Hour 0: Waiting at dusk outside the Customs
Office in Koundara. Taxis returning to Guinea from the Senegalese markets must
stop here to get a stamp. Cellou has agreed to run and ask the drivers of
incoming cars if they have a seat, or half a seat, or anything, available
onwards to Labe. Kilometers remaining until Labe: 255.
Hour 1: At dusk, as the rain started,
Cellou found a taxi. “Only the trunk is available. Is that OK?” I need to get
to Labe, then Conakry, as fast as possible. We meet the taxi in town where they
stopped to let everyone get dinner. Most had been in the car since midday and
were hungry. The rain becomes serious. The driver didn’t want to go out and
move bags out of the trunk up onto the roof rack in the rain. Kilometers
remaining: 255.
Hour 2: We moved. Everyone in, and most of
the stuff except the toolbox and the driver’s clothes in a plastic bag and a
5-liter jug for water cleared out of the trunk. Inflated my thermarest and
arranged it in the back. So clever! Stopped at the edge of town to have a tire
repaired. The road ahead is unforgiving and long, spare highly advised. The Senegalese-built
highway leading south into the interior is smooth and wide and amazing, but the
tarmac won’t last. The car’s suspension is worn, and so at 90 km/h the rear
springs create an impressive harmonic. My semi-reclined position aft of the
rear axle forces me to be rocked to sleep. Kilometers remaining: 247.
Hour 3: We come to a stop, and I wake up.
It’s 22h30. We have a flat. Good thing we got that spare fixed! Bad thing we
got a flat already, and now have no more spare, and we haven’t even left the
pavement. The driver doesn’t shut off the engine. It is loud, but better than
pushing the car to start it. I pee off the embankment of the highway and we are
off again. Kilometers remaining: 193.
Hour 4: We leave the pavement with a bump.
It is pouring rain. In the trunk the blackness of the night is compounded by the
heavy tint on the rear window, I can see almost nothing. I peel back a small portion
of the film and make a hole for one eye through which I can see the rain drops
reflecting the white light of the broken taillamps. The trunk seems mostly
watertight, and any dampness is blocked by the thermarest. My memory reminds me
that the worst bits of the road will be coming soon, just after the pavement
ends. I wish I could see the road ahead, it seems to be adequately illuminated
by the headlights. Judging from the angle of the car (severe), the sound of the
exhaust (burbling), and the level of ambient light (drops to almost nothing),
some of the puddles are deeper than the headlights of the car. I remember
seeing that one of the rear tires was a studded mud+snow model. It seems to be
helping us along. Occasionally I get a glimpse of the road ahead, when the
passengers in the three rows of seats in front of me all duck at the same time.
It looks like a lake, or a beach at high tide. The frogs are deafening.
Kilometers remaining: 176.
Hour 5: We reach Kounsitel, the
intersection where the road splits to go either to Labe or to Conakry via Gaoual.
A truck stop of sorts. At the police checkpoint right before the driver stops
and opens the trunk. “Give the money,” he tells me. “All of it?” “Yeah.” So I gave him a hundred thousand Guinean
francs, more than usual cost of a ticket, and certainly more than usual for the
undesirable trunk spot. He used some of it to pay the cops. At Kounsitel he
shuts off the car by letting it die in gear. It is raining hard, it is twenty
two minutes past midnight. The twenty five kilometers of unpaved road we have
traversed in the past hour have caused the roof rack to loosen from its rain
gutter mountings and slide forward. A few more bumps and the rack, along with
some three hundred kilograms of baggage, would have come through the
windshield. The driver and the mechanic-boys at the truck stop break two ropes
trying to pull the rack and baggage back into place, tying it to a tree and
driving away. Finally someone brings out a metal cable and, after breaking off
one crossbar of the rack, they manage to yank it back into place. Unfortunately
no one has a wrench that fits the mounting bolts, so we can’t tighten it.
Kilometers remaining: 160.
Hour 6: I am sleeping. I think we are
making progress. Kilometers remaining: approx. 145.
Hour 7: When I wake up the taxi is stopped
and shut off. We must be at the ferry,
perhaps waiting until dawn for the ferrymen to ferry us across the
surely-swollen river. The women in the seat in front of me are sleeping. I
reinflate the thermarest and go back to sleep. Kilometers remaining: 130.
