The Sahel

Sahel

We (Anne and I) are now back in Ouaga and I started work this week:-/ We had an amazing 3 week holiday starting in Ghana. Ghana was really laid back and we didn’t do much besides the beach and poolside.

The dessert (Sahel) up north in Burkina was our second destination. We got picked up one morning by Allan who works for the Danish Embassy and his Scottish friend Glen, and off we went. By late afternoon we arrived at our campsite – fantastic place with traditional Tuareg huts for staying overnight. Although the area is semi-dessert, the campsite was situated next to a lake, which made for some great sunsets. The first morning we actually went on top of a dune to watch the sunrise. Quite a few donkey caravans passed by, as well as Tuaregs on camels. It seriously felt like we had gone back 2000 years in time and the best thing was that these people didn’t seem to put on a show for tourists at all. This only added to the authentic feel of the whole experience. We of course went on the obligatory camel ride as well and I must say it takes some getting used to. I was almost thrown off in my first attempt when the camel suddenly arose and through me back and forth with much power. If nothing else I was the entertainment of the day and there was much talk about ‘Kathrine the rodeo rider’.

The following day, we decided to go visit another camp a few hours drive from ours. It ended up being quite a rough drive with many confusing tracks next to each other, thus with a great risk of getting lost. However, Allan had visited the area before and decided to bring a guide Ali. The other camp was next to a river and we stayed for lunch, which was great. On the way back we decided to take another road just to view something different. Our guide Ali was not quite agreeing and it was getting late. At this time of year it gets very cold in the dessert at night and frankly we were not well prepared for an eventual breakdown. We had lots of water though. Unfortunately, the road got really bad and we were pushing our luck with only a few ours till sunset. At one point, we were passing a dry river bed and the middle path was high with sand that had pilled up from cars passing by. Eventually, we got stuck. The car was more or less hanging in the air!! We all got out and started digging away with our bare hands, at the same time as worries were on the increase. To make it worse it was New Year ’s Eve and we didn’t have plans of staying overnight in a stuck car. We cleared the road and put on branches from nearby trees to harden the ‘road’. Finally, we got free and the atmosphere went from zero to 100% relief and satisfaction!! Nevertheless, we still had to find the right track back home and it was getting dark…….Ali became a bit of a hero from his 6th sense of direction and we finally reached our camp.

The same night, we feasted on a goat and even had champagne sitting around the campfire. It was great. The stars were bright and the air fresh. Other visitors joined us at the fire. Even our guide Ali joined in. Whether he felt obliged after the amount of dough we paid him for the trip, or whether he actually enjoyed our company, only he knows. It was a lot of fun though, and we corrupted his ways by giving him facial crèmes to try and an mp3 player for entertainment. I guess anthropology would have called it a cultural corrupted exchange.