kerssering to kafuntine

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im not one forwriting much, only to ones i miss so much, and my yearly excursion to the hot country,felt better this time.so on this forteenth visit i ended up in kessering at a place far to expensive for me as i had a trusted friend of 10 years to find me a place, i always go flight only and pick the cheapest dates for going and return to manchester. i was to have a room in manji for 250quid or near with water and current as they say. however on arrival my mate told me someone was in it and couldnt find landlord etc , so he fixed me up in kess. well it was well secure, had 2 bedrooms a bog and small kitchen and power.plastic table and the usual horrible uncomfortable local made 3 piece suite ,(why cant they get them right) but bonus was 2 fans.the downside was 210 quid a month at 43 to the pound. so that was a shock as i wanted to get on with it and he had to go back to work..unacustomed as i am to such luxurys in the dalasy coast i got myself to nearest food base (senagambia rip off supermaket!!!) and got a few essentialls and changed some dosh at a poor 43 as to 54 last year,to survive the next few days or as long as my dried emergency packeted food would last. i didnt want to jump straight into tapalapa and minus bread as it would be too much of a change i reckon, as i got the screeming habdabs in past years through this so i was treading carefully. and hadnt bought any diareha pills only a few left over from last years stash.being in the middle of what i call mogadishu i soon realised that my 15 stone plus and my 63 years wouldnt help my walking too far in this heat although it wasonly 10 minutes to 5 dalasy taxi to anywhere,i had a bycycle left in uk but left it to last minute to take to bits for transporting and then decided to leave it at last minute and get one here, so next day seerekunda and a mobile for trade found nigerian man with his(shop) after much haggiling a deal for a bike with allthe gears worked and he changed the saddle for me. i later
traded for bigger one to suit my bigger derrier and the new set of pedals were only £1.50.so the phonecost me 35 sovs and it would have cost me the same to fly my own there, so reasonably happy i pedalled out of the maddest crossroads in gambia through bambo onto bak. towards west coast up into kololi turn left for kess. this saved me the time and discomfort of the 5d pain climbing in and out (depends where you sit) ithink that day i celebrated my 2nd day by having a good meal at sportsman craig and wife good grub (been there since nov) and got down to my place 20 min bike .well this served me well for 6 weeks but i was nackered as some days i was out before sun up to get to places and back mid afternoon when water was hot from tank on roof and a bit of a rest before night fell.i used to go out at night with small torch in one hand to pick out the holes and sand.my buddy came out 3 weeks later as he had bought house in brufut and nice too! the pevious year had put some dosh down on one of the taiwan motobikes called tifan from bloke in the same estate as him , wel being a biker for 50 years i poured scorn on this thing ,a copy of an old honda with added chrome bits and indicators .but it had one good feature an electric clog and 4stroke!. so next day says i can borrow it an hour to do shopping (hes a bit wary and hadnt his license with him) so off i go , the gears are all down so its reasonably easy but a few missed ones are the norm. to get out of brufut is hell, its all sand ,and believe me the kit isnt made for it ! ribbed front tyre was hopeless and only way to steer at all was to reduce pressure but out on road it was a treat its capable of a sustained 60mph sounded like a 250 ,i darent push it though. friends after half hour i was smitten its 10 years since i had my xr honda there and it brought back the happy times to me again,(remembering i did it from senagambia to kartong in 1 hour before the tarred roads were there but i still rode enduros then and the right kit)i did my shopping and had to wait for some new bread to come out from damien and jos new bakery in tranquil so had a run round manji kotu backau. it was no effort, i came back4 hours later he was wonderingwhat had happened. anyway alan his friend had another identical bike and my mate said i coould use it for a few quid a week .well was i pleased .we only went small runs to beach villagers and ghana town but its great to ride just out of seas reach along the shore and the bonus is you can keep cool with the air rushing past u its heaven. so we planeed a day out. id pree run the info at kartong to crossing into kasamance ( customs man)on previous day ,so off we went with 2 sausge rolls and 2 bottles fozen water . we set off at 9 bells from top of sand road top of brufut turn offl and down past new hotel ghana town tanji tujering sanyang gungur and finally kartongwhere the last 6 miles were on empty roads and no local bobbys to check papers(fatal week before tobaski) and after army check point 50 meters old guy in small room hand wrote a piece of paper saying give us free passage to casamance, armed with this half sheet of torn from execise book( papers lke gold here) and stamped with something looking official we went the last 3 miles to waters edge and saw a diffrent guy from yesterday who was captain for today , well it was hot and my mates looking at the dugout canoeand shaking his head .but the capt(another lamin) grabbed the bike and into the log it went after a careful push out from the shore i still had to lean a bit to keep it balanced ,well ahab leasurly paddled bike and me the hundred yards across to the far country i was a bit apprehensive but we made it and pulled it nose first over the bow. then its my mates turn well he was over in a breath ,i was laughing all the time , we got his off parted with our 150 ds and said goodbye. we were now faced with the deepest sand ive ever seen for about 4 miles of this i tried diffrent trails where others had been but to no avail it was horrendous footing ourselvesthrough best rout. no wonder i seen tractor day before full of baggage its the only thing there that wil do it 4x4s wouldnt do. we finally got through it and found the usual go fast hard bermy sand