Off to Burkina Faso? Huh? That's a country?

16 December 2011 - 21 December 2011

I woke up around 5:30am. I was a woman on a mission. I wanted to take pictures of sunrise and fisherman at the beginning of the day. But, it was still too dark so I rolled back over for a little bit. About 6:30am, I crawled out of bed to check out the light. Decided it was perfect timing and headed downstairs and tried to find a way to the river. There was a gate that looked like it led to the river, but it was locked. Exit at the front of the hotel and walk down the street. Say hello to the locals. Malian people are so friendly. See a farm field with an unfinished house on the river behind it. Walk through the fields hoping not to cross paths with a West African snake. Make it to the river bank and take in the noise of the river. Snap a few shots of the ripples in the water. The sun begins to peak over the hills in the distance. A fisherman passes me as he looks in his net along the bank for bait fish. I really like Bamako. Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to move here one day!

I even beat the sun this AM. That doesn't happen very often.

Fishing on the Niger River.

Head back to the hotel and crawl back into bed. Liam was half awake and wondering where I had gone. He’s so cute in the morning! Try to sleep for a little bit longer but it’s not happening. Get out of bed and prepare to get out on the road again. Liam happened to check our checking account and figure out the bill he paid the other day cleaned out our checking account. So, call American Express to have them refund the payment. What a pain the butt. Liam moved some money from savings so we could have cash on hand once we found an ATM. Just another problem with intermittent Internet. Little things you learn along the way. Thankfully, AMEX was actually helpful and the money should be back in our account within a few days. Since we aren’t using it except to pull cash out on occasion, it should not be a big deal. Life is easier in a lot of ways with cash only.

Shower and head to breakfast. Pay the bill and away we go. We are planning on stopping in Sikasso, Mali for the night. It’s about a 4-5 hour drive. Stop along the way to take a picture of a village name.

Say that 10 times real fast....

Arrive in Sikasso and look for the hotel that someone in the Bamako embassy recommended. For some reason, they said there were no rooms available. I would have believed them, except it seemed shady. We will probably never know why we got the shady vibe. Regardless, if they don’t want us at the hotel tonight, there is probably a reason. So, we will continue onto Bobo-Dissolou, Burkina Faso.  It’s not that far away from Sikasso and is a bigger town.

The border crossing was fairly easy. However, one of the national police walked up to me and told me I was a nice big woman perfect for him. Um. No. I’m already married and he’s standing two feet away from me AND you just called me fat. Go, visually assault someone else please. I’m not digging the Muslim men who are trying to score an American 2nd or 3rd wife. I’ve already got a husband. Liam didn’t catch what he said, but when I told him later, he laughed.

Continue driving and arrive in Bobo as the sun is setting. Manage to find the hotel (Villa Rose) without a lot of difficulty. The owner recommends a restaurant for us down the street. We decided to walk over to the restaurant because it was maybe a quarter of a mile away. While walking, we passed a poultry and pigeon brochette seller. Thought about it for a minute and opted for a fine dining experience. You have to indulge every once in a while!! Besides, the meat on a stick in Africa can be quiet delicious going down. Just don’t blame me if it comes back up!

Enjoy a nice dinner and talk about what we are going to do tomorrow. Decide to head south to Banfora and look for the Karfiguela waterfalls. After we finish dinner, we head back to the hotel to change our clothes and head to a local bar to listen to live music. After getting a taste in Kayes, I just want to hear more. When we arrive we meet, Franca, Moctar’s wife. She is from Amsterdam, Netherlands. They spend part of their time in Bobo and the other part in Amsterdam. Very friendly! Since they are going to be full tomorrow night, they have made reservations for us at another hotel in town and offered to show us how to get there tomorrow. It’s so nice to see businesses that still want to take care of their customers. I would stay there again in the future!

Moctar offers to take us over to the bar since our car is full of stuff. We pull the truck onto the hotel compound and away we go. The bar is hosting a musical festival! Woo hoo. What a great way to spend a birthday eve! The music was okay to pretty impressive! I’m so impressed by the fact that they can turn a few gourds, some wood, a couple of reeds, some fishing line, and a cow butt into a full band. Moctar & Franca join us after they ate dinner around 10pm. We listen to the music festival until around 1am and then everything dies down and it is time to return to the hotel. Head over to the annex and get ready for bed. I convince Liam that he has to sleep with me in a twin bed because it’s my birthday and I don’t want him to sleep in the other twin bed on the other side of the room. For some reason, he agreed and crawled in bed.

