Burk Faso

Ivan had often talked about sharing a Mochito cocktail and now on our last night it looked like we would finally be able to do so. The glasses arrived and had the same appearance as the swimming pool after the dust storm, and the taste not far off either. Ivan was bitterly disappointed until I explained that the joy of it was in the fact that it was so typically African, a good effort but not even close to the original (cf. African Guinness).

	The border into Burkina Faso was the simplest and most pleasant so far, Tom and Laura had texted us the GPS coordinates of a camping ground with a swimming pool. On the road to Ouagadougou, Manuel sat up front with Jools, and I rode in the back with Ivan. It was dark when we reached the city after driving for several hours through a huge dust storm. Only with the GPS to follow would we have ever found the camp ground so easily. With a cold beer in hand we lusted for the pool but it was late and we all decided to wait for morning. I rose early as my clockwork bowls rang 6.30am, and after ablutions, checked the pool out. It looked like a murky soup and my heart sank, but the manager soon explained that the dust storm had filled the pool but by the afternoon they would have it cleaned and ready.

	Our initial plan was for just one or two days in Ouagadougou to get our visa’s for Ghana, but we didn’t bank on Easter. It was Good Friday and the Ghanian embassy was closed until Tuesday, and so visa’s were only available for collection on Wednesday. We decided to give up on Ghana and head to Togo instead, but after a days rest the full fatigue of the last six months seemed to come down upon us. Jools was laid out in the heat and humidity and whilst messing about in the swimming pool with Manuel, Ivan and Tom, I managed to put my back out and totally incapacitate myself.

Ivan and Manuel took it on themselves to look after the both of us and for the next three days I visited a masseur and took pills, whilst Jools did a lot of sleeping. Tom and Laura left for Togo and we arranged to keep in contact but now it seemed we might as well go to Ghana after all.

Our last night with the Spaniards was aptly spent at Bar Tapas. We had grown very close, all of us, over the last couple of weeks and had shared so many stories.