a shower at some point this evening, or laying on a mattress, or charging my external battery. So, I ask where the reception is. Five people talk at once, pointing and waving vaguely toward the rear of the compound.

One of these people here is, probably, officially the guard for this hotel. But there isn’t much of a strict line between work and everything else. Also, the job basically entails sitting around at the gate of this hotel for like 68 hours a week. So, a guard, as in this situation, will more often than not be accompanied by… whoever you like: friends, kids, nearby business owners. Maybe a daughter brings by a big bowl of food they all share for dinner. It seems like they are having a nice night. They have a little fire going and were having a lively chat before I arrived. This is all wonderful and represents many things I love about Guinea, and the way people live happily and with dignity despite working menial, underpaid jobs— I just wish someone could have provided some form of a welcome when I arrived.

The reception who I do find is helpful and professional. The rooms are all free standing round concrete huts. Mine is in a big open courtyard near a pool. Seems like a nice place. It costs the same as the hotel in Mamou, and though it is not quite as nice, it’s almost as nice, and worth the money.

Laying down after a shower after a 200 km day is blissful. The way sleep tugs so firmly is somehow deeply satisfying. If you could put this into pill form, you’d have a wonder drug. Wait. Am I describing opiates? I don’t know. I hope not. Either way I read about 1.5 pages of my book and that is it for today.