Bissau: Where is everyone?

Day: 15
Location: Bissau, Guinea Bissau
Weather: nice
Kilometers:
Hours: 6
Health: perfect
Accomodation: Pensao Creola
Price, room: 15K CFA
Price, water: 500 CFA
Shower: no
Morale: 7
Total spend: 44K CFA

AW: We woke up leisurely, did some laundry and headed to Zigiunchor's only formal site: the market. There we saw women selling all kinds of stuff we'd never heard of. We also saw a two man chicken production line (from clucking birds to sliced meat), and it is quite a video - watch out for that one.

Caught sept place (7 passenger minibus) to Bissau at noon and met some well to do students with iPods. They assured us there were ATMs in Bissau. The ride was comfortable. The fact that Guinea Bissau is a Portuguese speaking country was never a big problem because we found people able to speak French most places. Probably not surprising with much larger Francophone economies on either side.

Upon reaching the bus station outside Bissau we confirmed that the cars for Gabu left around 9, and stopped by Noon. We also confirmed that the trip out to the Bijagos islands would indeed take 6 hours in a pirogue, making it a 3 day affair - this is one of the luxuries that suffered given our compressed timeline. They say the trip takes so long because of powerful currents.

Portugal never gained complete control and there is still some autonomy. It's probably also why the islands are now a major staging ground for narcotics traffic to Europe.

As we took the minibus into town none of descriptions we had gotten of Bissau seemed to fit. It didn't look like a dysfunctional narc state with no formal economy. The roads were well paved, the taxis were old, but not ancient Mercedes. The minibuses looked healthy for the first time in the history of minibuses. And of course the locals were friendly yada yada.

As we got closer to the center, the roads became cratered and there were dirty diesel generators on lots of corners. In fact, there had been no grid power for the better part of a year, and no running water in the city for more than a week.

So no shower and definitely no ATM.

The hostel was great, run by a Swiss guy and his local wife. All of the fittings were European and they had a dedicated generator for the DVD player. The husband was out on the islands while we were in town, but we heard from James, a long term tenant, that her frequent and expensive trips to the witch doctor were causing some domestic strife. We went to dinner with James, a 23 year old from the UK studying tropical medicine and working in the hospital. The only formal hospital in the country, it had priority on the electrical grid, but rarely got power even then, forcing the doctors to go out and beg for fuel for the generator. Even so, they went without power much of the time. He told some pretty rugged stories about surgery by cell phone backlight, and lifetime neglect for many diseases that are easily curable. We also found it interesting that all the doctors were either trained by the Soviets or by the Cubans, and that Cuban doctors (renowned) on loan from Cuba had their passports confiscated to prevent defection while abroad.

The city was toe-stubbingly black after dark, with the exception of a handful of shops, run exclusively by Lebanese and Mauritanians. After a delicious fish dinner of sea bris in an onion and lime sauce, we got ice cream and crashed. Tomorrow we would have to see as much as we could before 7:45.

GB: You could definitely tell that this city had seen something go wrong, but it was hard to say what. The impression it left was that of a city, but as you looked closer, the streets were empty, there was no electricity, no running water, most buildings are closed, some craters in the streets feel a bit different. Apparently the ruined palace in the centre of town epitomizes all this. We will check it out tomorrow.

James was very cool, and was the reason we got the room - we all then went to grab some dinner. Over dinner we were informed that if we had not yet contracted any diseases from the water then we probably wouldn't. He also said his hospital treats Malaria very well, and maybe better than some UK hospitals. I think he's biased.