Motorbiking in Labe, and on to Conakry

Day: 17
Location: Conakry, Guinea
Weather: Cool up north with a downpour
Kilometers: 400
Hours: 12
Health: tired but good
Accomodation: Renault 19
Price, room: 0 FG
Price, petrol: 4.3K FG / lt
Price, water: 3.5K FG
Shower: no
Morale: 7
Total spend: 222K FG

AW: As opposed to yesterday, when the entire day was gobbled up by transport, we had a great time visiting a big waterfall and chilling in Labe.

We rented two motorcycles but failed to convince the guys (who had themselves rented as taxi drivers for 16K FG each per day) that we could ride them (indeed, we couldn't, at least not at first). So we decided to bring them along. Guillaume picked it up quickly, but I struggled with the idle too low, so the bike would die between shifts.

We only realized how smart it was to bring them when we didn't know the way and the road became more of a river bed trail filled with small boulders. In addition, they realized we would need additional petrol, and had a talent for climbing trees and producing delicious mangoes. We climbed down to the waterfall and went swimming under the pounding water. It was very refreshing, but the waterfall was a little anticlimactic, until we realized that we weren't swimming in the right waterfall. A little but downstream there was a magnificent cascade, but we had to ride the motorcycles down a different fork to get the full view.

The rain opened up temporarily, and we started back. We stopped along the way for mangoes. One of our guys climbed the tree and started dropping the mangoes down, but then came swinging wildly out. There was a big deadly green snake in the tree, so the village children crowded around trying to nail him with a slingshot.

We rode back, much more comfortable on the bikes, and the grabbed some shwarma and steak before grabbing a six place minibus (again, a proper 4 place). And started on the 7 hour trip to Conakry. In fact, it took 12 hours and we had to sleep in the car again, this time with all 6 people inside. Can't do too many nights in a row like that, but we made it fine.

At a checkpoint, a visibly drunk, armed guard demanded 2K FG and the locals paid quickly, so we did too. From 4:30 to 6:30 AM, we were held 15KM north of Conakry at another army check point because of bandits. Our driver said that if we drove out of the checkpoint we could be shot down, and that at times the bandits come all the way to the checkpoint to shoot people down, but a woman in the car thought that was rubbish.

When we left the checkpoint we drove to a walled depot and waited there until light.

GB: The waterfall was pretty cool. I was already amazed by the first one, so when we saw the real thing from the top and looked down a straight 100m fall, I was impressed. Riding the bikes was pretty cool, but after I almost crashed myself and the guy into a tree I decided to hand it over and drive only the easy part.

The trip to Conakry was fine, except our driver had a tendency to stop all the time and occasionally have what seemed like violent exchanges with some woman in the car. We got there around 3AM, only a little later than expected, but then ended up having to wait till 5:30 to drive straight into a safe place: the bambuto gare routiere.

The 1.5hr wait surrounded by women selling iced tea in plastic bags in a place that felt like a scrapyard was in my top 5 of bleakest hours. I was prepared for bandits to attack the station anytime. Instead the place started bristling into activity as the sun took over from the moon, and soon we were surrounded by offers to drive us into Conakry for cheap. But that is already tomorrow.