Hummm, this is kinda getting a bit embarrassing. Plans evolved. Again. Not my fault I swear 😉 So the evening before the departure in direction of Burkina Faso Almou and I were working out the subtle details of my return to Mali. Now usually that would mean taking the same road back to Bamako but that would be too easy so we came up with a plan where I take the bus out of Ouagadougou to the north of the country where I hop on to bush taxi that will carry me across the border to the first Malian town where I hitch a ride to the village of Teberemb. So far so good. The trick is we have discovered I have not one but two weeks in Burkina. And the twist being I have to go out out that last Burkinabe town on Friday 18th of March to catch the only bush taxies going to Malian side catering for Saturday fare in town.
So I went. Waking up at 4am, catching a taxi in deserted Bamako on Friday morning and hopping on a Sonef bus taking me to Bobo-Dioulasso. The ride started out with a pleasant surprise of a half empty bus. Which turned upside down at first stop 15 minutes latter on exit of Bamako. Filled up to the top. And quite expectedly I’ve got a neighbour for the whole ride to Bobo. Cruz turned out to be very interesting passenger. Nice personality. And it turned out he is working for another bus company plying the Bamako – Ouagadougou route constantly. Which meant he knew every and I mean every single police officer, customs guys and army personnel along the route. And it was quite funny to watch him pass the border and customs without being demanded to show any proof of identity.
I must say crossing that border was a pleasant if lengthy process. First the whole bus descends to Malian officials in a hut where all you have to do is pass your passport to the policeman while going out of the bus and then plain wait to be called to have it back. What follows is a short bus ride to the other side where you stand in queue in front of a hut to get a look at your passport. In case you are not from one of the Ecowas countries there is routine visit to the office where a quick paperwork is awaiting. Nothing special, I was just surprised by the question on religion. Now what has that to do with me entering the country? Must be a statistical measure… Then you hop back on the bus and I thought that went too easy, what about the customs. But we rode on. For 3 or 4 minutes. And customs dully obliged. Take everything you own, wait in the long queue, open your bags on desk and show all your belongings. Wait for everybody to go trough this procedure and get a crayon check mark on their bags and hop we go, finally rolling towards Bobo. Ewww! Nope! Hell no! Apparently there is another customs unit that is not satisfied with the first guys checks so everybody is obliged to stop by their post some 10 kms inland. And then its finally done! Officially. Welcome to Burkina Faso!
Arriving at Bobo Cruz took me to the nearest bar for a well deserved beer. It never felt that good! Which was followed by shower and a crush to bed till next morning. The days travels had just killed me. Next morning there was Cruz and friends picking me up and showing me around town a bit. Then I was left with Belko – one of the friends – who took the pleasure in showing me touristy bits and a nice drive out of town on the back of his scooter to a nearby river stream popular with locals. On the way back the nice little red scooter started to throw tantrums and decided he had had it and that was it. So we hitched a ride for me on the back of another bike while Belko and the little red bugger got pushed alongside us. Turns out it was just the case of urgent bike blood transfusion. So it did get a new and healthier looking dose of machine oil.
As next day I was setting out to Banfora Belko proposed to take his little red bike with me. And it didn’t take too much convincing before I have agreed. See Banfora is really pleasant little town in countries green belt but you need your own wheels or you do not get to see a thing. As is mostly the case with the rest of the country. No wheels no fun. Which is where I’m standing right now. I came from Banfora to Bobo and to Ouaga yesterday evening. And as much as Ouaga is pleasant city I have this urge to go somewhere with more green surroundings. So I was thinking I could catch a bus tommorow morning from here to Cotonu in Benin. Which would leave me with about a week in Benin before I would need to be back in Ouaga to make the whole journey towards Malian border. But no. There is only one company linking those two countries by bus and I have just missed one of the two weekly departures. This morning. The other one is on Sunday. Which very obviously is not worth thinking about as it would give me but just a few days in Benin.
So right now I am heading for a beer and a dinner with Mr Sumudu, a nice Srilankan man living in Ouaga that I have met at the Festival au Desert hoping that he might have an idea or two towards further evolving my travel plans 😉
And oh, just in case I’ll still be in Burkina, here is my number: +226 78 94 41 44