Hour 8: It is 4h15. I get out of the trunk
and see many other taxis parked around us. But we are on the side of a
mountain, not at the bottom of a valley. So the ferry isn’t here. We are
stopped for some other reason. The rain has also stopped. Kilometers remaining:
130.
Hour 9: At 6h15 I wake up again. I walk to
the front of the line of the cars and there is a landslide blocking the road.
Big rocks, and plenty of dirt. I can see where a few rocks have been pushed
away to allow motorcycles to squeeze by. The sky lightens. The jungle below is
misty, and there is an orange spillage on the horizon. In my mind I had
mistaken dawn for a fire. The light is continuing to increase and people are
waking up and starting to mill about and find water with which to do their
ablutions. I see one older gentleman who has placed his prayer mat at a bend in
the road beyond where the taxis and a truck are parked, perfectly aligned with
the fiery sunrise. Kilometers remaining: 130.
Hour 10: Once everyone has prayed, and
complained about not having any breakfast, we congregate around the rubble
blocking the road. A man in military costume has the loudest ideas, and slowly
the other men follow his lead and move the largest rocks they can off to the
side, below the edge of the road where it has been blocked. A fallen tree acts
as a backstop of sorts, and the pile of rocks clinging to the slope slowly grows. Kilometers remaining: 130.
Hour 11: Soon all the rocks larger than a
fist have been scavenged from the surrounding area, and our new pile is
beginning to approximate a road. Someone procures a large hammer, and breaks
down the edge of the largest rock that juts into the new right-of-way. Will the
new route be wide enough for cars to pass? Will the rocky roadbed stay stuck to
the hillside, or will it tumble down as soon as the weight of a loaded taxi
passes over it? One man is taking some pictures of the slide and the work in
progress. He is reprimanded by the military man. He says he is a foreigner, and
needs to have a picture to document for his work why he is so delayed. Later I
speak with him, he was born in Sierra Leone but now resides in Belgium with wife
and kids, who are in the car waiting for the new road. He congratulates me on
my Pulaar and asks if I am a Muslim because of the name I give him, and the
Arabic that peppers even my French. The road is made. Maybe it’s wide enough!
There is a very heated discussion about the order in which the cars should
pass. Respect the order or arrival! But there isn’t enough space! My car is
smaller! Drivers run to their cars. One car goes, goes, spins in the mud, spins
in the mud, and passes! We all cheer and clap. Kilometers remaining: 130.
Hour 12: All of the cars pass, even the
LandCruiser that is 6 inches wider than the taxis and gets stuck halfway
through the detour, each rev of the engine and spin of the wheels bringing the
car closer to sliding sideways down the slope. Except ours. We parked facing
uphill, but of course the car needs to be push-started. So we push-three-point-turn
(more like seven points actually) and then push down the mountain a bit to get
some speed and finally the engine coughs and then roars. Our taxi scrambles and
slides by, and we are back on the road. I give some cookies to everyone.
Kilometers remaining: 127.
Hour 13: We rumble along. I can see now, it
is daylight, and not raining. The road is bad and bumpy and I fear for the
tires. It’s not worth worrying about the suspension, it is already toasted. We
stop once to try and tighten the baggage rack at a local mechanic’s stop, and
we wash our muddy shoes in the stream. Kilometers remaining: 105.
Hour 14: After a knobby descent we arrive
at the ferry. But the brakes are broken. So we wait for while another mechanic unsuccessfully
fixes the master cylinder using the film from and old cassette. After, a
friendly tree helps put the baggage rack back into place. The river is high,
and swift, but there is still a substantial slope down the bank and then up the
loading ramp of the tiny ferry. Our intrepid driver, brakeless and starterless,
makes a dumb decision and purposefully kills the engine during the descent,
expecting that he will have enough momentum to make it up the ramp but not so
much as to coast off the other end of the ferry into the river. Of course the
taxi is going too slowly and doesn’t make it up the ramp, and is now stuck in
the low point between the bank and the loading ramp, engine off, brakeless, in
several inches of water. Someone makes a comment about a boxcar being a more
suitable mode of transportation, given that our car has no starter and no
brakes and apparently no driver. Together, the passengers and ferrymen, with the
help of a length of chain, pushed and pulled the loaded taxi onto the ferry.
