Baby steps...sideways.

Hour 1: New Years Day

                  Slightly hung over, our journey begins with a 7 am phone call to quickly get to the car park because our car has filled and it’s leaving leegi leegi (now now)!

Hours 2-5: Basse Car Park

                  After inhaling some bean sandwiches the size of Carly’s torso, we wait…and wait… and…wait, wasn’t our car full?

Hours 6-7: Really Full, like full full

                  Our car is finally full!  We’ve paid for an extra seat giving us three seats in the middle row of the “sept-place”.  Normally, these cars seat 7 people (hence the name) and the driver: one up front, three in the middle, and three in the hatch-back part of the converted station wagon, which has been outfitted with luxurious seats.  However, this is no normal travel.  This is a “quinze-place”: three up front (not including the driver), four in the middle (in our case only three because we’re assholes), four in the trunk seats, two more behind the trunk seats (the way, way back, if you will) and two on top.  It’s cool though, it’s only like a 17 hour ride.

Hour 8: Border x-ings

                  The people on the top and in the way, way back have to get out and walk across all of the border crossings because clearly it would be unsafe and illegal for that many people to be in one car.  Everyone else gets out of the sardine can and waits for just us three toubabs (remember, the ones with all the room? The assholes) to get our passports stamped.  Africans do not need visas to go from country to country, so had we not been there, they could have been on their merry way much more quickly.  But alas, we are there, so all 12 of them had to wait for the customs officers to painfully slowly write out all the information in our passports and visas.

                  We get back in the car, only to repeat this process 6 more times.  I’m still confused as to why there so many checkpoints as we only crossed two borders.  The whole affair definitely added at least two hours to the journey.  If the rest of the people in the car didn’t hate us at first, they absolutely do now.

Hours 9-15: Ridin’ dirty…literally

                  At some point we leave what little paved road we once had.  It’s now nighttime, our driver Momodou Alieu, has only narrowly avoided plowing into several cows, dogs, goats, sheep and one woman.  No one else in the car seems nearly as frightened, nor do they seem to taking a notice at all actually.  At one point, we’re probably going about 50 mph (couldn’t tell you exactly because naturally the speedometer is non-functioning) and we come within centimeters of flattening a dog.  Carly lets

out a very loud “OH MY GOOOOOODDDDDD!”, waking up Shawn and everyone else in the car, further fueling the hate fire burning in their hearts.

                  Despite the fact that I had only gotten about three hours of sleep the night before and we’d been traveling all day, I know sleep is not an option for me.  Unlike everyone else in the car, I do not have full faith, or any faith for that matter, that we aren’t going to die.  Carly and Shawn however do manage to pass out, their little heads ping-ponging from the window to my shoulder and back as we drive up, down, in, out and around crater-sized holes far bigger than my hut.  It's pretty impressive.

Hours 16-20: Arrived, kinda sorta

                  We all pass out in the car at the car park.  We don’t even ask the driver if it's cool, we just post up.

Hour 21: GOODMORNING GUINEA!!!!

                  Momodou Alieu drives us to another car park where we have to change cars and carry on.  Despite what you may be thinking, we’ve actually had great luck thus far.  It was probably because Carly brought her travel fairy along and Shawn brought her travel jujus as well.  And by probably, I mean definitely.  It is also at this car park where we become cash money millionaires.  You see, $1 is the equivalent of 7,021 Guinean Franc.  Easy enough, right?   Our new car, one we think is going straight to where we need to go, thus allowing us to skip one leg of the journey, fills immediately.  The morning air is crisp and clean.  We may have only slept a hand full of hours in the last two days, but we’re feeling great!

Hours 22-25: Vous allez ou?

                  We arrive to where we think we should be only to find out no one has any idea where we’re trying to go.  Now this confusion could be due to the fact that none of the three of us speak Fula or French, but in reality it’s because we’re in the wrong place.  We’re lost.  We make some calls and get in touch with a Guinea volunteer who coincidentally is where we are and going to where we need to be.  Alright travel jujus!  She tells us to go to a café and wait and then we can catch a free ride with her back towards where we came from to rectify our mistake.

Hour 26: Wait, rinse, repeat

                  We do a crossword, drink some coffee, play some rummy and just wait.  We’re doing just fine.

Hours 27-29: Repeat

                  Apparently one hour in Guinea means the same as one hour in the Gambia.  Five, it means five.

Hour 30: Thumbs up

                  We’re still having a great time, but we’re beginning to feel uncomfortable asking to use the bathroom at the police station next door.  They were nice about it until like the 30^th time and then they start to ask what we can only assume is “what’s your deal?”

                  We decide we can’t wait any longer, because we’ve spent $5 to save $7.  So, we hitch a ride, which takes about 30 seconds.  The day wasn’t a complete waste though, we did finish that crossword.  Oh, and we saved $2.

Hour 31: Back-Tracking

                  Back to where we were supposed to go to catch the last car to our final destination.  Everyone descends upon us at the car park, speaking so many languages we don’t speak.  I don’t know where we are, I can’t tell people where we’re going, everyone’s yelling and I’m so tired!  Shawn senses my frustration and just starts yelling “Who speaks wollof, who speaks wollof?”  Alas our knight in shining armor steps forward in the form of a 12 year old boy from the Gambia.  He helps us find a car AND the world’s most disgusting latrine.  (Side note: it’s a cultural practice here for people to not walk in front of their elders, which is very awkward when the person showing you the way is walking behind you.  There’s a lot of stopping and pointing and “which way…oh…um…here?”)  I will never again think any restroom is gross, ever.  Ever...ever, ever.

Hours 32-35:  Slap-Happy

                  We’re almost there!  Only three more hours on another dirt road!  The sun begins to set, our second sunset in a car and we begin to climb up into the mountains.  There might be baby cockroaches infesting the seat upon which we sit, but who cares, we’re almost there!

Hour 36: Hassan’s House

                  We finally arrive.  After a 2 km walk, a delicious hot meal, and the coldest bucket bath I’ve ever taken, we lay our heads down and sleep like we’ve never slept before.

                  In the morning we awaken and begin our first day of hiking through heaven on earth.  I can’t put into words how incredible this place is, so I won’t even try.  I will say Carly was such an amazing guest.  She slipped right into the skin of a PC Volunteer.  It seems only hours after she arrived, she began having unexplainably weird bug bites, a red-dirt tan, and noxious gas.  We may have had to travel through hell to spend a week in Eden, but she didn’t complain once and it was totally worth it.