capital (Ouagadougou) at the start of a two week vacation.
This morning I ran out to get some airtime for my phone.
The skies were ominous and it looked sure that
rain was coming. I almost made it back to the hostel and
in fact was about a half mile away before it started to
downpour.
Luckily I was right in front of a small kiosk at the time.
A kiosk here is basically a place to get coffee or
tea, bread or bread and eggs (omelet). I was planning on
stopping anyways so it worked out well. So, I ate the omelet
and drank two coffees and sat there with several guys and
all one could do was, wait out the rain.
It lasted for about an hour and a half and as I was gazing
out from a bench in the kiosk I could see the occasional
old mango just rolling along as a result of being pushed
by the mini river of water.
The picture is from in front of a hostel I was staying at. After
about 30 minutes after the rain stopped I pedaled through
what you see. Made it (miraculously) without even getting the
sneakers wet. Despite the water almost coming up to the axles,
I was able to make it through.
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| Side street in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso |
But this is just the start of the vacation. Tuesday
it is off to the second largest city in Burkina Faso
called Bobo for short. It is in the west and about a
six hour bus ride from Ouagadougou.
I will meet up with a couple of my colleagues and
it's off to Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast. Below
is just a picture I downloaded from the net.
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| Abidjan skyline |
Sometimes interesting things come about. Such as last
night at a mini restaurant/bar here in Ouaga. I went out
to dine with one of my colleagues that will be accompanying
me on the trip to Ivory Coast.
The strange fact was that this restaurant was run by a
couple of Ivorian women who couldn't speak the local
language (Moore). They are fairly new to Burkina Faso.
The restaurant/bar was kind of interesting. In was really
fun to sit and observe what we could only conclude was
a place where one could find a female escort.
But they were great ladies, personable and looked
little fun loving.
We got to discussing our upcoming trip to Ivory Coast
and it is a coincidence that one of the ladies will be
returning to Abidjan a day or two ahead of our arrival.
She gave us her digits and said she would guide us around
if we want her to.
Don't know if we'll call or not. We'll play that by ear I
guess.
Hopefully I'll be able to post to the blog while I am
there next week. I'll need to get a SIM card that
works with their cell phone carrier. I think it is 1
dollar USD to purchase it. Maybe a post from the
beach may be in the cards.
After that it is back to Burkina and looking at 4 months
left in this tour. As I've mentioned in prior posts, at this
time in the gig things start really to get good. We know the
people and our local language is very functional ... usually
just in time to leave.
Drizzle has stopped, water is receding and maybe it's time
to start thinking of heading to another restaurant here in
Ouaga. Hey, it's vacation, time to live it up ... n'est pas?
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