Long Days Journey Into Burkina Faso

So here I am in Ouagadougou at an internet café, staring at this bizarre Burkinabe keyboard, with mixed-up letter keys and mystery punctuation marks. I cant even find the apostrophe key, thus I can no longer write contractions - hence the proper grammar in the post and improper grammar in the title.

Ottawa is probably further from Toronto than Ouaga is from Accra, yet by public bus the journey between the former two cities takes under five hours in comparison to over twenty-four hours for the latter. And in lieu of a plane or private car, it is the fastest way to travel.

I took the good old 10AM STC bus direct to Ouaga. By that I mean the bus that left after 12, broke down an hour later and limped into Kumasi without air conditioning. (Apparently the "luxury" bus means less AC, more goofy Nigerian movies) Regardless of the delays, breakdowns, traffic jams and waiting in the wee hours of the morning for the Ghana-Burkina border to open - oh, and then two hours at the border waiting for the visas and cargo to be cleared by customs - we rolled into Ouaga sometime after noon.

What a journey it was! The Burkinabe countryside is something to behold: the Sahelian beauty of long yellow grass, patches of green trees and circular mud huts with smooth mud courtyard walls. In shor, it was perfect for driving through while listening to "Everybody Knows (This is Nowhere)" by Neil Young. (Thanks again for the cds, Geoff) I spent a lot of time either reading, sleeping munching on odd snacks and meeting fascinating characters: the man next to me was a soldier who served not only in various peacekeeping missions (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo and Lebanon), but was a former presidential bodyguard. (Guess whos cellphone number he gave me?) I also met a Nigerian on his way to Dakar and a journalist/trader named Sahada.

Sahada - a very wise young Ghanaian woman - and I got rooms at her favourite hotel. After awell-deserved shower and an hour of hunting mosquitos, we ate and had a nice long chat. It,s now early evening and I,m ready to read some Hemingway and peter out...

And to think that this is only the first (and probably most comfortable) leg of my trip! I have yet to get my Malian visa, take a 5 hour bus to Bobo and then a (supposedly) 15 hour one to Bamako - which is where I was trying to get in the first place. Ah well, in the immortal words of AC/DC, its a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll...