Burkina Faso trip

Well it has been a long while since I have written a blog and the excuse is plainly that to write a blog takes time and conceptualizing of what to write. While life does carry-on without a blog, a blog is there to let you all know how my life has carried on.

The last month has been a rather busy month and has revolved around a trip to Burkina Faso. There were a number of reason for this journey, the main two were to get a better grasp on what conservation efforts and methods are in WA and assist Clark Lungren out with his efforts in Burkina Faso. The Journey turned out to be an adventurous one typical of West African travel and technically only ended on Friday the 8^th of November having started on the 6^th of October.

With books to read and luggage tightly packed into my back-pack I caught the bus down to Cotonou on the 6^th, and flew to Ouagadoujou on the 7^th. This all went well. To give you an idea of my travel path in getting to Ouagadougou I went via Abidjane in Cote d'Ivore, which meant a short stop at Accra, Ghana. My reason for flying was that I needed to be back in Cotonou to fetch a friend flying in for a visit and if I flew back to Cotonou I could be there to meet her. So since I was intending on flying one-way I got a return ticket, so this avoided the bus trip threw ground border crossings to get into Ouagadougou. This all seemed logical.

I arrived Safely in Ouagadoujou, Burkina Faso with my host, ready to meet me. He had his own WA travel experience that day having his car break down coming in to fetch me (and his wife who flew in from Canada the same day). We caught a taxi, got some supplies while we waited for his wife to fly in. After Fetching her we went off to his game farm (being dropped off by his son). We settled for the night ready to start the next day.

With some excitement in a learning mind there was a lot of things that I needed to do before this could start and so frustratingly yet helping I sorted out the library cards into alphabetical order in order to ease finding references later (this was supposed to have been done already, but hadn't due to lack of...). While doing this though I looked for references I needed to read through, ones related to West African conservation projects. I spent the next two days doing this and then the next 2 days starting to read through the material. I started to sort out the statistical data relating to the porcupines. So as you can see this all meant administrative, office bound work, which got too much for me. Along with computer work without electricity So I started my day with an hour walk around the property looking for birds to prepare my mind for the extensive administrative work. By the Friday I was rather tired of all this and so with being a bit disconnected and wanting to send a few e-mails off and meet friends in Burkina. I hoped to get into Ouagadougou for a break, planning on Saturday along with my host.

With little chance of getting into Ouagadoujou Saturday came. I was wanting to go into town for the day to catch-up but the day moved on past 8am, past 9am... the morning was disappearing i was still on the farm With my host having planned to go to town he eventually said he couldn't make it and so by 10 am I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Then while sitting taking the day as it came a French family drove up to the farm and took a tour of the place. This gave me an opportunity to get at least to the nearest town of Koubri to catch a bus into Ouagadoujou. Being so late in the day I thought to then find accommodation and spend the night. I had to find a place before the French family ended their tour and that I did. So with a place to stay I bonded with the French family in the little French I knew as they drove me to Koubri, they thought I was crazy. Arriving in Koubri there was a bus already stopped. I jumped on immediately. Now a bus in SA has a different meaning to “bus” in Burkina Faso. Although there are decent buses like that in SA. There are also buses which are an oversize taxi's or undersized bus. Like most transports in WA space is no issue and item of choice has a best fit policy. In other words everything gets loaded and overloaded. The bus I took proved the point, so much so that at one stop a cow literally got dropped off to be fetched by a donkey cart at one stop. I'll spare you the details as to what state the cow was in. These are the things one learns to accept in WA.

I arrived in Ouagadougou and had a great relaxing afternoon catching up with friends in town and abroad. Sadly to find out my Grand-mother was passing away, this dampened the trip, but made the little break in Ouagadougou worthwhile as when news did came of her passing I was more prepared for it. Further the office bound work iwas heading back to wasn't so daunting, my bird walks excelled and I saw some great sightings of some new species.

The week drew to an end on the farm and I had learnt a lot. I spent two days at a guest house to recap and have electricity and a flushing toilet. It was good to start getting things together before heading home again, so I thought. I arrived at the airport on the 23^rd for my flight to find no-one else on the flight and everyone else telling me that there was no flight to Abidjane. Contemplating this I thought it wise to find someone from the airline to assist me. I mean who wouldn't have a flight centre at an airport or even the airline itself having an office... eventually I got info as to where Air Cote d'Ivoire's offices were. They were 600m (give or take) down the road from the airport. So off I went tracking down Air Burkina's office where Air Cote d'Ivoire was. Eventually finding it and with 10 minutes to spare before they closed they started to sort out my dilemma. I was to find out that there was a flight I could standby on the next day but was guaranteed that I could have a flight on Friday. Being hopeful of a flight the next day to still arrive in Cotonou to meet up with my friend, I stood by. however this didn't work and I ended up holding the tickets for Friday's flight. Scrambling around for accommodation and trips back and forth between the airport and guest houses. I got to know Burkina Faso rather well.

Friday eventually arrived and with it a flight to Cotonou. Over the last couple of days I had contemplated catching a bus straight to Benin and jumping off in the north of Benin somewhere and then hitching a ride to Parakou. however having the tickets in hand I went with the flight plan instead. Arriving at the airport that Friday the flight was delayed by 1h30m and so I got to contemplate the bus idea again. By this time my friend had already arrived in Parakou and probably having a cup of tea. The flight to Abidjane took half the time it took me to go from Abidjane to Ouagadoujou three weeks prior, which meant we made our connecting flight to Cotonou. I arrived in Cotonou well after mid-night without my bags making the connecting flight to Cotonou. This meant paper work and more hassles. I got 2 hours sleep before I had to awake to get to the bus station to go to Parakou. Eventually arriving in Parakou at 15h00 I was greeted with smiling faces and a great friend! It was good to be back “home”.

Without my bag I kept thinking if I would get everything back. It got to Cotonou the day I caught the bus up to Parakou. Then sat in the SIM Guest house until it eventually caught its own bus up and arrive in Parakou on the 8^th of November. I was pleased and thankful to open my bag to find everything where I had packed it. Along with my Binoculars and Camera... Now to go birding!!