Home » Senegal Gambia » Africa, spring 1999 part II

Journal of African trips

Africa, spring 1999 part II

Agelasto
2004-05-21 18:00:16

Displayed times (last time: )

their cabs, one foot
on the clutch, one hand on the wheel while they hop along outside. As we sit and wait for
the driver and serpent to cogitate the problem, the French couple tell the widow and I that
we should bring our passports. We both have photocopies with us, but my copy is not
certified and may not be accepted by the police at the various roadblocks we are likely to
encounter. So we return by foot to the encampment, retrieve the passports. When we
return, the Peugeot is just firing up and the five bikes are being rearranged atop. It is now
11 o?clock.

We head to the gare routiere, where the driver buys a travel document from the police.
We are headed about 60 kilometers from Ziguichor through an area of heavy police
presence. We need permission to travel there, and we must be out of the area by 7:00
p.m. This is the site of some skirmishes between the army and the separatist forces a few
years ago, and sure enough there?s a roadblock not 5 kilometers from the city limits.
There?s a French-made tank, circa the Algerian war perhaps, at the side of the road, and
the police carry various arms, revolvers, machine guns, rifles, which seem to have been
manufactured about the same time the Peugeot was born. Our travel documents are all in
order, as they will be for the next five roadblocks we pass. About 10 kilometers from
Ziguichor the macadam turns to dirt, and in a few more miles the dirt turns to ruts and
sand. As the track worsens, the cycles show their disapproval and more and more noises
are generated from atop the car. Then one of the clamps loosens and the entire assembly
of cycles attempts to fall off, held on only by a bungee cord. We stop to secure the five
cycles that are piled one on top of another. For the remainder of the trip the driver and
the serpent steady the assemblage, each with an arm out the window.

...