Yesterday afternoon Christoph started chatting with the owner of the hotel we had chosen to sleep in for the night. He noticed big loudspeakers and other sound equipment and asked. “We will have live music tonight” the owner replied. “Until what time?” – “Ohh, until the early hours tomorrow.” Christoph was alarmed and rushed into my room to tell me. A decision was quickly made to leave. The only option was to go back to the nuns’ place we had checked out earlier. Said and done.

Arrived at the Catholic mission hostel we were welcomed and shown our rooms in the basement. Simple but clean and with shower, washbasin and toilet. My room was a bit damp but for one night not a problem.
After occupying the rooms, while the sisters, priests and guests were praying, we left again for some dinner we found in a restaurant nearby.

To bed early, as we had a long drive ahead tomorrow. Around 12:30 am we were woken up by loud laughter and chatting by the sisters and priests. It took them a while and some singing to get to bed and sleep.

This morning we had a quick cold shower, packed our bags, paid and left for Koundara. In town we turned around to fill up at the only trustworthy looking petrol station in Dalaba.

The first part of the roads was narrow and winding itself along the mountains. The quality was mediocre with large sections of potholes and earth. We came to Pita, the next larger town and found a roadside stall for some good breakfast and coffee.

We pressed on as we still had more than 250km to go and knew that the road wasn’t in good shape. Traffic was very light and got less and less. Mainly a few shared taxis and trucks trying to conquer the bad road surface. At a certain point after many kilometres of bad road surface the tarmac improved to all of a sudden end and give way to a Chinese road construction site.

The bumpy surface stayed raw clay for more than 25km winding through a valley. It was torture!

Once we had passed Labé, the people changed, having darker skins, the road signs improved and were different, the weather became more friendly and warmer and above all, the landscape rapidly changed from mountains to hills, lush mountainous forest to savannah style vegetation with high grass that had already started to turn brown again after the rainy season.

The road surface improved dramatically with only occasional potholes that had usually already been filled with earth. The national road 5 became straighter and with less inclines as we descended around 1000 metres altitude.

We arrived in Koundara early afternoon and looked for “Hotel de Ville”. From various channels we knew it existed but it was difficult to find without any signs. We eventually even doubted the existence and thought it might have been the French name of the mayor’s office. Between some bushes we discovered the name and turned into the street and their compound.

The rooms were not what we had expected but if you have no choice in town it has to do. The patron put freshly washed Louis Vouitton bedsheets on the beds and we are set for the night! Power is on between 19:00 and 01:00.

Since our late brunch we hadn’t eaten and looked for a decent place in town to get food. After checking out several places we found a tiny place run by a lady covered in a black niquab with her daughters. We had tchep with fish and two cokes. It was quite delicious. Tummies filled we returned to the hotel before a massive thunderstorm hit town.

Tomorrow morning we head for the border of country number three of this trip: Senegal 🇸🇳