Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
BURKINA FASO
'Life is either a great adventure or nothing.'
Helen Keller
3rd January
The Sahel scenery and villages, mud bricks laying out to dry and herds of cattle continued similar to Mali, except for the huge piles of cotton in many of the villages and fields and the misty hills looming in the distance. The land was well cultivated with fields marked out in various sized plots and interspersed with irrigation channels.
The sky ahead appeared to be very hazy, as we reached the outskirts of Bobo-Dioulasso and we were not sure if it was smoke from the fields being burnt plus all the village fires ready to cook the evening meals, or smog.
As we got nearer the town centre however, we realised that most of it was the latter! It was also getting dark and the traffic, carts, donkeys and people including hundreds of little motorbikes and bicycles, many without lights, made driving very hazardous!
We wasted precious time looking for Casa Africa, recommended by our books for camping but no one seemed to have heard of it. We criss- crossed the railway line a number of times, tried different streets and finally spotted Hotel Pacha, an alternative for camping. Showers were fine apart from being full of mosquitoes but the toilets were gruesome and the restaurant was closed. However there was just enough space to park in the courtyard and a couple of other travellers were there.
4th January
We left Bobo for Ouagadougou, capital of one of the world's poorest countries. It is however, the centre for hosting Africa's most important Film Festival and people come from all over the world for this event.
The roads and surrounding countryside to Ouaga were far more undulating than in Mali, but otherwise similar to its neighbour, with thick vegetation, many villages and piles of firewood and sacks of charcoal by the roadside for sale. Fruit and vegetables also looked plentiful here. People appeared friendly and smiled and waved.
We stopped off from the road for a delicious, home-made lunch. Thanks Mark for the pate and beansprouts and also for the little bananas from your trees, by far the best we have ever tasted!
Ouagadougou was a city teeming with people and traffic. It seemed that every other person had a moped or a scooter and special lanes on the roads had been set out for them in parts of the city. Other vehicles belched out smoke and fumes and pollution from the traffic hung thickly in the air by the end of the afternoon...... the coolest time of the day to walk anywhere but also the most polluted time!
We found it a very spread out city and there were no signs to be found anywhere for the Hotel OK Inn where we had been told we could camp for free in their large, sandy car park.
We finally found a local man to show us the way on his bicycle. Through the entrance of a large, lorry customs compound (who would have thought of turning in there) and hey presto, there were the signs!
The parking area for the hotel was a restful and quiet place, just far enough away from the busy road to avoid the worst of the noise and pollution. Lots of trees, well kept gardens with a big swimming pool (that we could use for a small cost) and a very good restaurant, where we enjoyed a meal that evening with Jean and Lieve our Belgian friends that we had travelled with in Mauritania. What a coincidence to meet them there!
We knew that Jean had not been well but he had taken longer unfortunately to recover and so their travels had been delayed. It was lovely to see them both again and we hope their shipping to South Africa from Cotonou went as planned, that Jean has now fully recovered and that you enjoyed the rest of your trip.
Although the National Parc D`Arli in the south east of Burkina and on the border with Benin sounded tempting for wildlife, we hoped we would have plenty of opportunity to see this in other parts of Africa yet to be visited.
We had spent much longer in Mali than we had anticipated and were really looking forward to spending some time at the coast in Ghana. So we said our goodbyes once again to Jean and Lieve who were going straight on to Benin, obtained our visas for Ghana and headed south to the border.
- comments