27th Feb 2005. Po.

For the last couple of days I've been slightly concerned that a tropical spider may have laid eggs in my right hand. Bumps have appeared that are too close together to be mosquito bites, and in Mali I was attacked by, or more precisely saw, a jumping spider.

Today the bumps appear on my left hand as well and it strikes me that what I'm actually dealing with is contact dermatitis from a slight nickel allergy triggered by the poppers in my gloves. Phew!
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Ghana tomorrow! Africa update - It's very very hot and everyone is very very friendly. What did you expect? Sleet and frowns?

24th Feb 2005. Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.

We stopped at Sikasso in Mali for a night on the way. It's a long hard hot sweaty pain in the arse from Bamako. Every checkpoint and customs post is a sweaty hot waste of time. It's about 40 degrees and while riding you get blasts of even hotter air. Eyes full of grit and shirt encrusted with salt.

In Sikasso we saw two of the most repellent hotels on the planet before going to the Mamelon, which is clean, A/C'ed and has a fine restaurant with PORK!
The next day it's another painful 100 miles to Bobo, though the scenery is getting more contoured and slightly greener after thousands of miles of flat barren dust.

Thousands of miles of this

Doug and I decide on a day of rest. The food and Brakina beer at Casafrica is superb and Noel is a gent. We meet a guy who has organized a local football team called "Chechen Independents".

Otherwise we just sit and drink and it's very very hot and all quite relaxing. We have Ghana visas and Pineapple Paradise is less than a week away...

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Big Game Report:
Quite large lizards and huge butterflies. Doug is scared of lizards. Ha! Although I did go a bit John Inman when a giant* butterfly got caught in my jacket on the way.

*at least 1.25 times normal size
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26th Feb 05. Boromo - Sagou.

The FESPACO film festival in Ouagadougou means that the city will be full of every two-bit hustler, pimp, drug dealer and beggar in West Africa. We've met them all already, so we've planned to stop either side of Ouaga rather than in it. In Boromo we eat a "chicken" that must have been in its late 40's when it finally died of a muscle-wasting disease. We stay at a new place that'll be quite nice when the water's plumbed in. They have proper toilets and showers but they're for looking only. Unfortunately we don't know this and Doug commits a minor atrocity in the evening. By 10am it's become Fly Disneyland. Time for a swift exit.

It's 55 miles up the the road to Sagou, and the sacred crocodiles. They're 50 yards from my bed and there's no adult supervision.

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I've eaten four whole chickens in the last three days.