nobby
Guest
wow, its only taken me half an hour to access hotmail!!!
so, i think im on part V anyway, computer doesnt seem to want to save my messeges. ho hum.
hello everybody, sorry for thr delay, computers been a bit scarce of late. i think i left you in banjul,Gambia trying to find petrol.
so anyway, managed to get some petrol after spending a day or two camped out at the station and headed east allong the north bank of ther gambia river. started off on tarmack but soon turned into gravel/dust/sand. good ride, great scenery (bit like northern australia,red road streaching away into distence, cutting the forrest in half). drove all the way to jangjang-burreh in a couple of days, camping in the bush at night. exotic birds all round and the odd person. wierd, people now speekingn in english, kinda takes some of the challenge away (and its harder to ignore the people you dont want to speek to). graham and mindert cought up with me at jangjang-burreh after i spent a couple of days lazing by the gambia river. also bumped into richard (english back packer met in banjul who was supposed to be meeting the two people i met right at the beggining in marocco in a landrover in a few days). anyway, graham, mindert and i left jj-b early next day, left gambia, went through senegal an entered guinea that afternoon. camped in bush then early start to guinean border formalities on really bad, rutted, sandy, bumpy etc etc road. bit of a proplem in that they wouldnt accept the carnet for the bikes, so wouldnt let us in. oh!! we thought. aanyway, after half hour wandering round getting food, water etc a guy sidles up to me and wispers that we should hang around a bit longer cos the big boss man was assleep and would be up soon. (well, at least thats wot i thought he said as he only spoke french). so we did and sure enough the big boss man gets up and everythings sorted. hurrah.
made our way down to cape verga on the coast of guinea, really feels like africe now, dense forrest, hand opperated barges accross the rivers and just generally cool stuff. camped in the bush each night and on the beach at cape verge for two nights (palmtree lined silver beach, village round the corner selling fish) and got completely lost trying to find the road back to the main 'highway'(well wot bit they had built, when completed it was just gravel and dust, so where they were still building it it was a touch uneaven with bits missig and non finished bridges). in the end we just followed a heading on minderts gps which took us through v small villages and allong footpaths, through dense forrest. great fun, people come out to see you pass, clapping and cheering.they all think youre part of the paris dakar rally (and have done all the way through guinea!!) mindert had a puncture, so stopped in a village to fix, people soon gathered to whatch and we began our scaring the kids trick of suddenly turning round and running at them whilst shouting. works every time and they love it, allways come back smilling to whach more. had a couple of police asking for cadaux, or a 'tax' at some of the roadblocks, but they were only half hearted and on the whole they seem really nice and friendly, as do the lokals.
headed down towards the capital, conakry, where were drove to grahams hotel (he likes the big posh $100 a night jobbies) and found it was the same price for 3 as 1 in a room. so mindert and i sliped grahem a few quid and stayed in luxury for two nights, where we did all our washing (the bath was never the same) and had several showers to remoove to past weeks muck. connakry was good, eat lots of street food and wandered round the markets whilst we waited for visas.
left there after a cople of days and headed north towards telemele on a piste (dirt road) where grahams rack broke (which we got fixed by a lokal welder in fria for a few pounds) and then he managed to sever his rear brake hose. so, back to conakry for him to sort it out whilst we continued on towards Labe via gualmine. spent 2 days on the hardest road yet, all rocky with large steep ascents and descents over steps, boulders and other hard stuff. fell off a few times and christened my aluminium boxes and also bent the pannier frame which we had to straighten with the aid of a large boot and an even larger rock. had our first taste of small river crossings africa style, either no bridge at all (wet) a couple of steel girders (slippy) or some not particularle even logs (scarey). needless to say, i ended up in the river at one point, but luckely mavis stayed on the bridge. few!! eventually reached telemele where i had the first of two (so far) bits of africa welded on the pannier rack (good job too). from there we bottled out of the piste to pita and took the 'improoved' (ie smoothe dirt) road to labe where mindert got his bike straightened and welded. real african bikes now. we then pootled round a bit, visiting pita, ditin, mamou, a few funky waterfalls out in the middle of nowhere and eventually met up with graham north of mamou for the road to mali. all this time we've been bush camping, which after the first few worrying night with wierd noises is cool. washing in rivers, filtering water from streems and generally entertaining the lokals. nice n back to basics, cheap and african.
