From the peninsular south of Freetown it is just a few hours driving on good (toll, but very cheap) roads to the border of Guinea Conakry. In Kossoh town we changed a few Euros (easier than US dollars) and filled up with petrol, water, beer and bread. We had decided to avoid both Freetown and Conakry. Big African cities are interesting but time consuming to drive through. The border crossing was not too bad and we could spend our last Leones on a few nice banana cakes. The first 80 km in Guinea Conakry were real African roads again. Lots of huge potholes and sometimes only bad gravel and stones or no road at all. This area is densely populated compared to the Sierra Leonean side. The whole road is more or less one big market and every 15 km or so a police checkpoint. Every checkpoint they want to see all the paperwork and of course hoping for a 'petit cadeau'. Of course, we never gave. Just before darkness we reached Kindia, a city on the N1 highway from Conakry to Bamako in Mali. Highway means in Africa most of the times only lots of heavy traffic, dust and noise. The road itself is not more than a remote local road as we know it in Europe. In Kindia we found hotel Masabi with a nice restaurant and ice-cold Guinean beers. We slept well on the sound of passing trucks.The next day we drove further in the direction of Mali. The road was not too bad and because it's Friday there was not too much traffic. After Labe we arrived on a the even more quiet road to Senegal. After a while we took a small piste to the waterfalls of Sala. A beautiful place where we've been 12 years ago with our truck and our kids. See link The last few kilometers were quite difficult for the CX and only possible in the highest position in which you normally are not supposed to drive... We slept on exactly the same spot as 12 years ago, but now in our little tent. In our sleeping bags because it gets quite cold at 1000 m altitude. In the evening we heard a gunshot from across the falls. We heard loud cries and barking. We think a baboon was hit and probably died. After visiting and washing ourselves near the falls the next morning, we drove all the way to Koundara near the Senegalese border. A quiet and excellent good road through a mountainous area, like driving in France. Only a piece of 25 km was still the old and gravel road we knew from the previous time. In Koundara there are no real hotels but behind a local bar we found a room without daylight, electricity and water. Like a prison but we had to pay 100.000 Guinean Francs, about 10 Euro.... In the room which functioned as the bathroom there was a jerrycan which obviously was used many times for transporting diesel. But we were happy and as tired we were we slept well, smelling to diesel on the sound of African music, dogs, donkeys and lots of early roosters.
1 Comment
5/17/2019 11:22:31 am
In this city is beautiful city have some trends mixed together with rich culture and heritage
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Kees and Bien A limousine, a grand lady but also a tough winning rally car in the 1977 -1979 editions of the Rally du Senegal and winning! |