Ouagadougou, capital of my heart

Kevin and I are currently on our holiday vacation and have arrived safely in Ouagadougou, the capital of the fine country of Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). Tuesday morning, we got up and waited at the side of the freeway for a bus going to Sevare. The bus system in Mali is mind-bogglingly inefficient. No one really knows what time the buses will show up or how many seats they will have open, so you just buy tickets and hope for the best. When the bus came, they had oversold the tickets and we ended up having to stand/sit on a water jug in the aisle, but as luck had it, we were stationed right next to these two white girls who ended up being Peace Corps volunteers from up around Gao. We chatted with them the whole way down, which was nice. So much Peace Corps in our life lately!

We got into Sevare around 2:00 and took our baggage to the Mankan Te Bed and Breakfast, a nice little place off the road to Bamako. As much as we craved a nap, I needed to get my bank business done before it closed and we needed to make reservations to get to Burkina, so we headed out for a long hot walk to the BNDA (Banque Nationale du Developpement Agricole). To my relief, my wire transfer got through just fine and I got the money I needed.

Minkailou and Seydou, neither of whom I had seen for over a month, came and met us there and we went to Mopti together to try to nail down our bus departure. Arriving at the bus station, we got another dose of bus efficiency. First, the people selling the tickets had all left to pray or something, then when they came back, it turned out that the bus that was supposed to leave the next day hadn't gotten in yet, even though the man had told Minkailou just three days ago that buses left Mon Wed Fri. They told us we could take a bus from Sevare to Koro, then get on a vehicle to Ouahigouya then change there to go to Ouaga, but after some consideration, we decided to live the high life and rent a car. In the end, despite the cost, I think it was the best option.

The taxi came and picked us up at our hotel at 9:00 on Wednesday morning. It was a slightly beat up (as most cars are here) Mercedes 190. We took off on the road to Bandiagara, after which we left the paved roads behind and bumped along a dirt road like the one heading to Borko. It was hot and I felt sort of car sick, but all in all, not as bad as a bus would have been.

It turns out that it is not just buses that are inefficient in Mali; the border crossing was equally amazing. We stopped at what I assumed was the border, where we had to show our passports to the police, who in turn wrote down all of our information in their little book. They couldn't even tell which one of us was Kevin and which was Laura (I'm thinking, "Well, the one that's a MAN is Kevin..."). But we got through without being shaken down for any bribes. Then, another fifteen minutes up the road, we stop at yet another border crossing, where again we get out and have to show our passports, and again the guy writes down our information. A little further up, the driver has to get out and show vehicle registration (as he did at the first border crossing) and then a third time he has to stop about another half a kilometer up, not to mention the toll stop. Kevin and I are thinking, "Why don't they just put all of the checks in the same place?" but that would clearly be far too easy.

Driving into Burkina was impressive. The roads are well-paved with electricity lines running for kilometers alongside of them, and even the somewhat small towns we passed through had stoplights. Certainly a change from Mali. After 7 hours in the Boss Mobile, we rolled in to Ouagadougou around 4 and pulled up at our hotel.

I had made reservations, but they got the date wrong, as well as my phone number to call me. For a couple minutes, I thought we were going to have a real problem, but they shifted some stuff around and fit us in. The hotel is pretty nice, with a beautiful pool in a shady courtyard surrounded by African animal carvings. There is even wireless internet, though a lot of pages won't load on it for some reason (which explains why I am currently in a cyber cafe).

This morning we got up and went out to get our Ghanaian visas. Ouagadougou feel much more developed than Bamako. Nice roads, taller buildings, less trash, and things run more efficiently. We got our passport photos done no problem, then headed to the embassy. There, as opposed to filling out three different copies of the same form, they actually had carbon copies, and we got our business done quickly--should be ready for pick up tomorrow.

After getting back to the hotel, we both decided to get our hair cut at their salon. I was the first in the chair. The haircut probably took no more than 10 minutes, which speaks for the quality. Layers? Forget it. I was lucky that it ended up sort of evenly hacked off above the chin. Oh well, at least it's lighter. Kevin wanted his hair buzzed, which should not have been hard, but it ended up taking probably almost an hour. She tried going to town with the rasor first, but his hair just clogged it, so we suggested she cut it short and then buzz it, and even then it took much longer than buzzing should. It worked out in the end and it looks good, but Kevin said she kind of pulled some of his hair out in the process.

While waiting for him to be buzzed, I got a pedicure and watched the Last Legion dubbed in French on the TV. The girl was really overzealous with the pummice stone/nail file/foot buffer; basically anything that sanded off parts of your feet, she was a big fan of. I just had to tell her to stop when she pulled out the fourth sanding device. I prefer to keep some skin on my feet. That being said, my feet are extremely soft now.

After such adventures, we were starving and had some pizza, beer and ice cream at the hotel restaurant, then slept it off. We wanted to go swimming, but the water was too cold without the sun on it. We'll try again tomorrow.

Then this evening, in an effort to find the internet cafe noted in my guide book, we set out walking. We fortuitously ended up at the grocery store across from the big mosque, which puts any grocery store in Bamako to shame. So big. So much stuff. So clean. We could not for the life of us find the internet cafe, though. Where we thought it should be, there was just a surprising stretch of open space in the middle of the city with some weeds growing on it. We asked at the hotel, and I guess they razed that district. Ouaga development in progress, I guess.

After this, we are off to a restaurant which is apparently "unbelievably popular" and serves pizza and pasta. Never too much pizza.