Day 66. Koundara to Labe, Guinea. Thursday 23 February. 2023.

So, our night in the hotel wasn’t the greatest experience. Don’t get me wrong, the room was adequate but the luxury of a Heart Pump and 18deg temperature, died around 1am when the power went off. I woke from the deepest sleep wondering why it was so hot. We had closed the windows and doors to maximise the performance of the heat pump. The temp. was back to the mid 30’s.

While I may have dozed off afterwards, it wasn’t a deep sleep.

By 9am we had folded all the washing that was bone dry and headed away from the hotel. Jen managed to get a SIM card for her phone so we have communication of sorts with the outside world.

Tonight we are in another Overlanders haven, in Labe. Hotel Tata. It’s 6pm and we have had a beer to wash the dust down and Jen is taking a shower. We’ll eat in the hotel restaurant for a change as a lovely French couple, Jean-Luc and Annie, are here in their Land Cruiser. They too are heading for South Africa. It seems we passed them in Guinea Bissau a few days ago.

So, after the dreadful road yesterday, the road south out of Koundara was the complete opposite. A lovely smooth sealed road that lasted most of the 260k’s to Labe. Clearly no maintenance goes on once the road is laid. So that in a few years, the pot holes start to appear and only get deeper and wider. For the first time we have been climbing into hills, sadly the seal did not cover the hill stretch. I suspect the hills around 900m in elevation.

At one point we came alongside a cyclist. He was well loaded so stopped to ask if he needed water. He was Algerian, spoke English and was cycling to South Africa. Now there’s dedication!

I noticed Poki seemed to be making hard work of the road, so pulled over to change the air cleaner filter. It was no wonder it was struggling as the filter was full of red dust. We have two reusable K&N filters so the change only took a few minutes.

Some maintenance issues.

Over the last couple of months I have had to top up the coolant every few days. With the help of one of Adams strong flashlights I noticed some pink coolant under the exhaust manifold. A friend of ours in NZ had recommended we take a pack of black cubes to repair a damaged radiator. After dissolving a small portion of one of the cubes in hot water and putting it in the reservoir, by the end of the day there was no sign of a fluid leak. Brilliant, as we were getting low on the special coolant. I suspect a gasket leak in the fuel cooler. We have a complete spare but would rather not go to the trouble of changing it.

Adam must have driven all night as he is now in a town 120k’s further south and will wait for us there. Apparently it’s another dreadful road south out of Labe so will probably take us all day tomorrow to reach him.

I’m off to take a shower and we’ll eat in the restaurant tonight. Oh, we are feeling wealthy. Jen traded some Euro’s for GF1,000,000,000 so at last, we are millionaires…:)

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