Wonderful day. As usual I slept way better on a straw mattress in a village than on a foam mattress in a hotel. The people in Tianguel were so nice, and the little boutique, the only business in the whole village, had excellent Guinean coffee. I couldn’t communicate a whole lot with my host, Djibril Diallo. He speaks exactly no French. And my Pulaar mostly consists of greetings, asking for directions and food, and insulting people. This latter is extremely important for me, as a Jaxanké. When someone informs me that their last name is, to everyone’s dismay, “Bah,” for example, I am obliged to chortle and mutter that Bahs are people with broken brains who only eat beans and steal compulsively and would be better off as my slave. I actually say these things. And the response is unanimously hysterical laughter.

But I’m quite limited with saying more practically useful things. So this morning, when I am packed to leave, and expressing my profound gratitude to Djibril and his family, he looked at me with concern, and said, “you know you can get a car to Pita, there is a market today in Foga (a village up the hill).” This happens pretty often. I find it amusing. The concept of bicycle touring hasn’t caught on here. And I get it. If you’ve never ridden a bike like the one I am fortunate enough to have here, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

And even with this bike it barely made sense today. The roads were as bad as ever. Again, I say this all the time. I don’t even know if road is the right term, it’s literally a field of obstacles. I pick my way with caution through fields of rocks and boulders known as the road. But it’s really beautiful. The plains here are dramatic and sweep across the horizon. They are very rocky, with thin topsoil, and known in pulaar as “bowal.” And this is indeed Pulaar cow country. The bowal is useless for any kind of farming. You cannot cultivate it. But it sprouts enough grass the cows that support the traditional pulaar pastoralist lifestyle.

I get to Pita in time for lunch and help myself to an excellent plate of rice with sweet potato leaf/palm oil sauce. This might be my favorite leaf sauce. Then I set out on a very ambitious loop to see two waterfalls. I didn't leave until 3, so I had to hustle.

The first waterfall I’d read about in lonely planet, and was aware that there was a fee to get in. So I’m getting close to the creek that I’ll follow to the falls, riding down a hill, when a dude in disheveled camo fatigues bursts out of a hut waving his arms and screaming at me. I’m already past him by the time he emerges, but I stop, and he approaches me, sputtering about how this is an army base. I’ve had a variety of experiences with Guinean military personnel on this trip. Mostly I’ve been impressed with their professionalism. They are, it seems, at the moment, happy with the current regime, led by Mamadou Doumbouya, who came to power in a coup last fall. I haven’t paid a single bribe on this trip.

And then there’s this guy, who I am not so impressed with. “A military base? What about the tourist site” He sputters about being a member of the military, and points at a rope strung across the road in front of us. This guy has exactly one speed when it comes to interacting with the public: absolute indignation. “Ok,” I say, “so I need to pay right?” The thing that’s bizarre is the guy could just explain that this is where you pay to get into the waterfall, but the notional reason is because it’s a military base. “Tu vas payer!“ he utters, rather gutturally, as if rather than just ask if I can pay and leave, I had just tried to evade the whole situation. Then he points to a hut next to the rope strung across the road, where an old dude is standing under a tree.

I walk over and say hi to the old man. He tells me the price. It’s $5.50. This is a pretty sum for Guinea. Feeling slightly more like a bribe. But I'm not about to make a fuss about it. I tell the old man that it’s pretty obnoxious to have this be the greeting one gets at a well-publicized tourist site. That surely there could be a more pleasant way to ask for the fee. The military guy has wandered over, and starts asking what we’re talking about. I am tempted to repeat myself, but they he repeats himself, louder. And then starts threatening the old man. The whole time, to be clear, I’m not exactly intimidated, or rattled, so much as I am annoyed. But when this dude starts aggressively threatening this old dude, it starts to induce more of a stress response. “Ok, I’m going to pay and leave, is that alright?” And I hand the money to the old man. He takes it, and immediately hands it to the menacing military guy. Then, suddenly, everyone shuts up and chills out, and the two guys walk up the hill together, having completely forgotten about me. Either the confrontation between them was some kind of ploy to induce me to pay, because they thought I was not willing, or the money somehow solved everything.

Either way, after that they could care less about old me. At this point I am almost more curious about this military base than the waterfall. While biking down to the falls I see a handful of extremely dilapidated buildings, one with a Guinean flag raised in front, but no other soldiers or functional vehicles.

The waterfall though, exceeds expectations. I didn’t know much, hadn’t seen a photo. It’s huge, and in an amazing gorge. Absolutely fantastic.

There’s also a Chinese built hydroelectric damn nearby, which I cross to continue my loop, going straight into a big climb out of the river valley. It's epic. I am in the zone. Don’t stop, except for some water, which I desperately needed by the time I did.

The next waterfall, it turns out, is more of some step rapids on a large river than a big dramatic cascade. Still beautiful, and I couldn’t resist taking a swim in a nice pool a bit upstream. Water was flowing nicely and very clear.

In the lonely planet guide book whose pages I took pictures of, it said there was a campement (rustic resort) near this waterfall. There was no sign of a campement at all. If there had been, and it had electricity, I might not have biked back to Pita. And had I any power in my external battery, I probably would have camped somewhere nearby. But neither of those conditions were met, so I went ham on the last 20 or so km and made it back a little after dark to check into what seems to be a surprisingly decent hotel, at a good price. Wonderful day. More waterfalls and mountains on my way south tomorrow.