17 police stops today!
The day began innocuously enough, with me perched in the crows' nest for a drive on a road lined with trees and bushes red with dust thrown up by passing vehicles.
But then the roadblocks started. The first two were definitely Cote D'Ivoire police and customs but we weren't sure whether the next two were Cote d’Ivoire or Burkina Faso/Upper Volta because there were no signs. Whoever they were, they let us through without searching the truck or stamping our passports, into Burkino Faso, we thought.
We Lunched overlooking a river with tiny rapids that sounded refreshing but was too stagnant to be tempting. Local women were washing cooking pots and brightly coloured clothes in the water, clean clothes spread out on the stones to dry.
Beyond here, the full-on police checks began, with four obviously official roadblocks within a few kilometres - we searched for blank spots in our passports for the first stamps in two days - and two more only 100 metres apart. But this was nothing compared to the five stops on our approach to the town of Banfora, comprised of drums or makeshift signs in the middle of the road guarded by men dressed in casual clothes and armed with machines guns, ancient muskets and rifles held together with string. No idea who they were or whether they had any official status. The first couple were just bizarre but by the fifth they'd lost their amusement value; everyone was getting cross and Kel started saying no to their requests for papers etc. One bloke told us to get everyone and everything off the truck but backed down on seeing our green transit permit. Half the "guards" were youths, sitting around with a few friends and their weapons. It made for a long day, frustrating day covering only a few kilometres. I appreciate that the country is extra sensitive because of the war why they needed so many checks in in such a short distance is beyond me.
Two more stops and we were in Banfora - where we heard that there are 30 stops on the road to Ouagadougou!
For now, we have to navigate only two more on route to a waterfall Kel heard about. We were worried the falls would be touristy but found ourselves on a narrow, potholed track, passing under very low hanging trees we pushed up and over us and a couple we had to drive around, lurching into rutted ploughed fields, the truck rocking from side to side. We passed expanses of flooded cornfields with complex irrigation systems of channels and floodgates.
Started thinking that this couldn’t possibly be the right road, twisting and turning across very narrow bridges and around sharp corners. Then we came to a fallen tree and disembarked to the sound of falling water. We made camp in the arms of the tree and headed off into the bush to investigate, following the track under an archway of towering mango trees to the bottom of a high but unimpressive falls. We clambered to the top where we found a series of shallow slab pools - and a couple drilled deep into the rock - that were nowhere as cold as we thought. It was a beautiful peaceful relaxed ending to a long and frustrating day. Several of us decided to come back early tomorrow morning for a proper wash.
We saw lots of birds today and tonight the forest hums with the sounds of insects humming and animals scampering through the undergrowth. Bright blue fireflies danced about us after dinner.
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