Woke up on my birthday to a stupid rooster crowing, a train passing by, and people talking. Oh yeah. There was a goat making goat noises too. REALLY?!?!?!?! So, much for sleeping in on my birthday. Crawl out of bed around 8am and Liam runs over to get hot water for a bucket shower and coffee for himself. The water was nice and boiling. I had to fill it almost completely with cold water to keep it from burning my skin! Then, I enjoyed a nice warm bucket shower in a communal bathroom.

Head back to the room and get dressed. Then, we head to breakfast. Liam wants to take a shower after he eats and has his morning coffee. After he is showered, we check out of the hotel and are on our way to Banfora. On the way to Banfora, Liam finds out about a lake that has hippos in it. It’s about 7 kms south of Banfora. So, we decided to head their first and back track to the falls. Find the lake, pay the 2000 CFA fee per person and drive to the end of the road. Somehow we missed that the boat ride to the hippos was included in the entrance fee. When we were told the boat ride was 10000 CFA per person, we opted not to take a ride in the rickety boat. Had I known it was included, I probably would have gone for a ride! But, instead, Liam walked around the lake with me to see if we could get close enough to them to take a picture. We walked a portion of the lake and didn’t see anything. So, we returned to the car and decided the hippo lake was a tourist trap.

Pull out the West Africa Lonely Planet book and find a restaurant for lunch. Head to the Hotel Canne a Sucre. Order a beef brochette, sautéed potatoes, and a salad. Ate everything but the beef. I’ve decided I don’t like the beef here. It’s too wild meat tasting for me. I felt bad wasting it all, but if you don’t like it. Why eat it?

Since we are traveling, I did not have a birthday cake for the first time in my life. Liam really didn’t believe me at first, but birthday cake is one of my all time favorite things. So, when I get back to Dar, I’m going to make myself a nice yummy cake! Which was my plan from the get-go – it was just odd being in the day and not having a slice of yummy cake for my birthday! The other thing that was a little odd – I’m a December baby. It’s supposed to be cold on my birthday, preferably with 2-4 feet of snow on the ground. But, we were in 95 degree weather. That’s something I’m going to have a hard time adjusting too. Having birthdays in hot weather. I might have to disappear for a few days around December 17th to the northern hemisphere in the future.

After lunch, Liam and I each had a nice bowl of homemade vanilla ice cream. It was awesome. Creamy. Perfect texture. Perfect flavor. That’s another thing we need to start working on – Ice cream making. We are going to become a 100% from scratch kitchen before too long. (If you have any tips on ice cream making – shoot us an email – we will share across the globe with other military and State Department people).

Get back in the car and begin the hunt for the water falls. In theory, we probably should have hired a guide – but that takes all the fun out of wandering. Head back out of town. At approximately 10kms, we take a left hand turn onto a dirt road. Stop and ask someone how to get to the falls and he says keep going on this road. Well we do, until we see something that we think could be the falls. Turns out, it’s the Dome. Well, we leave the dome b/c it’s a giant rock formation and we have all seen rocks and keep on searching for the falls. Drive through a few more farm fields and finally see a sign that says Cascades. YAY! The falls. Turn down a bumpy dirt road. See a booth to pay the entrance fee. It was 1000 CFA per person.  Pull up a little past the booth and park for 300 CFA. There are vendors selling wares on the left hand side of the parking lot. Man. This town is full of tourist trap places. 

About 10 children swarm us and want to take us up to the falls – aka – be our guide. We tell them that we are okay and want to hike and enjoy the walk on our own. I know what you are thinking – we didn’t help the poor, starving African children. But, in reality. We did. We paid to visit the falls and paid for parking. If we gave money to every person who wanted some from us, we would end up filing bankruptcy by the end of the month. The amount of money we have is relative to what we are responsible for paying in the States (mortgage, student loans, etc.). But, Africans do not see this. They see an expat and think we are all billionaires. And in some ways we are. But, like I said. If I gave money to everyone who wanted some from me, we would end up bankrupt.

