Burkina Faso

The road was full of diverts on the last kilometers before the border to Burkina Faso and the last one was at the border crossing itself. The different offices appeared to be somewhat scattered around. Plenty of friendly people were pointing where to go next. Getting all the stamps was no problem. The police guy at the BF side spoke even English and maybe that's why he asked for 4000CFA for his efforts. I made no attempt to pay this and I guess it was more of a joke.

Cashew apple - the nut  (actually a seed!) is the little thing below the fruit. Raw cashew nuts are poisonous for humans!

Delightful flowers.

Bizarre looking plants and fruits.

... another one.

Shortly after Orodara we turned towards Banfora. The asphalt turned into decent gravel and it was in quite good condition. At least the road was better then many of the asphalt roads we rode earlier thus I had great fun when riding those. We wanted to stay for a few days in Banfora to visit some of the local attractions nearby. Unfortunately our timing was more than bad. The city celebrated “International Women's Day” and a big 3-day festival was starting. I asked from five different hotels and they were all fully booked. We tried to find a camping place and ended up in the  Campement Baobab.

Bike parking besides our hut at Campement Baobab.

They had besides camping also some huts for almost the same price and we went for the hut. It was a nice place and they offered excellent food. Unfortunately without running water, no electricity and thus no internet either. That made planning the next days and taking care of our affairs quite difficult. We stayed only one night, skipped also the cascades (they wanted some entrance fee for it and the water levels were low). The drinking water was coming from a French-sponsored well nearby. The water was tasting good and we filled all our canisters. Then we took off to go to FINLANDE!

For a microsecond we felt home :)

Maybe it was that good feeling as somehow I totally forgot to visit the famous mosque in Bobo-D. Skippy had no interest in visiting there so this was fully up to me to remember. None can do. The street offered its usual variety of potholes, donkey carriages, scooters, kids etc.

We were looking for a rest place with good shade and I thought I found one on a trail and indicated Skippy to go there. I rode on a few meters to find a turning spot, found another entry to the trail, went to the spot and when I arrived there I saw Skippy rushing off on the main street. She was gone. I hurried after her and maybe 20 kilometers later she turned, came back and we were together again (obviously not so bad to be with me after all) ;)

We continued until På where we found a luxury and (in-the-end) bloody expensive hotel. My mistake or the owner's sales trick – I am not sure. Instead of paying 6000 CFA (so I understood when we arrived) for a room, he demanded 15000 CFA the next morning – a normal price for an air-conditioned room with TV (stuff which I did not ask for!). The surrounding presented itself with just some minor trash here and there and a little forest with goats, sheep, pigs and many birds. It would have been nice to stay there a little longer, but this money stuff made us decide to leave and ride towards Ouagadougou.

We went to Pension Sarah and the lady at the reception hesitated for quite a while before she was ok with the dogs. During our first night we were entertained by the neighbor disco until 02 in the morning. Followed by the wake-up call of other guests and house personal around 0600 which meant we were both dead tired the next morning. I found a park in northern Ouaga as well as a hotel nearby that park and we went for a ride to explore that area. The Women's Day was an ever bigger celebration in this city! The traffic was enormously more stuck than usually, the park was hulled in a cloud of dusk from all the people moving in there. We turned back without finding the hotel and somewhat disappointed that the park was such a dusty place. To add up to this neither did we find the one and only vegan restaurant in the city, where we could get an address from.

Looking for the right tools...

Bikes were parked safely besides the potatoes, which were exported to Togo after two days in sun! Delicious :D

Electrical connection - BF style.

BF mangoes - they were great and cheap!

Ulpu is totally exhausted!

Scary spikes...

all around the tree.

Street sales guy - obviously enough for the day.

A green-marked park in the middle of Ouaga - as expected full of trash!

The place was full of lizards.

Interesting birds visiting us.

The turtles at the pension feasted on our bio left-overs, but other vice their life looked very sad :(

Market place just besides the pension.

I got some extension to my gloves - no more sunburned wrists :)

I visited the Grand Marche ...

... and saw this little girl playing with the plastic pots.

