All these hotels. Must be costing us a fortune! Well, not really. This one dearer than the last, with not a lot more for it, but at €38 it’s not too bad. We’d have trouble renting a tent site for that, in the UK.
So, only 140k’s today. A lateish start and we arrived here in Yamassoukro at around 2.30pm. It’s hot and muggy. 33deg and around 60% humility. The roads in I.C. are excellent. No holes and wide enough, with markings too. There are far more private cars here than Guinea. Infrastructure is in place.
Around 12.30pm we pulled off the main road onto an unsealed side road to make some lunch under a shady tree. It wasn’t more than 15min before there was a guy on a pushbike stopped behind us watching us having lunch in the back of Poki. He was on the phone and in another few minutes there were 3 then 5 then then 9, seemingly from thin air!! We had quite a laugh with one of them, who didn’t want his photo taken. I chased him up the road with the camera, the others laughing their heads off.
Something I forgot to mention, a few days ago we were camped in a compound that also had a water well. There were three young women drawing buckets of water and one was trying to tip the buckets of water into a 20L plastic drum. I took a funnel over for her as most was being spilled. Once filled, she handed back the funnel with a smile and then lifted the full drum onto her head and walked away without holding onto it. Now I don’t know about you but I couldn’t carry 20L of water easily for very long, let alone on my head, We have seen women, always women, with huge loads of firewood probably walking for miles. Even the young girls with heavy loads.
Yamoussoukro
Yamoussoukro, now the capital city of Ivory Coast. When driving towards it you are struck by what appears to be a massive church dome. On the site of a former President’s village, sits the largest Christian church in the world. Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. It’s massive. Designed by a Lebanese architect and built with the finest Italian marble and French stained glass. Surrounded by gardens and an ornate fence and huge empty car parking area. Information on the gate indicates that it is open to the public, but I suspect it hasn’t seen a member of the public through it’s gates for some time. The ornate gardens are looking unkempt. Estimated to have cost up to US$600m which doubled the Ivory Coast National debt. Mmmmm.
Interestingly, the nearby pure white stone Mosque, had patrons steaming out of it’s portals when we went past.
The streets are wide and relatively empty for a capital city. It has a town feel about it and to cement that impression, there was a goat sale market one block from the mosque, and the centre of town.
The hotel.
Three story’s high, the rooms are basic. The credit card reader wouldn’t work and manageress had a couldn’t care less attitude. While the room has aircon it was set at 16degC. The hand control wouldn’t work and when I asked for another, it wouldn’t work either. So we’ll regulate the cold by leaving the patio door partly open.
There is a huge mango hanging from a tree just inside the hotel gate. It’s got my name on it, to replace the one lost yesterday…:)
Also at the edge of the car park, a Cocoa tree with pods.
Tomorrow we will meet up with the others in Abidjan. These next few days will be pivotal in deciding our next steps.
Visits: 85
Same all over the world, lovely churches in poor country’s.
Good to see all is going well.
As expected our politics are hotting up here now, am sure you are both seeing it over there.
All the best for now.
D and N.
Hi Noel,
Politics everywhere a nightmare.
Great to hear from you. Glad you are being very good. Well you must be as I have had no bad reports…:)
Best to you both from us.