Head up the trail to the top of the waterfalls. Was able to finally work out a few of the timed shutter speed settings on our new camera and got a few great shots of the falls! They were actually really pretty! And I bet they are even better in rainy season when there is a ton more water. Since sunset was approaching, we hiked back down from the top of the falls and took another path to the base. Yep, rainy season would be a better time to see the falls – but it’s not to shabby today!

Not quite. But, I liked the picture.

Finally figured it out. Now to get the water splashes out. Grrr.

Walk to the car and briefly look at a few of the items for sale. Decide we didn’t really like anything and began our journey back to Bobo-Dissolou. We arrived in town right after sunset. Went to the old hotel to pick up Al’s phone – but it ended up being at the restaurant from the night before. Run over to the restaurant. Pick up his phone. The owner called to the other restaurant she owns in town to make reservations for dinner for us. People are so wonderful here! Then, begin the hunt for our new hotel. Find it after realizing we were on the wrong main road. Check in, put our bags up. For $15/night, we got a suite with no hot water, no blanket, and almost no toilet paper! Liam’s post on Facebook made me laugh – “Happy Birthday my lovely wifey. You’re the best travel partner in the world. And for that you get a truly African B-Day present. A wonderful night in a $15 room with no hot water and no blanket. Come here and snuggle.” 

Change our clothes and head to Le Saint Germaine for dinner. Park the car. Walk into a beautiful courtyard with lots of African furniture and art for sale. Africans have some of the best wood working skills I have ever seen! The carvings are fantastic. Pick a table in the garden near the projection screen/stage where they are playing music DVDs. Some nights they have various live music, but we enjoyed the DVDs none the less. Dinner was amazing. And the service was some of the best we have had in Africa. We weren’t sure if it was because the owner made our reservation or if service was really great here!

After dinner, we decided to fore go another night of the music fest and head to bed. It took a lot of effort to not crash in the car on the way back to the hotel. Crawl into bed and fell asleep. What a nice way to end my 1st African birthday. You know you are getting old when you would rather sleep on your birthday than go out and party all night!!!

Wake up on the morning of the 18th and ponder a shower. I’m such a weenie when it comes to cold water. I absolutely detest it and will avoid it at all cost. But, Liam said it wasn’t that cold and I should give it a try. So, I did. And while it was cold, it wasn’t unbearable. Showered really quickly and finished packing up all of our stuff. We walked outside into the hotel courtyard and found Al. He had already loaded his stuff in the car. We loaded our stuff and then joined him. There were a few vendors in the courtyard of the hotel selling their wares.  The hotel also has a ton of masks on display and for sale. But, we opt to head to the market in downtown Bobo-Dissolou because the selection and prices are supposed to be a little bit better.

Check out of the hotel and fill up the car. Then, we migrate to the market area of town. We get out of the car and barely make it across the street before we are bombarded with requests to buy merchandise. We visit a mask shop and see a few HUGE Bobo goat masks. We ask the price. 150 euros. Um. I choke. Excuse me. Really? That’s ridiculous. Liam asks the price in CFA and we were told 100,000 CFA. Again. That’s insane. Liam offers 20,000 CFA and they say that is way to low. So, we continue on down the street. As we are walking away, the seller at the store says that he is going to call his friend and we agree to stop back by the store before we leave. As we walk a few guys begin to walk with us and take us into the maze of the market. It’s unbelievable. They literally sell EVERYTHING in there. Fabrics, hair extensions, food, electronics, chachkas, etc.  We visit a few vendors in the market and decide we don’t really like any of the masks. So, we walk back to another store that Al had agreed to visit to check it out.

Liam and I decided we would go back to the first mask shop and see if they would come down anymore. They asked us what the final price was and Liam said 25,000 CFA. Well, they finally agreed. Now, we just have to figure out how to get our giant Bobo goat back to Dar! I might be shipping some clothes so the goat fits in our suitcase.

Bobo Goat mask (Tiles are typical 12" x 12")

Also, keep in mind. If you ever visit our house, you may be the recipient of a very special alarm clock. One involving Liam, the goat mask, and goat noises. (He has yet to let me video it. But, given the chance in the near future – I promise to record it).