bugger, just deleted the rest of this, so the next bit will be condensed as i carnt be bothered to spend another hour typing it out again.
once we started to get into the centre of guinea (fouta djalon area) the terrain changed from flat planes to hilly with vertical cliffs rising up to verry 'lost world' looking plataus wth forrest top and bottom. once on top of the platous they were rolling hills and lot of little villages of round mud huts and wicker fences.
weathers generally been cloudless skys, 30-40°c (used to it now, only feel realy hot wen stuck in traffik on the bike) dropping to as lo as just above freezing at night in the hills. but we did hav rain for a coupla of nights, but not much.
the most common form of transport here are wot they call bush taxis, which are basicly the most delapidated cars you can imagine that hurtle allong the dirt roads, even the realy bad ones that we struggle on on the bikes. each country seems to have a favourite make and model, in guinea it was the peugot 504, and they re clased as full with 4 people in the front, 5 in the back (not including children under 7 [genuine rules apparently] and always come with a roofrack piled as high as the car itself with atleast one person sat on top, usually 2. also incuded is a goat (probably strapped on the roof [still alive], maybe with a motorbike), several chickens strung up by there feet clucking loudly, and we've even seen an adult cow in the boot with its legs tied together and head hanging out the side, again, still alive and watching the world wizz by!!
hung arround the labe, dalaba area for a fex days,trying to get in touch with graham to see how he was doing, but the internet was verry slow or there was no connexion. finally met him near mamou at tha start of ther road to mali. hed fixed his brake and had more welding don to stop it reoccuring, but only after it had happened again! doh!! anyway wonder me fixed it with a bit of inner tube and some cable ties and its still working, several 100kms later. cool. righjt, lost ther rest of this again cos its too long so will send this now and send another in 1hr or so, till then tata.......
so, i think im on part V anyway, computer doesnt seem to want to save my messeges. ho hum.
hello everybody, sorry for thr delay, computers been a bit scarce of late. i think i left you in banjul,Gambia trying to find petrol.
so anyway, managed to get some petrol after spending a day or two camped out at the station and headed east allong the north bank of ther gambia river. started off on tarmack but soon turned into gravel/dust/sand. good ride, great scenery (bit like northern australia,red road streaching away into distence, cutting the forrest in half). drove all the way to jangjang-burreh in a couple of days, camping in the bush at night. exotic birds all round and the odd person. wierd, people now speekingn in english, kinda takes some of the challenge away (and its harder to ignore the people you dont want to speek to). graham and mindert cought up with me at jangjang-burreh after i spent a couple of days lazing by the gambia river. also bumped into richard (english back packer met in banjul who was supposed to be meeting the two people i met right at the beggining in marocco in a landrover in a few days). anyway, graham, mindert and i left jj-b early next day, left gambia, went through senegal an entered guinea that afternoon. camped in bush then early start to guinean border formalities on really bad, rutted, sandy, bumpy etc etc road. bit of a proplem in that they wouldnt accept the carnet for the bikes, so wouldnt let us in. oh!! we thought. aanyway, after half hour wandering round getting food, water etc a guy sidles up to me and wispers that we should hang around a bit longer cos the big boss man was assleep and would be up soon. (well, at least thats wot i thought he said as he only spoke french). so we did and sure enough the big boss man gets up and everythings sorted. hurrah.
