Pajero is broken; a weight lifted

Day: 14
Location: Zigiunchor, Senegal
Weather: cooler, but more humid
Kilometers:
Hours: 6
Health: perfect
Accomodation: le Bombolong
Price, room: 12K CFA
Price, water: 500 CFA
Price, beer: 2K CFA
Shower: yes
Morale: 7
Total spend: 211K CFA

AW: Today we split from Rob and Momo, taking a sept place south to Zigiunchor in the Casamance while they went north to Dakar with the car. We had to push start the car once again in the morning, but then Rob drove us to the bank and the gas station before dropping us at the bus stop.

The car had the same problem at the pump as when we siphoned at Barra; it kept spitting out the fuel, forcing the attendant to spend a laborious 30 min coaxing it to half full. Good luck with all that.

Guillaume and I crossed the Gambia River for the fourth time on this trip via the Trans-Gambian Highway. Border officials tried to tell us that our multi-entry (thank god) visas were not valid for transit and that we would have to pay. We told them we would spend the night at Farafenni so it wouldn't be transit. They thought that was unconventional, but let us through.

At the other border, we insisted that the visa covered us and that worked as well. The ferry was much more organized than at Barra, although we had to whip off our shoes and wade through knee deep water to get off.

Zigiunchor was quiet with lots of trees. Boring right? But it was nice, and we had air conditioned until the power went out. That afternoon, after no call from Momo, it became clear that something had gone wrong with the car on its way back. In fact, they had burned a third head gasket in Rufisque. Luckily, that was close enough for Rob to take a taxi to Yoff, while Momo tried to get the car fixed once more.

At dinner Guillaume and I tried to size up the situation. We were getting calls from the owner, and Momo was not contactable so we didn't know where the car was or what exactly had happened. We may have rented a lemon, but we were definitely returning one. Assuming the car was really messed up (the safest assumption), how much could they possibly get us for? 30 million CFA? Ouch.

Just then Momo called to tell us he worked it out with the owner, and we would need to pay 15K CFA extra and then would be square. Yours. Done.

That night we went to the "famous" Bombolong club, but it must have had an off Saturday. We spent about an hour with the few creepy people inside and then went to bed. Without the car!

GB: Arriving in Zigiuinchor we were certainly somewhere around a 9. We were finally there, the car was on its way to being returned, and we arrived in a nice hotel with a very comfortable courtyard. That, added to the likelihood of seeing the first rains as we arrived, led us to forget about playing hardball, and we paid the asking price. After unloading the bags, we caught some of the first drops of rain of the year in Casamance.

Morale then slowly dropped as we did not receive any news from Rob or Momo. When later that day Momo called and said everything was settled, we took 15 minutes to actually realize...

We subsequently decided to celebrate with a night out and hit the hottest club in town, or so we thought. Instead we ended up in an empty bar with middle-aged folk and a teenage DJ playing salsa music. Not the best.