After securing the goat mask in the car, we began the journey to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  This is the capital city and where the embassy is. We are staying in a TDY house for free! WOO HOO! Save the travel budget where we can!  Follow the map we have in Lonely Planet to the embassy. Well, it turns out, the embassy on the map is now the ambassador’s house. Liam calls our contact and finds out that we are actually right by the house that we will be staying at and tells us the American Club is down the street. We decide to wander to the American Club and grab lunch. A couple of the guys stop by the American Club to meet us and coordinate the Monday’s events. Then, they show us the house we are crashing in. Housing is pretty nice in Burkina Faso. Every house has a pool. This one has a fantastic screened porch and a beautiful garden. Find our way around the house. Since there isn’t an Internet connection, we decide to walk back over to the American Club for Sunday football and Internet.  We needed to figure out where the embassy was since it was not on the map we had.

Head back to the house around 10:30pm. Move my bag into the bedroom and head to bed. I’m exhausted. Traveling around is wearing me out.

Wake up on the morning of the 19th and get dressed to head to the embassy. The guys have a meeting at 11am with the OSC chief. However, when we researched the location of the embassy, Google maps led us in the opposite direction. Call the embassy and find out we were completely on the opposite side of town and passed on the info that we would be a little late.

The embassy is brand new. Went upstairs to meet with travel about our passports. Ate lunch with the DATT. Then, the guys went for a few meetings and I went to the CLO office to work on some of my stuff. At some point, I wander into the bathroom and giggled. The following sign was on display. And I'm glad it was because when you introduce a Western toilet into Africa, it can result in a few disasters.  Better be safe than sorry.

Awesome. AND. Necessary. Apparently.

Around 3pm we headed back to the house. On the way home, we passed a few woman riding scooters with babies tied to their backs. Oh and without helmets. I’m thinking this could be a major problem with shorter life-span. It also caused me to say, “You know, Liam, if we end up living in Burkina Faso with small children, we are going to have to make it VERY clear that our children will not be strapped to the back of our nanny on her scooter.” But, this is why I’m glad I’m traveling with Liam. Cause now I know that’s something to talk to our future nannies about.

There are so many things wrong with this picture.

By the time we got home it was around 5pm. We decided to head to the American Club for dinner because it’s so close to the house where we are staying. We walk over to the America Club, but find out the restaurant is closed on Monday nights. I hope Ouagadougou isn’t like Dar because most of the restaurants are closed on Monday nights in Dar. We check email quickly and head back to the house to get our travel book and find a place for dinner. We ended up going to Le Verdoyant.

Dinner was pleasant until a man at another table started screaming at the waiter for no reason other than to be extremely rude. The restaurant went SILENT. And in a place where politeness and greetings are one of the most important things you will do, China just lost a little more respect from everyone in the restaurant.

Enjoyed the rest of dinner and headed back home and off to bed.

The 20^th was a day of organizing and planning. Being on the road, makes it very difficult to plan and deal with paperwork from past trips and my travel for surgery. So, we decided to spend part of the day at the embassy sending emails and scanning documents. After a few hours at the embassy, we headed to the grocery store. They weren’t open until 4:30pm so we spent about 30 minutes waiting for them to open. This grocery store is in a brand new shopping center. There are not a lot of stores open. But, what struck me was the absolute lack of people in the mall.

Pick up our groceries and decide to head to the other grocery store since the first Marina Market didn’t have everything we needed for dinner. The other location is across from the Grand Mosque in downtown Ouagadougou. Around the grand mosque is a pretty large market. It’s like the Target of Burkina Faso. You can find anything and everything you want. I’m a big fan of the African markets!!  It’s also fun to people watch! Thoroughly, worth a day or two of your time!

After we find everything, leave the market and head to the house. Prep everything for dinner. That way, once we are ready to eat, it will only take about 20 minutes. Eat dinner and head to bed. It’s an early night, but I’m exhausted.

Turns out the 21^st ended up being another day of paperwork. We tried to knock some of it out at the American Club but the Internet connection there is awful. So, after we ate lunch, we headed to the Embassy. Spent a few hours filing paperwork and researching the rest of the trip. Once we found out the money was back in our account from when American Express cleaned it out, we pulled out money from the ATM that accepts our debit cards.

Somehow on the way home we end up missing our turn for the short way home. No big deal. We took the long way home. Ate leftovers for dinner, gathered our stuff, and talked about the journey some more.

Time to head to bed because we have a few long days of driving ahead.