We looked back on our journey so far through West-Africa and what was ahead of us. We did expect that we will be an attraction, the traffic will be bad and it will be hot. What came as a shock to us was this huge amount of trash everywhere and that was the “last straw that broke the camel's back” (der letzte Tropfen der das Faß zum überlaufen brachte). In addition we met many friendly people and several extremely rude ones. The enjoyment to travel together with our dogs, the delicious fruits and the experience as such were on the positive side and those were the things which kept us going.

We got serious doubts on whether this trip to Africa was worth it. We also thought the RTW journey was still our plan and the question remained where to go next? Should we go instantly to US and Canada? Should we go even to South America or skip that? Should we give South Africa a chance? Let's not even start discussing anything beyond the next step yet. As it happened neither did Skippy have her “usual” compensative activities like Karate or running, which would increase her mood.

After reading the latest news and once more some selected ride reports, we decided that we would go to Ghana and from there to either Namibia or South Africa, depending on what is possible, feasible and affordable. We would skip Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, both of the Congos and Angola. Whether we would visit other countries in Africa needed to be seen.

Anyway, Ghana would be next and we went on the following morning to the embassy and applied for our visa to Ghana. This was an important step in our journey if we wanted to get the bikes shipped from Ghana. Especially Skippy was looking forward to visit Ghana as there were plenty of vegan/vegetarian places supposed to be in the area of Accra. Always good to have something to look forward to.

The next days went by with Skippy making travelogues, I was doing some stuff on the bikes, fighting with internet connectivity, waiting for electricity to come back and waiting that water is running again. Luckily the kitchen made a good couscous with some tomato-veggie sauce for 1000 CFA (about 1.50 EUR/portion).

Vultures feasting on a roadkill.

Skippy liked those mango flowers.

A few minutes after we stopped. Yes, we are white people...

... we are  fine and just having a break. Believe it or not! If we could turn that staring into revenue, we could fully sponsor our trip!

Magnificent and huge termite hill.

Break in the middle of nowhere away from the street and in shade.

We got our visa to Ghana without any problems and next day we left Ouagadougou towards the border. Ghana, here we come!

----

Then I wanted to share some other issues which do not really fit to any specific country and yet it seemed time to write about those.

Who am I?
People asked from where we are. Well, with Skippy that is clear and what about me? Am I a German or a Finn? After living in Finland for about 20 years and considering that I chose to live there, I consider myself more a Finn than a German (or at best 50/50). So my typical answer is I am a Finn. However that does not work very well when I need to show my passport – my German passport :D

Who consumes more – the bikes or us?
I have been seriously worried about the distances I can ride with the sidecar before filling again. I have “only” the 30l tank and thus I added 2 x 10l jerry cans for spare. On the other hand, besides my 1.5l SIGG water bottle I strapped one 10l proper water canister somewhere and we had a 5l plastic canister on a designated place. Our experiences were that petrol has up to now never been an issue! The shortest distance I rode with one tank was 370 km (that were 390 BMW-km, with the 17” front wheel and BMW error adjust that by 0.95 and you get real km). On the other hand, in the heat faced in Mali and BF we consumed about 5l water/person/day plus the water required for cooking and personal hygiene. On a typical hot road day and wild camping, we consume up to 20l/day (with the dogs). Our water consumption is higher then the petrol consumption of the bikes and water is right now the limiting factor!

The thousand and one control points.
What did we do on those uncountable police, customs and whatsoever stop points. My tactic had been to approach those points with slightly lower speed. Only if there was a person present on the street and clearly indicating to stop and pull-over I did that. If officials were hanging lazily in their hammocks and waving somehow towards us (that were the usual situations), I occasionally waved back and continued without stopping. Also mild waving when standing besides the street was typically ignored by me. Whenever we stopped the officials were only interested in a small talk, to watch the sidecar and to take pictures of it. WTF – not my problem and thus I seriously lost my interest in stopping! Only a firm wink to stop or pull-over by an officer on the street were registered by me and made me stop. I saw maybe once or twice that an official did not agree with my decision (tough luck) and then the person came jumping and waving on the street.

