Both of our nights were pretty restless. The soft bed where you needed an imaginary ladder to get out of the deep hole and the noise from outside such as traffic, honking and the muslim prayers were contributing factors but also the bad hot air didn’t help. Although the hotel provides a fan, it does not work after about 1 am when the city again plunges into darkness and all electricity is cut.

The weather was very grey with a slight drizzle rain. The locals felt cold as they were wearing jackets and pullovers. It was 24°C. We had a small breakfast at the coffee stall across from the entrance with bread and vache qui rit. Quickly filled our diesel tank at the Total station next to the hotel. What disturbed us most was the fact that the young lady who served us had a baby strapped to her back and both were constantly exposed to the hazardous petrol fumes.

We left Macenta on a very well kept National Road 2 to lead us further northwest. The road wound through the hills where low fog was visible between the many trees. It also rained once in a while. Of course we got stopped several times again by gendarmes along our route. They were all very friendly and just interested what two while blokes were doing in an Ivorian car that looked a bit different from what they had seen so far, on a Guinean national road. A small chat led to some good wishes for the onward journey and off we went again.

One gendarme however, although it was on the worst 10km we have encountered so far and it was very muddy and slippery, wanted to see our two triangles and the fire extinguisher before requesting the first aid box. All were shown and he was satisfied with what he saw.
At another gendarmerie stop under a big Mango tree next to the road a female gendarme was sitting. Her male colleague came to our window to talk to us. At a certain point she said loudly in Christoph’s direction “I like you. Marry me!” Christoph taken aback slightly by her words just showed his wedding ring to her. She replied with a big smile on her face “That doesn’t matter here!”. We left it at that and waved our goodbyes.

So far we have only met very friendly gendarmes along the route who only want to chat a bit and are curious. We have also noticed that every gendarmerie post has at least one female gendarme in their team.

The sky started clearing up and the sun started to appear more and more. When we arrived in Faranah, our final destination for today, the temperature had risen again to 30°C and the sun was out in full.

Our hotel was quickly found around 13:30 and two rooms visited and checked in. A nicely kept place with simple but clean rooms and ventilation. The bathrooms have a shower but no head, so buckets. We are happy though that there is water from the tap and the toilet flushes because last night’s place didn’t have running water at all and everything was from a bucket that was already pretty empty. Again power only comes on at 19:00. We then organised our dinner. As always in Africa you need to this preferably hours in advance as it is all freshly cooked for you. They lady was woken by the caretaker and we were led into her room to discuss the menu. The easiest is chicken with rice and sauce tomate. You cannot do anything wrong with that and they can prepare it fairly quickly. The price was correct and she went off to the market to buy the ingredients to start cooking. We shall report tomorrow how it was.

While Christoph went into town to find some drinks, I quickly checked out where a noise from the front left wheel was coming from I have been hearing from time to time since yesterday. Nothing found but I will keep an ear on it.
Some statistics: we drove 311km today and needed almost 6h30 for that. Our expedition is now already 1230km long. A little more than one fifth from Marrakech. Some more hard stretches are going to follow before we can cruise north!

My neighbour just returned and we started chatting. He is from Sierra Leone and here for business. His friend came just as the heavy rain started. A few minutes later he looked around the corner and asked if I smoked joints and held one up. I was invited. I denied friendly and wished them an enjoyable experience 😜. Only in Africa!

Addition: the dinner was ready about one hour fifteen late because the chicken was a real West-African fighting cock! It was very tough and hardly anything worth eating. The marinade was yummy though. The sauce tomate was as spicy as the colour! Very!