Tony is now in Senegal and almost at the end of his two month trip across West Africa. After spending a few days in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, he headed south west spending a couple of relaxing days in Bobo before heading to Banfora where he visited a waterfall, walked in mountain foothills and climbed inside a large baobab tree.
A long bus ride took him to Bouake, the central point of Cote D’Ivoire – country number 120. He spent a couple of days in local company before a short bus trip took him to Yamoussoukro, the countries political capital. Here is allegedly the largest Christian church in the world! After a brief tour, including climbing 11 storeys to enjoy the fresh air, Tony and his local host visited a few other attractive buildings before Tony headed to Abidjan – Ivory Coasts largest city and economic capital. Several days were spent there waiting for the embassy of the republic of Guinea to decide to give Tony a visa before he embarked on his adventurous journey across the more difficult parts of West Africa. A one day bus ride to the small town of Sipileu close to the Republic of Guinea border turned into a 26 hour adventure. This included many stops and changing buses three times. At one point Tony was put in a taxi but not informed of his destination! Finally the bus conductor took him to a small building at 6am and said “bus Guinea border” in broken English.
12 exhausting hours later, after bumping along on non-existent roads, Tony passed into Guinea republic and by midnight was at the small market town of N’zerekore. He spent one brief night with a kind host who helped him find a shared taxi which took him across the entire width of the country to Conakry, Guineas capital. This was another lengthy journey of more than 20 hours. Another kind African host offered him a hot meal and a comfy bed for the night.
The next day, Tony and his friend visited the Guinea Bissau embassy where Tony obtained his visa in less than 10 minutes and headed to find a shared taxi to Bissau. A journey that should have taken roughly 12 hours along reasonably good roads turned into a nightmare of a journey which in total took 50 hours!!
Once in Bissau, Tony had two brief nights in the capital before heading to his penultimate destination of Abene, south Senegal. In three days he heads to Dakar where the trip will conclude. Happy travels, Tony.
Hi. My amazing son. He is unique, have never met anyone who is so daring, adventurous and laid back. A one off! Tony is leaving the UK today with his girlfriend Tatiana, for a month of travelling around Japan. He only arrived home in Teignmouth, Devon, UK, Thursday morning, 13th April 2017. We have spent hours since then couch surfing, booking Airbnb, flights, trains and buses but have succeeded. His blogs only tell half his story but they are definitely riveting.
Aileen Milsom