A Birthday in Burkina Faso

When I woke up yesterday morning and my tent mate asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I replied a shower and the opportunity to do some laundry. When you’ve been on the road for a while, it is the simple things in life that you crave! I had forgotten just how grubby overlanding is. Layers of dust and filth, wearing the same clothes for days on end, but also seeing and experiencing so many amazing places and things, that ultimately it is all worth a little discomfort along the way.

So my day started in the village of Tiebele in the south of Burkina Faso. Waking up in my tent pitched on a roof top of a mud brick painted house to the sounds of chickens, donkeys and pigs below. A breakfast of pancakes, then packed up the truck and back on the road to Ouagadougou (pronounced Waga-do-goo), the capital city of BF. Arrived there around lunchtime to discover that the campsite we had been planning to stay in had closed down. Whilst Al and Jase went off with the truck to find alternative accommodation, we were left with five hours to kill in Ouagadougou. A blazing hot day, a hectic city, and not the ideal way to spend my birthday it has to be said! However, on the plus side, we have had to stay in a “hotel” for two nights so a bed and a shower - as in a proper shower, not a bucket, very exciting as it has been about a week since I’ve had one of those. And we weren’t expecting to sleep in an actual bed until Freetown in mid March, so what an unexpected bonus. The “hotel” is run by nuns and is university halls of residence type rooms, but it is more than adequate (when you’re used to a tent anything would seem good). It is quite an oasis in the centre of the city.

When we crossed the border from English speaking Ghana into French speaking Burkina Faso, it was immediately noticeable how much poorer BF is. A landlocked country with not much in the way of natural resources, most people get by on subsistence farming. It is very hot and dry, as was the northern part of Ghana. I last wrote when we were about to leave Kumasi, Ghana’s second city. From there, we spent a night bush camping (i.e. zero facilities) by some waterfalls, then it was on to Mole National Park for two nights. Whilst Ghana can not compete with East or South Africa for safari experiences, it was probably better than I expected. We did a walking safari one morning which ended with us standing by the water’s edge watching the elephants come to drink and bathe. The elephants and the warthog are very habituated to people so you do get very close. The warthogs were all over the campsite, as were the rather less welcome baboons. There were also a few different types of antelope around - bushbuck, hartebeest, impala and waterbuck.

From Mole, we drove north towards the border, spending the night at a lovely quiet bush camp. To be honest, it is sometimes easier to bush camp because you have no expectation of being able to do anything other than have a wet wipe wash. Whereas if you are staying at an actual campsite, you start to envisage running water, showers and toilets, only to get there and discover they aren't working which is always a disappointment. Our driving days are generally punctuated by stops in towns to buy fresh food, explore the markets and visit any other sights of interest along the way. We are split into four cook groups so every fourth day is a shopping / cooking day. It can be quite a challenge to buy foods depending on where you stop. Most of the time you are shopping in local markets as supermarkets are only found in large cities. We’ve all had some fairly horrifying meat purchasing experiences as you watch a guy hacking hunks of beef off a carcass on a dirty wooden table in a hot market with flies buzzing around. Having said that, no one had been ill, so it would appear that if you cook something for long enough all germs will die!! And amazingly, despite the limited resources, there have been some very good meals produced. 

The border crossing from Ghana into BF was typically African - slow and painful with lots of waiting around for no apparent reason. Bizarrely, it took a lot longer to get our passports stamped to leave Ghana than it did to purchase visas for BF and enter that country. After crossing the border, we spent two nights in Tiebele which was a new stop for Overlanding West Africa. It was a really interesting place and our local guide there showed us a lot of the area and explained the history of the painted houses. We also saw pottery making, gold mining, farming and traditional dancing. Now we are in Ouagadougou for two nights. A chance to be away from truck life, have some internet and eat out in restaurants. Birthday dinner last night at "Le Showbiz Restaurant” complete with wine and cake, and now for a relaxing Sunday catching up on chores such as laundry, sorting out photos, and internet. Tomorrow we head to BF’s second city, Bobo, which will be a very long driving day...