What a day...

Alright, greetings from Conakry. I made it here today all on my own all the way from Bintimodia. I was originally planning on coming down with some other volunteers but plans changed, and I sort of got stuck going it alone this first time. I'm glad though, because now I have a much better idea of how to get around in bush taxi's, and how to find my way around Conakry (more than one road? what!??).

So I left my village around 8:30 this morning, I wanted to leave at 6:30 or 7 to get an early start, but I waited on my front porch with my bags, watching the only road out of my village, and didn't see a car until 8, and didn't get a car to stop and take me the 11km to the main road until 8:30. Luckily, I got a car headed for Conakry on the main road soon after getting there at 9. It was a mini-van style bush taxi (This means three in the two front bucket seats, four in the middle seat, and 3 in the back row). I took this car most of the way, and it was relatively comfortable, since we weren't full to capacity. I made the mistake of getting in and leaving without first settling on a price with the driver - so I spent most of the ride wondering how it was going to play out when we got to Conakry if the driver tried ripping me off (I mean, I would already be in Conakry, so what could he really do?) luckily, this didn't happen.

What did happen was, after I'd been sleeping for about an hour (maybe on a large Susu woman's shoulder? I'm not sure...) we stopped and I was told we were switching to another car. We were about 3/4 of the way to Conakry at this point. I was kinda groggy, and had no idea why we were changing, but since I still hadn't paid for my fare, I figured - what the hell. We got into the other car (a much tighter squeeze - smaller car, 2 more people) and I realized this was as far as our driver was taking us, I paid him a reasonable fare (45,000 GNF) to cover what he drove plus what the new driver was going to do to take me into Conakry. The new driver took us the rest of the way and about an hour later, we were in Conakry.

I'd been in Conakry only a few times before, and never by myself. I knew the name of the general area I was going to (the name of the market closest to the Peace Corps office). My driver kept dropping people off and kept driving, and I just crossed my fingers and looked out the window for familiar landmarks. Eventually we got to the "end of the line" where he told me to get off and look for a taxi headed to where I was going (he didn't want to get off the highway) and gestured to where I would find them. I walked that direction, asking a few people for the taxi gare that would go where I was headed. I eventually found it and had to "deplace" - buy all the seats in the taxi to the destination - and I had the driver take me where I was going.

I recognized the market, but I knew the office was next to a hotel (or I thought so anyway...) so I asked the driver to keep going. We got past the hotel, and everything was unfamiliar, so I just told him to drop me off there. I called a volunteer I knew was already at the house, and she gave me some directions that got me a little more lost (she didn't understand where I was when I explained where I had gotten off). I eventually figured out my way back to the market I had recognized, and from the market I got my bearings, and walked to the office. All of this was about a 3 km walk after a 7 hour travel day at about 3pm on a hot afternoon with my duffel bag.

I made it to the Peace Corps house though. I since went to a supermarket and got mouse glue (to spread on a piece of cardboard to hopefully get rid of my mouse infestation) and some blue cheese (12,700! a steal for real cheese here!). I then had a sandwich with half my block of blue cheese and 3 "brochette" beef(?) kabobs from the market on half a baguette (oh my god, cheese! non-fish meat!). I've since spent like 5 hours on the internet here, chatting with Chris, Jeanette and Cate. It's so nice to have good, free, reliable internet!

Anyway, I'm going to take a break, have a shower (holy crap, hot shower!), and come back to this. I can always sleep in the car tomorrow (7-10 hour car ride tomorrow - luckily this will be in a Peace Corps car).