with hard bits for another 5 then came across flat red road for several with no signboards i checked with locals sat in shade from the now vscious sun 10deg hotter then gam saying kafutine which they understood so a few more miles and we were on tarred roads again stopped for a smoke but its too hot to linger u need the air , hot as it is to be flowing past you. we trudged on and finelly came kafuntine i loved all the signs and diffrent style shops ,we followed the road up to beach where we parked in shade and had 2 boys trying to sell us jeans( in french) i left andy to talk to them as i made my way towards some women laying out the most disgusting slug like thiongs on the bamboo benches to dry ,the smell was orrible and i tried franglaise to ask for my long lost rohie jatta. to no avail they didnt so we saddled up went further donn this tarred road till it came to an abrupt halt and all we could see was rows of firewood each side of the road forever i said its no good this way so we turned back the way we came , kafuntine was so diffrent to the image i got from google earth, i expected more somehow. we passed the point of where we joined the road from the gambia side and i made a unilatell decicion to go back via darsalami via the smugglers route from diana (pronounced jana)so under a fair head of steam i was off telling my mate to keep up . was away and after some 29 mins arrived jana changed 100ds for cfa to buy 2 fantas , sat down supped mine had fag no sign of andy so backtracted down road to find him side of road where soldier had stopped him for (going tooslow)andy said im happy you showed up( only in yorkshire languge to that effect!)WHERE THE XXXXXXXX HAVE U BEEN. anyway i produced the exercise book paper which he couldnt read and gave us a lecture on entering casamance from selete and getting -passport stamped or he says hell get his boss to get bikes impounded etc.well my mate was xxxxxx himself ,but id been through this movie before 8 years ago its just a scam to get some dosh off u and hes bored out of his head in the heat. well this went on for 30 mins or so my mates begging him how can he help us . i said shut up its only a game i said to sol here have a ciggy very good, and we buged him about 15 fags in his pocket and he let us go we stopped at the shop and had the second drink, asked one lad to back way to darsalamy he grabbed a pen from shoppkeeper and drew a map consisting of circles joined up with a line and i wrote the names of villages there was about 6 well he cant read or write and i wrote names down the best i could well the going was good for several mileswith the local fencing diffrent to gamby but no boys running out to you and no litter. it was wonderful although some of the time we had to backtrack as wed miss a turning just wide enough for a cow or donkey cart to pass through,the problem is asking for next village ,saying it wrong dont speak lingo , going to be long ride home.but the villages behind uswere gone now and we were on the lastfew milesnhow this was the killer the track was only used by land rovers and the odd bush taxyit was bendy sandy hard in places bushes and trees overhung the road so if you tried to keep to edge you were lashed by these branches or leaves, and there not soft lush well watered things like uk they are hard viscius things and in shorts and sandals we got quite a lashing, i screamed on not able to look at scenery which was wonderful we could only admire when we stopped for last of water. every bit of it was photogenic,super we came in sght of gamby border where there was no fuss only surprise as id been days before to see a family i know from many years, the border cop was a mate of moses living 10 miles from me back home and i took his pic and promised to get it to him. we called on the family i knew the old man as he was 12 years ago has not aged a bit and the only changes to the mud house that they were buildingwhen i first went there was a corrugate roof, as leaves were to be replaced every year, the orange picker was there and had t2 small boys to pick up the stray ones that fell after hed hookedevery one off the trees and father got a few ds to get the next bag or bags of rice for the next month we exchanged greetings the son translated ,althoiugh the one i meant to see was somewhere in the village, i was longing to tell him he was on u tube talking to some people saying we love you all and no more wars etc i foget, armed with as many oranges as he gave us we left the sandy main street of darsalamy onto merrikissa where road was a lot better with more hard packed bits than before we finally got to brikama and the tarr roads again .down to junction after airport and onto coast road where i left my friend at the turntable(as they say) and i headed down to senagambia road and back into kersering nackered,i later got bollocking off his wife for being so long away, and told her were going to guinea next week, she said like xxxxxxxx. and she never let him out again.i was stunned at the performance of the little bikes and so good on juice ,unbelievable, i have the greatest respect for them now and2 days after wet to to see the owner parted with last 300 quid and was promised a good stable to next time inshala.

this was just one day in the life of methe m/cycle opened up new places to go and fast, ive sacked the pedal bike itsalso garaged.i never got around so much i can say its a good investment if your there a while but for a 2 weeker a push bike is fine for the combos theres a million stories to tell about ones adventures that cant be printed but you can enjoy this country so much without staying in any of the big hotels , look for the back street ones there cheaper and if you get a half decent compound you can survive there cheaply and your dosh goes to local people (corner shop etc) rather than the hotels rip offs.excuse the spelling and dots and paragraphs etc im illiterate yorkie and hope i havent bored you to death botsbob.

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Photos

the trip
crossing the river

Comments

[robert elkins]

pictures
im very sorry about lack of pics ,ive tried to load them for few days now ,but had to giveup , how the single one got there is a mystery but if u e mail me i can supply them to u gladly robert