F*ck u googl maps! ~rob

2-sept-2011

Today started out early with egg sandwiches and good-byes. Katie's friend Kelsey was leaving and Chev was accompanying her to Waga/the airport. The ride out of Bobo was fantastic. Beautiful sweeping landscapes and fantastic down-hills. A top speed of almost 80 km/hr was even reached. We kind of felt invincible.


Until we realized that google maps lies.

Our ride, scheduled for 102 km, became something more like 130 km in a matter of instants as a result of faulty satellite points on the route mapper function. "Not a big deal," you might say, but as Béréba has no Post, and we arrived in Houndé (our lunch break city) after the bank had closed, some of us were obligated to stay there until after the repose (15:00, and "some of us" was Lauren and I).

While waiting, we cut the middle man out of a transaction of unripe bananas and ate some frozen bissap. Immediately after taking money out at the Post, I placed my bike helmet on my head to find that it had a lizard in it. We wandered the market and looked for mosques and Total stations. We waited by our bikes with some girls selling cashews. Pretty much the norm.

Shortly after 3 pm, we left on (what we believed to be) the road to Béréba. An early sign said there were 19 km til we got there. We continued on (what appeared to be) the main road. For (what we believed to be) 19(ish) km. But no Béréba. At all. So we asked.

It went a little something like this.

Bonjour
ehh.
Fo wumda mooré bi? (Do you understand moore?)
ehh en. (sure.)
Béréba bii yené? (Where is Béréba?)
biriba? uhh... (questioning look in eyes)

After about 2 or 3 such encounters, someone came along that spoke some french and had heard of Béréba. It went a little something like this...

same as above conversation but in french and the affirmative until...
Béréba? aaaiiah?!!!

When asked to elaborate, we were directed back in the same direction we had just come from. So we did a little turn about to get back to where we should have gone straight rather than follow the more travelled route (at roughly the 19 km mark from Béréba). We also started looking for cell signal.

Thankfully for us, we were picked up at the main road and probably only did about 20 km more than we should have (in addition to the un-anticipated google-maps added kilometrage). It was dark as we pulled in for some wonderful fried chicken and rice and sauce. Sleep tasted yummy.


Google maps says the next day is 119 km.