So it seems that after this much traveling, I should do another blog. I should check my blog and see where I left off!…
Looks like last we spoke, I was in Freetown.
So I had this grand plan: forego the immediate free plane ride back to America and travel around for a while. And what better way to see Africa, then making my way north via roads and sleeping the same places other travelers sleep! I wish I had known what I was about to be in for.
West Africa is NOT for tourists. I was there with Amistad, and I had a wonderful time. I could come back to the boat in the evenings for free room and board. The food was clean and prepared in a clean kitchen. The plugs are 110 volts. I got to meet some great friends at the US embassy and hang out in their apartment. And let me tell you, working for The Man in foreign service is a great way to fly.
Wow, just perusing these pictures brings back a lot of memories. If you’re interested in looking at them, click on pictures on the front page. I’m good about writing descriptions for all of them, so sometimes that’s a better way to get a feel for what was going on. Certainly, more of a visual experience anyways – but for those of who prefer reading (boring!) I’ll keep writing.
Africa is a hard place to be. You can’t drink the water. You can’t eat the food. Take a moment to contemplate those last to statements. … okay. They add up to: you’re fucked. Once I left Amistad, the only meal that did not make me sick was some flatbread I’d bought at the store, then I would spice it up with a little something I call: peanut butter and Nutella. It was a tortilla and a reeses pieces every day for lunch and dinner. I got tired of that real fast, and tried to eat something. Diarrhea city. I think overall I lost about ten pounds in as many days.
Jesus H, there was this one time – and I don’t know what possessed me to listen to this guy, but I went to “pick up Alison” in Conakry Guinea. My “guide” had this plan that when we got to the border, we’d get out of the taxi and get on an okada (motorcycle taxi, really a lot of fun in a city!) then simply blow through the border without paying the $100 fee that all Americans had to pay. He’d also mentioned in off handed conversation before, that I’d failed to pick up on, that he and Gina, a fellow American Amistad crew mate, were almost deported from Mali and forced to go back to Conakry and fly back to America. The only reason they were not deported was because there was no money, and the guards didn’t want to have to drive them all the way back. So here I am, in the customs office sitting across from the head honcho of the Guinea border. He’s looking over my passport, which I probably shouldn’t’ve given him in the first place and he sees no visa. We’re arguing, partly in English on my part, and my guide in broken French. The guy crosses his arms over his chest and gives me this look of: you’re fucked buddy. Turn around and go back. I don’t care where, just back and out of my office. Luckily, my guide has a brother a few doors down who gets me stamped and into Guinea. What an ordeal. Of course, when we’re there, I’m expected to pay for everything, which doubles everything: me and my guide. End of the story, three days later, $600 out of pocket, and Alison and I cross the deck of Amistad, safe at last. Needless to say, next time I go to enter to Guinea and Mali, I check to see if I need visas, and I buy them!
The first night in Conakry Guinea was after a long drive over the a shitty potholed road that I’d traveled down three times already. After riding in the bush taxi, you have red dust on your goddamn eye lashes! It’s lame. The taxi drivers are out to extort all the money they possibly can from us. Alison and I were routinely lied to, stolen from, and mislead all through our experience there. We had these two dead beat taxi drivers drive off with our change – laughing. True story from Conakry Guinea.
Alison and I went out to see some music one night to a jazz club. It turned out to be more of a rock club, but the music was sound and I enjoyed myself.
So like I’d said, we wanted to travel over land, see the sights. But, what ended up happening was a string of bad luck interspersed with some memorable times. By the time we got to Bamako Mali, I had a fever that went from utterly down and out to not bad to bad, to good, then back to the beginning again. I don’t get sick very often, but my body and mind was being attacked from all angle here. I felt so sick, I went to the hospital to get a blood test for malaria. I’d get fleeced everywhere I’d go, I was being poisoned every day from bad food and water, it was dirty, smoky, crowded, and generally exhausting. I had to get to Europe.
From Bamako Mali, Alison and I bought two (expensive) plane tickets to Lisbon. The second I arrived my friend Rafael picked us up from airport. I got a hot shower, nice bed with clean sheets, and some amazing tasting water. Alison said it was only because I’m used to the balance of chemicals in the water, but I’m telling you: the shit tasted good. I tasted better than it’s tasted in months.
I did meet a few Italian dudes who’d came for the sights and were, in fact, going to see them. The things in Mali are: Timbuktu, a big mud house, and this other thing… but I was in no shape to see anything, so we bugged out of there.
Ah, here’s something: no running water. electricity only 60% of the day, other than that it’s generators. No sewers. No trash service. These cities are CROWDED. Every single day of the week, people burn their trash right in front of their houses. You cough and hack all the time. Another thing I realized is that America is not in the world’s good graces right now, but we do have things figured out. We have business, imports, exports, and all the basics figured out. Our dollar may be doing poorly: but our houses have electricity 24/7. I can go to California for school if I want. I have opportunities to go places, learn things, be entertained, make/save money, drive a car, play glof blah blah. The list of things goes on and on of why America has if figured out – like most of the world.
For those of you who have not been to Africa, you can read this stuff and think about it – but the true measure of what I’m talking about will never hit home. I cannot sum up, in words or pictures, my experience there. I’m not saying it was amazing, beautiful nirvana where all of human kind certainly emanates from – on the contrary, it made me sick as hell. I can tell you that nothing I say can prepare you for going to this place. You know those annoying tour buses that drive around with tinted windows, people looking out snapping pictures and never setting foot outside of their AC buses to meet the locals? Well, if you’re considering going to Africa, think twice, and think: tour bus. Tour it, the whole way – pay for the coddling, because the other side of that coin just isn’t worth it.