made our way down to cape verga on the coast of guinea, really feels like africe now, dense forrest, hand opperated barges accross the rivers and just generally cool stuff. camped in the bush each night and on the beach at cape verge for two nights (palmtree lined silver beach, village round the corner selling fish) and got completely lost trying to find the road back to the main 'highway'(well wot bit they had built, when completed it was just gravel and dust, so where they were still building it it was a touch uneaven with bits missig and non finished bridges). in the end we just followed a heading on minderts gps which took us through v small villages and allong footpaths, through dense forrest. great fun, people come out to see you pass, clapping and cheering.they all think youre part of the paris dakar rally (and have done all the way through guinea!!) mindert had a puncture, so stopped in a village to fix, people soon gathered to whatch and we began our scaring the kids trick of suddenly turning round and running at them whilst shouting. works every time and they love it, allways come back smilling to whach more. had a couple of police asking for cadaux, or a 'tax' at some of the roadblocks, but they were only half hearted and on the whole they seem really nice and friendly, as do the lokals.
headed down towards the capital, conakry, where were drove to grahams hotel (he likes the big posh $100 a night jobbies) and found it was the same price for 3 as 1 in a room. so mindert and i sliped grahem a few quid and stayed in luxury for two nights, where we did all our washing (the bath was never the same) and had several showers to remoove to past weeks muck. connakry was good, eat lots of street food and wandered round the markets whilst we waited for visas.
left there after a cople of days and headed north towards telemele on a piste (dirt road) where grahams rack broke (which we got fixed by a lokal welder in fria for a few pounds) and then he managed to sever his rear brake hose. so, back to conakry for him to sort it out whilst we continued on towards Labe via gualmine. spent 2 days on the hardest road yet, all rocky with large steep ascents and descents over steps, boulders and other hard stuff. fell off a few times and christened my aluminium boxes and also bent the pannier frame which we had to straighten with the aid of a large boot and an even larger rock. had our first taste of small river crossings africa style, either no bridge at all (wet) a couple of steel girders (slippy) or some not particularle even logs (scarey). needless to say, i ended up in the river at one point, but luckely mavis stayed on the bridge. few!! eventually reached telemele where i had the first of two (so far) bits of africa welded on the pannier rack (good job too). from there we bottled out of the piste to pita and took the 'improoved' (ie smoothe dirt) road to labe where mindert got his bike straightened and welded. real african bikes now. we then pootled round a bit, visiting pita, ditin, mamou, a few funky waterfalls out in the middle of nowhere and eventually met up with graham north of mamou for the road to mali. all this time we've been bush camping, which after the first few worrying night with wierd noises is cool. washing in rivers, filtering water from streems and generally entertaining the lokals. nice n back to basics, cheap and african.
bugger, just deleted the rest of this, so the next bit will be condensed as i carnt be bothered to spend another hour typing it out again.
once we started to get into the centre of guinea (fouta djalon area) the terrain changed from flat planes to hilly with vertical cliffs rising up to verry 'lost world' looking plataus wth forrest top and bottom. once on top of the platous they were rolling hills and lot of little villages of round mud huts and wicker fences.
weathers generally been cloudless skys, 30-40°c (used to it now, only feel realy hot wen stuck in traffik on the bike) dropping to as lo as just above freezing at night in the hills. but we did hav rain for a coupla of nights, but not much.
the most common form of transport here are wot they call bush taxis, which are basicly the most delapidated cars you can imagine that hurtle allong the dirt roads, even the realy bad ones that we struggle on on the bikes. each country seems to have a favourite make and model, in guinea it was the peugot 504, and they re clased as full with 4 people in the front, 5 in the back (not including children under 7 [genuine rules apparently] and always come with a roofrack piled as high as the car itself with atleast one person sat on top, usually 2. also incuded is a goat (probably strapped on the roof [still alive], maybe with a motorbike), several chickens strung up by there feet clucking loudly, and we've even seen an adult cow in the boot with its legs tied together and head hanging out the side, again, still alive and watching the world wizz by!!
hung arround the labe, dalaba area for a fex days,trying to get in touch with graham to see how he was doing, but the internet was verry slow or there was no connexion. finally met him near mamou at tha start of ther road to mali. hed fixed his brake and had more welding don to stop it reoccuring, but only after it had happened again! doh!! anyway wonder me fixed it with a bit of inner tube and some cable ties and its still working, several 100kms later. cool. righjt, lost ther rest of this again cos its too long so will send this now and send another in 1hr or so, till then tata.......