Then we pushed it backwards as far as safely possible so that there would be
enough space (maybe 30 feet?) to push start the car off the ferry. The crossing
takes ten minutes with two men cranking the cogwheel that pulls the ferry along
the chain. The driver pays the two-dollar fee plus, after some haggling, a bit
extra for the ferrymen who helped push and pull the car into place. Kilometers
remaining: 97.
Hour 15: We push the car off the ferry just
as the engine roars and sprays thick black smoke all over us. Then, on the
other side, a second mechanic re-rebuilds the master cylinder, and a third uses
a sledgehammer and a crescent wrench to tighten the baggage rack. I dry my shoes
and socks and insoles and feet in the sun.
Kilometers remaining: 97.
Hour 16: We give one youth a lift to his
village a few kilometers down the road (he just stands on the bumper and grasps
the baggage rack). He gives the driver a smoked fish in return, which the
driver places next to me in the trunk on top of the toolbox. It is very warm, and
smells a little bit like bacon, because I’m hungry. There are many cows on the
road. We drive around them through mud puddles. Kilometers remaining: 89.
Hour 17: We pass two trucks on the side of
the road. One is upright. The other is not. It appears that it rolled over
trying to avoid a mudhole. The people standing around say no one was hurt, and
the presence of the second truck (into which the goods from the first, sideways
one will be loaded) is proof that things will be okay. The truckers ask us to
return the bowl and platter their lunch of rice and sauce was served on to the
village a few kilometers down the road. They have probably waiting there for
two days. Soon after we all get out of the car to lighten it as the driver
navigates a particularly treacherous looking section of mudholes. He balances
the tires on the high ridges between the ruts, only sliding into the deep mud
once. Just beyond, the LandCruiser that scraped past the landslide ahead of us
has broken down; their radiator burst just after the muddy section. They are
coming from the Gambia, on their way to Labe. It will likely take them three
days to make their voyage. We get out a few more times for muddy spots, and I
reinflate my leaky thermarest. Kilometers remaining: 80.
Hour 18: Our driver stops to disconnect the
radiator fan, which is wired directly to the battery. Now
that we are moving a bit faster he doesn’t think it’s necessary. For reasons unknown,
he shuts off the engine to perform this task. Remember, we have no starter. And
he has stopped at a low spot in the road, forcing us to push the car up a
slight grade to try and get it started.
We try five times, pushing the car through a multi-point turn after each
failure. Finally, with the help of two men on a passing motorcycle, the car
gains enough momentum to force the engine over and it roars to life. Everyone
back in! I am soaked in sweat, and the trunk feels perhaps hotter than being
outside. We stop in the village to return the platter and buy ten liters of
diesel, and the driver has the good sense to leave the engine running the whole
time. I like that the rear window is tinted, I can watch all the people but
they can’t see me. A boy stands behind the car watching the hot air from the
exhaust buffet his pants, clearly amused. His face saddens as we drive off.
Kilometers remaining: 72.
Hour 19: We pass villages where the corn is
tall and ripe. Then the road climbs and
twists up and up through the mountains, affording me, in the trunk, excellent
views of the valley we came from. Three months ago, when I last took this trip,
there were women and girls selling buckets of mangos for eighty cents at every
wide spot in the road. Now there are no roadside vendors, only cows. Two
motorcycles pass us, each carrying two people well wrapped up in raingear and
winter coats. One of the four people is even wearing a helmet. Perhaps they too
are also coming from Koundara. We bump down the other side of the crest, and
without any fanfare suddenly the right-of-way becomes wider, the trees having
been cut down for ten meters on either side. We have reached the section of
road under construction! In a year or two there will be beautiful two-lane
asphalt from here all the way to Labe. Right now they are cutting and filling
and grading and placing enormous culverts to prevent the road from being washed
away during the rainy season. We are moving faster, and the people facing
forward can see the town of Thiangol Bori (Pulaar for Rushing Stream), six
kilometers ahead. Kilometers remaining: 54.
