Broaching Burkina Faso

Waterfall on the road down

The shorter road to Bankass is mainly a dirt road with cemented parts. It is all right as these roads go. For the first most scenic part there is no going fast since it is rather steep downhills after a bit of uphill. There you pass through these typical villages, rock formation, valleys and then plains. It was all nice and green at this period of the year.

Down from the Dogon plateau

Women at work

After Bankass we headed to Koro, the Mali border with Burkina Faso. From Bankass to Koro it was a dirt road that was being regraded, we had to proceed with caution since the work seemed to have just started and there were still some bad bits. Hans was not feeling well and Elismé was driving.

They stopped for a snack break and got stared at by some local children, and then carried on. The Mali border post was a shack in the middle of nowhere and there the officers found that they had overstayed their ‘visa’ by one day. They understood that they had a month from date of entry and the immigration officers insisted that it was as per the dates on the visas. So they had to pay to get out of that country.

It is not as if they want you to visit the place and stay longer, they penalize you for staying and spending money there. To crown it all, they do not really know how to read and write fluently at the border and took it for granted that the others had the same visa and wanted to make them pay as well. It took ages to make them see, read and understand that not all 6 visas were the same. In the meantime Hans sat there suffering in the car.

The Burkina immigration was also a bit in the middle of nowhere and the officials there were rather relaxed about things, waved them in the office, did the papers and visas there and then and waved them off. Customs was done 17 km later in a small town on this still not so good dirt road.

There, there was a lady customs officer who knew the procedures about the cars etc and soon they were on the roads. She had warned them that the road in was not good for at least 35km and then you reach the tar and it gets better. That was another hour or so of slow proceeding. By then Hans has had a few shivers, a few calm moments and a few headaches too.

The tar road to Ouagadougou was good, it had a few holes in the middle but in daytime it was all right. Then, just at one of the toll gates, Stephanus reported a flat tire. They soon found a bolt in that one tire. They replaced the tire and carried on when barely 10 minutes later, he reported another flat.

Coen turned back to assist and they asked Hans and Elismé to carry on to the city and find the place they agreed they will stay. It was getting late into the afternoon and they carried on. After the tire change Coen asked Stephanus to take the lead as his GPS  was showing the Ok Inn where they were stopping in town, and his lights were more efficient on the roads at sun down.

The road was busy, there are many villages along it. It is a nice road with trees on each side for most part but with bicycles and motorbikes without lights on it, it was a bit tricky to navigate. Following GPS indications, they got into the city, in the general direction of the inn. They kept calling Hans on the radio to see if they were around and when we heard them, we were all in the area where the inn was but could not find it.

She saw a sign to the inn as they were passing it on the highway and they had to turn back. They asked about a side road and were given some sort of directions but still could not find where exactly one had to turn. A guy on a motorbike told them that there were no roads where they were going. Instead of asking if they wanted the OK Inn, that he worked there etc, he kept saying that there was no road there.

In the end, they stopped and asked him what they were supposed to do. Then only he told them that he’d direct them there since he works there!

Hans had also asked someone from the streets to direct him there and had just about got into the parking when we arrived. It was late, they were tired and all opted to take rooms there. The place is old but the rooms are adequate and their kitchen serves excellent food. She had veal tongue with hot sauce that first night and Coen had Lemon chicken while Stephanus had steak with béarnaise sauce and Mariana chose spaghetti Bolognese. Elismé said it was too expensive for her to have a room and eat at the restaurant!

The priority of the next day was tire repair which Coen and Stephanus were to do together. The driver of the hotel showed them a good place where this can be done. When they left, it was agreed that Hans would go for tests at a reputable clinic.

Coen had 3 eggs for breakfast and felt he could tackle the day. But he did not reckon with the sloppy job done by Q-Tyre in Pretoria – they left valves inside tire. That meant that all the tires had to be checked. And they said that this place was in town and the traffic there was terrible.

At the clinic recommended by the hotel, they paid for a consultation and then a doctor saw Hans, did a proper examination, asked questions and sent him for tests. These would be ready ay 16h00 and they have to come back and see the doctor about them.

Back at the hotel, when the men got back from the tire errand, they set up camp in the grounds. The arrangement was that the camping was for free but they had to take their meals at the hotel. The ‘camp’ was in what used to be the mini golf of the place, it was overgrown with grass and other plants that had needles and there were loads of mosquitoes. They were to make use of the toilets and showers of the swimming pool but there did not have lights that worked and were also infested with mosquitoes.

In spite of that, Coen set up the tent and Stephanus settled his vehicle neatly to spend the night. Hans was slowly getting better, still had a bit of fever, headaches and shivers but with longer periods of calm in between.

They chose to hit the road for the border the next day. Somehow they had decided that they would cross into Ghana in the Upper West, at Hamele  - a theory that the border post might be smaller and less busy. Much of the road to there was good, some toll gates and some potholes too.

Hence, we did Burkina Faso from north to south and it was very much the same throughout: lots of agro-pastoral activity, lots of towns and villages along the main road with trees planted on each side (less South of Ouagadougou), lots of projects advertised and road building.

It seemed to be a place where people are doing something. It is cleaner than many of the other countries we passed and it did not have an inherent bad smell to it. Ouaga is a large city with plenty of traffic; there are tarred roads even into the suburbs and traffic lights that work. There was a bit more activity when we were there because it was the end of Ramadhan and they were preparing for the Eid celebrations. There were fire crackers all night.

The border was not busy at all. The people were glad to have something to do.