A short time out for a reflection - Don't we have a great adventure?
I would say that some things are guaranteed when you travel through Africa. You will have an adventure, experience plenty of things and you will collect stories to tell. So far Africa did not disappoint in having an adventure and collecting stories to tell. Why are we then overall not so happy about Africa. Isn't this what we wanted - an adventure? The answer to this is yes and no. Since we left home behind - and maybe differently then many other world travelers - we did not plan to return to Finland or Europe, instead looking for a new home somewhere else. In this way West-Africa has been on the other end of our scale of "future home", mostly due to the trash and the way things are overall in those countries which we visited. I think these facts have also significantly influenced what we wrote so far, maybe even without being clear to ourselves all the time. Besides this, Skippy had (or has) her own ideas, definition and degree of adventure, expectations, hopes and dreams and I have mine. Mostly they are aligned, often enough they do not fully match or sometimes not at all. Those are then extra difficult times to find joy in this riding. Maybe that is one reason that many globetrotters do travel alone?

Why is there seldom litter and trash in people's holiday pictures?
We found the answer in The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Nature Photography by Jim Miotke p. 1733
“...before you shoot, scan the scene for the following distracting elements and eliminate them:

• Telephone or power lines
• Buildings
• Street signs
• LITTER
• Natural "litter " (such as dead leaves or twigs)”

LOL

And here is another travelogue “Made by Skippy”.

Here are the links related to the travelogue.

Toilet paper (wc-paperi asiaa):
http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-use-toilet-paper-no-need-to-flush.html
http://www.revivedkitchen.com/2013/06/no-more-toilet-paper-switching-to-cloth/
(^ good article about toilet paper, I just don't agree with the food stuff in this blog!)
http://tuima.fi/?p=6718

Menstrual cup (kuukuppi asiaa):
http://divacup.com/community/eco-divas/
https://www.lunette.com/fi/


~ Wolfi

Mali

The border-crossing from Senegal to Mali was pretty straightforward. I used the tactic to drive up to the barrier and wait that some guy is shouting at me. He typically points to the building in which I need to go to get the paper work done. We got passavants for the bikes (15000 CFA per bike).

Each time I was finished at one office I received a coupon. Obviously those were required for the guy at the barrier. Since we parked our bikes already on the other side, I got now a few spares ;)

A Baobab tree - tall, thick, magnificent, stunning, majestic.

On this day we took it easy and only rode until Kayes. There were only two hotels besides each other located outside downtown. The one was a four star, looked expensive so we took the other one and even that one exhausted our budget. However dogs were ok and the bikes guarded during the night. Once more there was no mosquito net, but air-conditioning and the guy ensured there are no mosquitoes and they would spray before the night. Breakfast was included and I could exchange coffee and other nonsense for fruits. I only needed to inform what I would like to have. Cool service!

After another sleepless night of fighting with the mosquitos we got up early. Later I checked the breakfast and we wanted to do some web browsing at the same time. Well, with all tricks we were not able to connect any of our devices to the internet. So much for that. Instead of the (seasonal) fruits I ordered, we got 7 green bananas! I was pissed. The waiter topped that by demanding that I should pay for those. I gave all 7 bananas back, said keep it and went away. When passing the reception, I answered a clear "No!" to that standard question "Ça va?".We had our own ripe bananas for breakfast and started packing when the receptionist came, brought the 7 bananas and said it's ok - they are for free.

As usually when we walked with our girls, we were followed by kids, sheep and goats. Back in the hotel one well-dressed local approached me and insisted that I gave him Ulpu. I really needed to raise my voice to shake him off. What a moron!

One of the many villages we passed by.

The road from Kayes to Bofoulabe was in excellent condition. Shortly after Diamou the street crosses Bakoy river and there was a great spot to dip into the river on a hot day. I was suprised when the street ended suddenly at a ferry. Annoingly my Garmin knew that and told me to board the ferry. My large scale map hid that fact nicely. Anyway we took the ferry and since we wanted to find a hotel the ferry guy put us riding off on the way to Mahina. I looked at the map and could not make any sense out of how the ferry goes in regards to bridges and where we wanted to go.

I explained where we wanted to go to the ferry man and put faith into him that he knows what he is doing and put us at the correct shore. The first meters of the road after the ferry were horrible sand streets and my hopes it would get better, vanished rapidly. I asked some locals about the way to Mahina and they pointed us to an even worse looking street. This was not good. Both my GPS and the map indicated to go straight and so we did.

