Pajero is fixed; escape from Gambia

Day: 13
Location: Kaolack, Senegal
Weather: beautiful, hotter
Kilometers: 145
Hours: 10
Health: tired but perfect
Accomodation: auberge du Carrefour
Price, room: 15K CFA
Shower: yes
Morale: 6
Total spend: 139K CFA

AW: We had bummed at the pool again (and did some much needed laundry), until we were ejected for not paying. After that we went to eat lunch. So we did it, right? After repairing all the crap we talked about, we started rolling.

It was tough, but we made the safe decision to get the car back into Senegal to the north if the mechanic finished after 3pm. He finished at 4:30.

We drove almost all the way back to Banjul, but on the way, the accelerator got stuck and the car was revving in neutral. This exacerbated our second problem: we were completely out of diesel, and so wanted to conserve engine cycles. Given that we had money in the correct currency, and the car was starting without pushing, why didn't we just get gas? There was a national shortage of gasoil; not a single station around the capital had diesel to sell.

We went back to the mechanic and got the accelerator problem fixed quick snap. Then, we decided to go for the ferry anyway and hope that we didn't run out before we could make it to Barra, where, according to rumor and speculation, there would be fuel.

A little smarter this time, we immediately sought to bribe an official. The long ferry line was sure to require an overnight stay, especially given the increased traffic to find diesel in Barra. We discreetly paid a policeman 12K CFA to drive our car, in an officious manner, right through to a position where we could make the second ferry.

It was at this point that Momo kicked into high gear. Evidently one ferry had run out of fuel, and then there was some delay with an arriving ferry, so Rob went to check it out. He found Momo, ostensibly a foreign bystander, acting as the sole authority figure. There was a log designed to ease cars down the ramp, but it had gotten twisted and was caught under several cars. Everyone was standing around until Momo decided to straighten the log, lifting one side, then going round the other in order to get it straight. He later came up with the idea to remove the unnecessary object, which received the support of the crowd. But that wasn't the only problem.

5 minutes later we see Momo dragging a massive cow by a rope tied to its horns. Evidently, several cows had nearly died on the ferry, and several others were opposed to the idea of getting off. Momo was later seen whipping cows from behind to move them along, and directing traffic onto the ferry.

This last move finally offended the actual officials, who had been lounging nearby. One guy yelled at Momo while another was trying to figure out who we had bribed so he could "arrest" him (read: extract a cut). In the end, we got on the ferry, found some guy in Barra siphoning diesel for, shockingly, the correct price, and drove across the border to Senegal. The car was running nicely when we reached Kaolack around 2AM.

GB: The Momo scene was indeed out of this world. I was sitting in the car as I saw our friend enter my view, obviously pulling something opposing resistance. Is it a car, is it a truck? No, it's a cow. I then walked up onto the ferry, this time to see the rest of the rag tag crowd of bystanders (read hustlers, money changers, pimps, and townies) all helping out to load the intractable cow onto a carriage so it could be transported out of the boat.

The ferry dock was probably the shadiest place we have visited so far… In order to get ahead of the line, we had to speak to a first middleman, who then provided a contact who could contact a policeman. I also went on a 20mn trek through the neighborhood surrounding the dock trying to find diesel fuel. Unsuccessfully of course.

Once we landed from the ferry in Barra, the road to Kaolack was uneventful, since the car never heated up and we started feeling better and better with time. But as we started off on that road someone could have cut the tension with a knife. Not to mention the road was once again peppered with holes, and each one sparked images in my head of the steering failing and the car heading straight as the road turned.