10/9

So were back in Cees, we got back today at around 6ish after our 12 hour bob Marley filled adventure. We left the Kedougou regional house at around 7am so as to make decent time. Unfortunately as we found out on the ride down, the section between tambacounda and kaoulac is the worst so you have a fairly pleasant ride at the start of the trip and you begin to think it might not be that bad. Well then you hit Tamba and the shit show starts. I dont think ive ever been on roads as bad as this as i said before and have never been so happy to have a land cruiser, even if Mamadou likes to drive rather fast. weve come to the conclusion that hes the head henchman for the peace corps transportation and was the driver for us on our ride out from the airport in Dakar. The honking patterns are roughly the same so were fairly sure hes one and the same. But with Mamadou comes the inevitable bob marley tapes. a great tape i will say, but when played on repeat for 11 hours on the way down it got a little old. So on the way back up it had really worn out its welcome for the rest of the car. Im just glad that i like Marley in the first place. Other then that and the on huge pot hole we nailed, the ride was fairly uneventful.
Since we left so early we stopped at about 8ish at a little village along the road for some bean sandwiches and bread. THats one thing that the french did a damn good job of teaching the Senegalese how to do, was bake bread. I bought 2 kinda half baguettes for 200Cfa and they were delicious. The way it works here, which appears to be fairly universal is you can generally buy bread and they have some kind of sauce to put on it, generally chocolate, butter, mayonnaise-ie stuff, or beans. Its a pretty good deal and is really tasty. I basically have this for breakfast in pout every morning with a cup of Nescafé. I was glad i bought the two and saved half of one for later in the ride because we didn't stop for lunch till late so i was held over by the delicious bread.
In Kaoulac where we stopped for lunch and to drop off a PCV who had hitched a ride with us from the Regional house, we ran into the bus that was coming back from south of the Gambia. I guess their experience crossing into the Gambia on the way down scared them off for the return and they left a day early and went around the Gambia instead. They seemed really happy to have been in that bus for so long. THey did have nice AC which we really didn't have so that was some sort of a trade off. We had burgers again for lunch which sounds good, and was, just not really your normal idea of a burger as i mentioned. I had one for dinner at Big Faim as well. but everywhere i've had them here thats the norm.
So after lunch we took off again and made good progress. We made two stops after this where the driver mamadou bought corn and watermelon for his family just at the side of the road, and then again stopped to buy a bag a charcoal for his wife. It was an interesting experience, all these people shoot up to the cart with everything they're trying to sell and stick it in the car yammering at you in woolof, pullar, or the local lang. Its very very interesting. After they realize were not the ones buying anything and we dont really speak any of their lang, the splotchy french comes out where they want the bikes on the rack or something else we have. I swear between bonjour, @ anytime of the day or night, and toubab, they all know give me your bike in french. Its a riot. we get it a lot in Pout as were biking to class, but i was hearing it today as we were driving through some of the towns we were passing through.
After these little pit stops though the bumpy journey continued and concluded without any further incident. Once we were back the normal catching up with the other volunteers took place. i think we were the second or third group back from our PCV site visits. I had to organize all the dirty laundry i had accumulated over the past week or so so i will be able to do them tomorrow morning. Because i was busy trying to sort out all my stuff, George Carlin is coming to mind when i think about stuff, i missed everyone heading out to get dinner. I guess they weren't sure what time everyone was going to get back so there wasn't dinner for us tonight. So i hoofed it into Cees after the organizing and made it to big fam right as most everyone was getting ready to leave. I chilled with Darren and Chris who were sticking around for a little while and ate my burger Royal 2 cokes and a particularly good piece of chocolate cake. Yea i splurged a bit i never eat that well in Pout. Big Fam is a neat little restaurant, its got Wi Fi and AC so it really was a splurge. Cant get used to that as there's nothing like that in Kadougou!
RIght now im just writing a little bit and downloading all my pics from my trip down south. everyones pretty beat tonight, travel has the tendency to do that and being cooped up for 12 hours in the back of a bumpy land cruiser will defiantly do that. I figure with tomorrow being basically a technical day with no language, i can afford to run in the morning and then do laundry before class starts @ 8. The track and soccer field is a great little work out even if i feel like im losing 10lbs of water running. Ill just have to remember to pound water like its my job this time because i didn't do that last time and felt like crap. Pretty sure that was dehydration kicking my ass.