After a sweaty hour we arrived at a small village which was according to the map, the official cross point to Mahina. Once more I asked the locals and they confirmed my worries. That path looked even challenging for a donkey! No other way then to go straight. I went to the village boutique to find food (got one can of tomatoes, no fresh stuff!) and one of the kids refilled some of our water bottles.

Many other kids admired Skippy and the dogs. Skippy saw that many of the girls had holes in their ears. Since the kids were really well behaving (first time for us!), Skippy decided to donate her unused piercings to the girls. I think she made many girls happy and hopefully it was seen as a sign of thank you for them and not just the white woman bringing gifts.

Skippy making girls happy.

It was a serious struggle in first and second gear for the next two hours or even more! The temperature was +38C in shade and we needed to stop often to drink and to give water for girls. The bikes were running hot as well and the breaks helped to prevent overheating. After that the street became much better and our speed went up to 80 km/h. However many of the causeways were not finished yet and some of those diverts were really hard to find and then challenging to ride.

What a ride - do you see the road ;)

It was getting slowly dark, no hotels nearby and now it was certainly time to find a place to camp wild. The river was some few hundreds of meters away from the street and we decided to ride through the bushes towards the river in the hope to get a nice and refreshing evening swim before going to bed. We found an excellent spot, but by the time we had build the tent it was too dark to go for a swim. The river bed looked dangerously steep and we settled for our usual emergency shower, one bottle of water :D We were totally exhausted and went straight to bed without even eating anything. I was really proud of Skippy. She managed all those difficult passages without falling - good girl!

Tan lines are so last season! Sand lines are the hot new trend :D

Next morning we got up early and ate our last bananas. Obviously the breakfast was not big enough for Skippy and she fell (see the travelogue for this classic maneuver!). I came back and helped to lift the bike back up. After that it did not start anymore. What was broken now? It sounded like the fuel pump did not do anything and in the display it said "check". Obviously the breakfast wasn't big enough for me either. It took me almost one hour to get it going again. First I started to take the plastic parts off, lift the fuel tank, checked fuses and in the end consulted the manual. RTFM!
It was the kill switch! It moved to the OFF position during lifting the bike. Skippy seems not to have an eye for those issues yet and since it is not my bike I am not used to the optics and positions of switches.

Anyway, all parts back together and we went on. When we passed Toukoto I was stopped by the local police on his "Super K" and was told to report at the local police station. The chief came and dug out the 2014 book for foreign travelers. We were the first visitors for this year :) No wonder we were the attraction to many people!

The road continued to Kita in the same manner. Once we arrived there, all our stuff was covered by red sand dust. We went to the hotel and got a room with a fan and a mosquito net for a decent price.
We finally got some sleep that night. The street from Kita to Kati was again asphalt in some moderate condition, with a few more potholes to watch for. From Kati to Bamako it was in lousy condition, all worn out by trucks.

I must dream! Could it be??? A Bitburger in Kita?

No Bit - Flag is also ok when it's cold.

The trashy park opposite of our hotel. This would be such a beautiful place otherwise.

Papayas for breakfast.

When we looked for a place in Bamako, we found in the internet an auberge which was run by a Finnish African couple. Of course I thought of a Finnish lady who had found a guy here maybe during her travel... I hoped for clean place where things are working. Skippy on the other hand thought that no Finnish female with any brains would live in such a junk yard, so it would be a Finnish male with a big bar and cheap booze. Pretty stereotype thinking of us. Skippy was right :D

We arrived in the Auberge Imi quite early. It was good that we had announced ourselves as the hotel was fully booked that night. The next day we tried to get our visa to Ghana, but no luck. The guy (ambassador) was extremely bitchy and showed no signs of cooperation! He only repeated that we should have gotten our visas at our country of residence.

Well we went then to get our visa for Burkina Faso as it is supposedly cheaper at Bamako compared to getting them at the border. I went on the afternoon to the embassy to pick up our visas as well as finding some engine oil for the Suzi. The oil change was significantly overdue. The city traffic was really badly congested and it was close to +40 C in shade. My bike ran so hot that oil-steam came out of the right cylinder (I mean what else should steam at my bike?). I needed to pull over to cool down the engine before I could continue the remaining 6 km to the hotel.

