Trainy Season

Whilst my Ghanaian visa was being finalised I decided to visit the nearby and more relaxed town of Grand Bassam by the beach. Maybe I’ve been spoilt by beaches lately but this didn’t quite measure up to the standards I have come to expect, the turbulent ocean made it unsafe for swimming and a lot of debris and trash had washed up on the sands, also the rainy season didn’t make matters better and the colonial part of town was quite dull. The most interesting part would be the lighthouse which was pretty but oddly far away from the coast. After a couple of days I could head back to Abidjan where my visa had been approved and the next morning I boarded the train heading through the entire country all the way north to Burkina Faso.

I do love travelling by rail and though I had expected the journey to be slow I hadn’t anticipated quite so many stops and for such long periods of time. People were stocking up on all kinds of fruits, vegetables and various other food products along the way, and soon the floor of the train was barely visible, meaning one had to sit with your knees almost up to your chin by the end of it. After roughly 26 hours I had passed through both immigrations, taking me into the first landlocked country of this trip and finally arrived in the small Burkinabé town of Banfora. I figured a couple more hours of travel wouldn’t hurt and decided to make my way to Sindou. However there was no transport until later in the evening, so I killed a few hours walking around in the sweaty markets with all of my luggage before I could squeeze into a minibus.

It was quite remarkable how pretty much the whole time since I Abidjan I had seen nothing but different shades of green forests and fields and then suddenly when we reached the small village of Sindou, these giant, brown, sandstone peaks jut straight out of the ground for miles on end. I watched the sunset, had a much needed shower and dinner before I could finally lay my head down at a cute “campement” with mud huts and open air showers. The following day I spent hours getting lost and climbing around the stunning rock formations and then a couple more hours trying to hitch a ride back to Banfora seeing as all official transport had left early in the morning. There was hardly any traffic, but eventually a car stopped and they agreed to take me for a reasonable fee.

The next morning I met up with Patrice, a Rastafarian guide who drove me on his scooter to the nearby Dômes de Fabedougou. These domes were similar to the Sindou Peaks, but smaller and rounder and not covering as large of an area, they did provide a nice view of the rice paddies and sugarcane fields below before we drove on to Karfiguéla Waterfalls. The cascades weren’t so powerful at the moment as rainy season hasn’t quite started yet up here, however it was nice to cool off in the natural pools. After this I decided to keep moving and to my surprise found a very fancy bus heading to Bobo-Dioulasso.