I left for the beginning of my vacation on the 21st to arrive in Dakar on the 23rd. If you can't count I'll save you the trouble: that's three days of travel. Three days, eight different cars, and two (planned) rest stops to be exact. Leaving Wonkifong I was a bit nervous, knowing I'd be gone for 16 days and leaving the dog with a neighbor family, but I still wanted to get an early start to my much needed vacation. Day One of travel was the least smooth. I had found a nice car, driven by a guy delivering medications, to take me to meet up with the other volunteers in Labe. Not far into the trip the car breaks down and then I spend four hours waiting around until I get to a new form of transportation. In the end my trip that was supposed to take around 8 hours took closer to 14 hours. The best part of that day was my light at the end of the tunnel: seeing friends that I hadn't seen since training. Seems a bit clingy but we went from spending everyday together for three months to phone calls everyso often for the last three so needless to say there were big hugs, lots of jumping around, and whatever the two girls did to greet each other.After one night in the Peace Corps regional house in Labe we planned to head out early in the morning to head for the border. Normally, the car we were in would hold 6 people but we decided it's vacation and we deserve one seat per person. Our driver shows up three hours late so we scrambled into the car and told him to step on it. Quick detail- it takes around 8 hours to get from Labe to the border, we left around 10:30, and the border closes at 6 PM. Again, I'll do the math for you: that puts our arrival time at the border at 6:30.....no bueno. The reason the trip takes 8 hours has nothing to do with the distance but the road quality. Five of the eight hours are driving through the mountains that occupy north-central Guinea. The views were gorgeous but the road was as ugly as the bowl cut I had in the 4th grade. Whilst traveling I thought I could explain the terrain best through a new ratio I plan to use in Guinea: Cow to Cars. On this road we saw about 68 cows for every 1.5 cars, that's the ballpark estimate.
The most stressful part of the voyage came as we approached the border crossing. The driver pulled over to a random office where we had to get out and show our passports. The officer copied down our names, passport numbers and visa information into the trapper-keeper that counts as a customs log-book. One would assume this to be the border, right? Wrong. We had to repeat this process another 7 times before we saw a sign that said we were in Senegal. That night we got in late to a city in east Senegal where there is a Peace Corps regional house that was open for us to stay the night (it's called Tambacounda for those referencing google maps as they read).
At the house we got lucky and met 3 very nice Senegal volunteers who were headed to Dakar the next day as well so we were able to fill a 7 seater taxi and get on our way early the next day. Normally, we would have had to wait for the taxi to fill up or buy the empty spaces before departing so meeting them was kinda perfect. With the luxury of decent cement roads in Senegal, we were able to make it to Dakar by midday on the 23rd. After a brief scare of our taxi driver reversing on the highway on ramp, we made it to our hotel safe and sound.Pulling into Dakar I remembered the point in the planning stages of the trip where I thought I might be making this journey alone, and reflecting back on it now I'm really glad I had friends (some new ones) to share the ride with- plus, I know my mom slept better for it. Now, that the journey was out of the way we were ready to start a new adventure in a new city!
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