The situation of trash and pollution continued all the way to Bamako and we had enough of it! A major change in our route must happen if we wanted to enjoy this road life!

We got a - what I call - "oven room" on the roof terrace. Heated up during the entire day and no isolation. The room got cooler again at 04 in the morning shortly after which the sun rose and the oven started again to heat up. The good thing was we had windows open on both sides and got a decent natural draft. The water stopped running at least once a day for some hours. Electricity cuts were also normal and at least here they had a generator for to recover from major outages.

Girls are bored and dead tired from the heat of our "oven"

Making laundry was also an experience. We had quite a bunch of stuff including girls beds. I asked the Finnish man where can I do laundry like a whole machine at once. He did not know and asked his guard. Obviously it was a strange request and so we got the answer by the next day's afternoon. The guard was very kind and showed me the place and I went there later with my laundry. First they seemed to understand. Only wash, no pressing.

The fact that I want to dry the clothes myself was already beyond comprehension. The lady started to count piece by piece and I already knew then that communication had failed. She started to calculate and somewhere in the middle, the bill was already now by 30 EUR, I stopped her. Another attempt to explain the whole thing was a waste of my time and so I packed my stuff, complained in French as good as I could and left.

The next shop was the same procedure and finally at the third one I got lucky. The guy spoke a few words English and that helped. The price was still pretty high, but therefore they also dried the clothes as I was still unable to make my self understood. I am not sure what poisons they used, but my T-shirts were as clean as new. Next day I brought another load.

Bamako city traffic is cumbersome and it took us quite some time to get out of there until we were at the big road towards Bougouni. For reasons I could not understand the Suzi lost the two M8 screws from the engine protection plate. On one side there was even the nut gone which was welted on the plate holder. Very strange indeed. Lucky for us I just happened to have the two suitable M8 screws extra in my topcase and thus the repair took only 5 minutes.

Once more - the Suzi has some screws missing :)

After arrival in Bougouni, we needed to ask locals for a hotel as there were no signs from the major road indicating that there are some. We found a decent hotel with great internet connection and stayed for two nights, because Skippy wanted to see the Oscars - a yearly tradition of her's. At least a small cheer-up :)

Mango trees and more mango trees and an almost clean walk-way.

A nosy fellow.

The only problem in this village was to find fresh fruits. On our second day we literally circled around the village and found one(!) stand selling mangoes and another one(!) with a few papayas. Veggies were easy to find and I also found some vinegar for cleaning them. Good for us that we had some canned food with us from Bamako and Skippy could fabricate a good salad.

Finally, we heard good news from our international driving licenses! They returned from Aourir, Morocco back to Finland. At least they were not lost. Let's see how we will get them. For now we try to manage with a copy of them ;)

What a name :D

Next stop was Sikasso. The first three hotels did not allow dogs and the fourth had no running water and no internet. Why should I pay for that? So we rode to the waterfalls of Farako and built our tent there for me and girls, and Skippy could enjoy her hammock again. Now we had at least "running water" :D

The road from Sikasso to the waterfalls was brand new asphalt. What a delight to ride! This was - maybe besides the one gravel road in Atlas mountains - the best and most enjoyable place we have been so far in Western Africa.

Chutes de Farako - Waterfalls of Farako

Huge holes in the ground

AND deep as well!

All girls got a wash.

Night-camp.

The next morning we woke up with the sun and packed our stuff when it was still cool. The excellent road continued for a few kilometers until it turned back into a good gravel road (new road is under construction). Soon we arrived at the border post towards Burkina Faso.

Bright red balls of a tree.

Bizarre and big flower.

Creature which looks like a wooden stick.

Fun game - sheep eat the sun-drying cashews.

Again plenty of video material put in our Travelogue number 11.

~ Wolfi

p.s. Flemm (weibl., Saarländischer Dialekt) - Unlust, Depression, genug haben, Trägheit, die Nase voll haben, traurig/niedergeschlagen sein (Wikipedia),