The landscape changes back to bush land, a few acacia, mango’s and some wonderful Baobabs. Travelling south we are leaving the desert behind.
We have a man who helps in the house in Italy who comes from Burkina Faso. Somé gave me his families telephone numbers in “Ouaga” (a short name used by the locals) and Dissin, his home village, so having contacted Edward we are now waiting outside the post office for him to arrive.
A “piki – piki” (small motorbike or scooter), turns up and off jumps the mathematics’ professor. Welcoming us in true Burkinabé friendliness he invites us for lunch, in a Maqui; a typical restaurant where one can eat local food. His wife Carolin turns up on another Piki-piki and joins us for our roast chicken and chips which we offer to pay for.
After an afternoon of visiting local craft fairs they invite us back to their village in Nyoko 1 to meet their two sons Roxanne and Francois d’Assisi and Somé’s son Armel who lives with them.
Carolin is Somé’s sister-in-law who offered to look after Armel since both parents work in Rome and in true fashion send money back to Africa to their families.
In return for the lunch, Edward says we can camp in the grounds of his unfinished house, which will take another five years to complete, and disappears off in the evening, to come back an hour and a half later with poisson braise. What a delicious meal, sitting in their armchairs, carried outside into the yard for the occasion, which is effectively the road for all to watch, we celebrate the meeting with wine, beer and Pastice under the light of a near full moon.
The neighbours, the next morning all come to meet these strange friends in a Land Rover who sleep in a rooftent. So after many photo’s we thank Edward and Carolin and start off again on our way to Sebou to meet up once again with Alain & Rosemarie who also spent the night with friends in Ouaga.
Crossing the city centre is a nightmare of piki-piki’s. It is even worse than Rome. Just about everyone has one or a bike, so with great care and patience we finally leave Ouaga and only 85kms away get to Sebou to the campsite Touristique, beautifully situated on the edge of a lake full of crocodiles.
Neither Rosemarie or I can talk today. Our flu is still bad and we have both lost our voices – the men are happy! I’m also deaf in my right ear due to my cold so we all agree a few days here will help us recuperate.
Five days later we leave again for Bobo Doulasso. But meanwhile we have become part of the local village in Sabou and have helped the handicap centre, which is paid for by a Dutch town, “Zuid Noèr?” by buying a lot of their handicraft. The two Alan’s have had their cars copied and cast in bronze!
They took much longer than expected but once again time in Africa is an option. After seeing door handles, fanta cans, nails and more thrown into the furnace whilst casting “the bronze” the handicraft trade of Sabou is probably an option as well.
On our last night we have the full moon, (Thursday 28th November) and by the noise of the crocodile’s are making close by, they are obviously enjoying this bright night as much as we are.
Many of the villagers wave us goodby and Francois is there too, an intelligent young boy who wrote me some poems and one of which I will include in this story………. Who knows what future such a clever young boy has in this environment? I can only wish him “bonne chance”.
I am completely well now and probably due to all the different foods we tasted like BBQ’d Goat, Guinea fowl fried in an upturned dustbin lid in fat the colour of dust and bread cakes sitting on a dish in the sun on the top of old mamma’s head as she walked all day, balancing her wares with ease and moving better than any cat-walk model.
We didn’t try dog meat, though Burkina Faso is renowned for its market where the meat is sold. It is becoming a bit of a no-no nowadays but a few vendors will admit to continuing the tradition. When we bought the skinned goat leg I checked the tail, definitely goat. Far too long for a poodle! Now I know why our dog, Opi, barks at Somè even after seven years.
Driving now towards Bobo, the local name again which I’m not surprised as all the city names are so long, we come to a hill and over the other side of the hill more.
Both Alan and I are excited about a hill. It must be nearly two months since we have seen one. I think the last one was in Morocco. The landscape is very varied now and we pass cotton fields galore. Its obvious by all the donkey drawn carts that its cotton-picking-time. Overloaded, they trip along to dumping grounds where large orange containers wait to be loaded then hitched onto trucks to who knows where. Someone is making a lot of money with the cotton. I wonder about the farmers!
The first thing Alan and I do when we get to Bobo is find an internet café. During our rest days in Sabou we got the story up to date for the web and now want to send e-mails to the family too with just a few of the hundreds of photo’s we have taken so far on this fantastic safari.
By evening we have reached a bushcamp in the “Mare de Bala” hippopotamus park, sixty kilometres outside Bobo – Alain & Rosemarie are camped up already and are just finishing their dinner. As I mentioned before it gets dark at 18:00hrs so we like to settle in before hand.
But by the time we get here its dark and passing the forest and park entrance 10kms back we don’t notice a “halt” warden sign.
At midnight someone is shouting “Bonsoir – bonsoir” and banging a stick on the car. Alain answers out of a deep sleep and tells the man to come back in the morning to talk. At 05:00hrs “Bonsoir; bonsoir” the stick hits the car again.
By this time Alain is up and arguing with the game warden who followed us on his piki-piki; once he found petrol, because we didn’t stop and its forbidden to enter the park after 18:00hrs. But there is nothing to say this. The “halt” warden sign is so rusty it could have anything written on it so by the end of the row the warden is apologising and we are giving suggestions on making the place tourist friendly (we have all got up by now!) The rifle by his side looks menacing but as usual in these parts of the world, it probably hasn’t seen a bullet in years and by the rust on it should be tossed into the furnace with the bronze!
He accepts a Nescafe with us and organises a guide to take us by pirogue to photograph the hippos. 15 lazy beasts are sunning themselves or carrying their gigantic bodies to the water with egrets balancing on their backs, cleaning the ticks off. Then just the eyes poke out from the surface watching us. Now and again one yawn’s and others call out with their deafening bass voices.
By noon we’re off again back to Bobo to shop, buy calabashes in every size and camp at the “Casa Africa” just outside the centre. A small, intimate, clean and quite place.
Before leaving Burkina Faso we visit the Guinguette forest. Alain & Rosemarie were here many years ago camping, but now it’s a National park with gates and guides and an entry fee. We convince the guide we don’t need him and spend a few hours taking photo’s, again, of the sun poking its rays through the few spaces it can, which fall to the ground, creating wonderful shapes and different shades of green as they touch each magnificent tree and their leaves.
Through the thickets we follow part of the Kou River which meanders along with its famous warm waters.
Not far from here is the source of the Kou so we decide to park up, after leaving the forest, under some mango trees to have a swim, which both Alan’s have. Rosemarie is still coughing a bit and I want to catch on the story so we opt out, and the afternoon passes into the evening so we stay here for the night as well. The next morning the river is steaming after the cold night.