Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problem

Cash.  We were beginning to need it desperately.  Our hopes were pinned on finding something in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou.  A whole day of wandering from bank to bank trying to pronounce Grand Bretagne in French eventually proved fruitful at La Banque Internationale du Burkina (BIB) where they only made us pay a 4% commission to change British pounds.  Another bank even took our traveler’s cheques.  Money in hand we felt confident that we could spend another few weeks in the Franc zone and decided to get a visa des pays de l'entente to enter Benin and Togo before circling back to finish in Ghana.  At the BF Dept. of Migration, we were told that it would take three days to process such a visa, which would have been too late for the next bi-weekly bus to Benin.  Having flashbacks of when we were trapped in Guyana we pleaded with the official if it could be done plus rapidé.  

I’m sure you can guess where this went next.  There are two types of people you can bribe: one type will be grateful and go out of his way to help you, while the other type thinks you’re rich suckers and will extort as much as he can.  Hoping that he was the first we slipped him an extra 5,000 CFA ($10) on the $100 visas so that they would be done by the next day.  Judging by his eyebrows it was more than enough.  As we left we wondered if we should have paid less and whether we would have any difficulty getting the passports back when we returned.  Instead, we awoke the next morning to one of the auberge staff knocking on our door telling us that our passports were here.  The smiling official had hand-delivered them to us, a few miles out of his way, and thus freed up the rest of our day for artisan shopping and a long lunch.  Best bribe ever.

The other funny thing is that we bumped into people from the overland truck, but…  not our truck.  Oasis, another overland trek company, follows the nearly the same route around the same time as African Trails.  How did we meet them, you might ask?  We were having dinner in the hostel and overheard loud complaining punctuated by the word “truck” every other sentence.  Amazing.

Not bad scam artist, not bad at all...

Our ride from Koutiala to Burkina Faso’s second largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso, was largely without incident.  Unless you count the time that our driver saw a police checkpoint, veered off the road to avoid it and then drove through the bushes for 20 minutes to get back to the road.  Oh, and when he didn’t have enough warning to avoid the next stop and the police pulled us over and made all the people riding on the roof and hanging off the back (about six people) get off and walk.  Luckily we had two of the 20 seats inside the 10-seater.

The most remarkable aspects of Bobo-Dioulasso?  #1:  We have rediscovered a world where bus companies have actual schedules, published fares and [gasp] assigned seats; #2: Michele, the Corsican owner of Restaurant Les 2 Palmiers spent an evening chatting with us about doing business in Burkina Faso (can you imagine repeating instructions to your employees three times each morning and then still having to argue with them every evening??), treated us to free dessert and the  worst alcoholic drink of my life (yes, I’m including college) because we reminded her of her two sons that are off traveling, and actually accepted our credit card.  Do not underestimate how excited this last point makes us.   Our ATM cards have not worked in about a month, we’ve changed all our US dollars into francs already and no one will change all the British Pounds African Trails told us to bring; and #3:  Le Boulangerie Patisserie Le Bonne Miche has the best raisin rolls ever.  It’s nice being back in a world of delicious French pastries. 

Unfortunately, we got scammed out of 10,000 CFA (luckily only about $20) at Les Cocotiers Hotel.  Who would have thought that the guy sitting in the security guard’s seat when we arrived, who then walked behind the front desk to check availability, chatted with someone to show us a room, and whom we ultimately gave our two nights’ worth of money to, didn’t actually work at the hotel.  Not bad, scumbag, you had us going.