I’m lying on a bamboo bed, at an army checkpoint in Guinea. Quite a surreal experience really. Surrounded by leafy green trees, little thatched huts, people milling around...chickens, a beautiful sunset... it kind of feels like had I been here 50 years, 100 years ago, it would’ve been exactly the same(And have photos to prove it, but on my phone!). And yet, this is supposed to be Guinea, it’s supposed to be a dangerous place... everything seems to be working out. The taxi we’re in is loaded up high, pretty entertaining as usual... although the driver has just left in the taxi and I’m not sure when he’ll be back...
Postscript... he came back 4 hours later. Bloody hell what a ridiculous night. We ended up driving in the pitch dark over horrible potholed roads (average speed around 10mph)... not only that, but the Peugeot 505 was full (9 passengers), sweaty and hot. AND it was raining. AND we stopped in a village in the pitch black (literally – couldn’t see Steve sitting next to me) and were expected to sit for the night (or so we thought). It ended up that we were waiting for a 1am ferry... but our driver and fellow passengers decided not to tell us that part. Claustrophobia took over and I really felt quite sick crammed into that tiny box in the back of the Peugeot 505...I had to be let out, got completely soaked. What a horrible night.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
aw man... that brings back memories of Ethiopia. I hate those teeny mini vans. Inevitably I always ended up crammed right in the back and I'm totally claustrophobic at the best of times... Once 10mph for hours and hours over potholes, in a thunder and lightning storm in the pitch black with bits of the road washed out (drivers just decided to off road it through floods that were up to the bottom of the windows...)And with a woman sitting next to me holding my hand, terrified cause the last time she drove in the dark she was held up at gunpoint... not far from here... And her baby was crying... Argh... horrid.
ReplyDelete