Hour 20: There is a clunking sound, a new
and ominous one, every time we hit a bump. Everyone in the car notices it, but
the driver pretends not to hear. Finally a woman in the middle row speaks up.
“Hey listen to that, what’s that sound?” The driver continues on without
acknowledgment, bumping over the road that has been well beaten by the trucks
and heavy equipment of the Chinese contractors. We pass a steamroller and a dumptruck
making a nice flat road; of course we are ten meters to the side on a bumpy
detour. Finally another person expresses their concern over the ominous noise
and the driver stops the car in the middle of the road. He gets out of the car
and looks at the right rear wheel, where the sound seemed to be coming from,
and makes a silly, guilty face that only I can see (everyone else is forward of
the rear wheel). “What is it?” The driver doesn’t respond, and keeps making
that face. Clearly it is not his nature to get mad or frustrated. We all get
out of the car. A quick inspection of the rear wheel shows that the two (of
four) remaining wheel studs have both been pulled loose from the hub, and the
wheel, barely attached, has been moving about freely, ovaling the bolt holes
and destroying the hub. A small bottle jack and other miscellaneous tools are
produced from the trunk, and the driver attempts to remove the wheel.
Unfortunately, the now-detached wheel studs just spin, instead of allowing the
lugnuts to be loosened. Kilometers remaining: 50.
Hour 21: The women in the car have spread
out scarves or blankets on the side of the road, and are resting, enjoying the
space. No one seems angry or scared. We can see Thiangol Bori, and the large
camp built to house all the Chinese trucks, in the valley below. There are
impressive clouds, but no rain. A taxi overtakes us and our driver waves it
down. They too are coming from Koundara, although they left this morning. When
the car stops, three people get down from the roof rack, and two emerge from
the trunk. The driver of this taxi undoes his spare tire and gives it to our
driver (remember that our spare was put on the car last night, outside of
Koundara). Then they are off. Even if we wanted to catch a ride with them there
is no space in the car. Our driver reaches behind the broken wheel and detaches
the axle and hub, with wheel and tire still attached. These Peugot 505s have a
solid rear axle, ideal for ease of repair and durability. Our driver, like
most, travels with a spare axle-hub assembly, more or less complete and in
working order. There are only three wheel studs, but that’s still better than
two broken ones. Then the newly procured spare goes on, and the repair is
complete. Or almost complete; because the wheel could not be removed from the
original assembly, our new setup does not have a brake drum or shoes, meaning
no brakes. But that’s okay, we’ve been in this situation before. The broken
axle-hub-wheel-tire assembly goes in the trunk. I sit up front, with the driver
and two other passengers. We head onwards to Thaingol Bori. Kilometers
remaining: 49.
Hour 22: We stop to eat rice and sauce in
Thiangol Bori, the first real food we’ve had since leaving Koundara. I buy a warm
Coke and some bananas. The car goes to the mechanic, who extracts the old rear
wheel and rebuilds the hub. He also patches the radiator so we shouldn’t have
to keep refilling it. Then we are again on our way. Kilometers remaining: 45.
Hour 23: The road from Thiangol Bori on is
good; wide and well graded. We make good time, but at dusk we are still a ways
from Labe. Our driver turns on the headlights to pierce the encroaching
darkness, and that unique smell of burning plastic wire insulation trickles
into the car. The headlights go dim. He stops and checks under the hood—indeed
a short has taken out our high and low beams, and right at dusk. We continue
onward, albeit a bit more cautiously. Oncoming cars and motorcycles blind us,
slowing us to a crawl. Kilometers remaining: 8.
Hour 24: A soft rain starts, further
darkening the situation. At least the windshield wipers work. We stop at a gas
station a few kilometers outside town to drop of one passenger. Her bags are at
the bottom of the pile on top of the roof. Fifteen minutes later we are on the road
again, and the solar-powered streetlamps of Labe make the driving much easier.
We reach the main traffic circle at the entrance to town, and I get out. I get
out! It is nighttime, exactly one day ago I was getting into a taxi to come to
Labe. Now, I must walk the two kilometers to the main taxi station (the
Koundara taxi goes to the Koundara station, on the other side of town), and try
to find an overnight car to Conakry, four hundred kilometers away. Kilometers
remaining: 0.
