Back into Africa again I go, this time to the Ivory Coast to finish off a project and then the plan was to continue into Mali for a large project in the southwest of the country. And then the bloody Islamic extremists started waving their beards in the air and shooting people so the project has been put on hold.
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| Awesome view of a crater with old lava flows visible | How close are these mountains at 30 000’?! |
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| Mosaic in Abidjan | Many French-style boutiques |
But Martin (the current Chief Pilot – about to retire the position to his son who trained me at survey flying) and I left JHB on the 20th January for a delightful journey starting at midnight, pausing in Nairobi at 5am to ensure we were wide awake and unable to sleep, and then continuing for 6 hours on another flight to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. In spite of the lack of sleep the first hour of the flight from Nairobi was spectacular as we flew over the rift valley. I saw this volcanic vent from the air, the old lava flows clearly visible down the flanks. In fact, despite the fact that we were at 30 000 feet above sea level, the mountains came so close to us that it looked like we were coming in to land! I was on the wrong side to see Kilimanjaro but saw a very flat, unimpressive Mt. Kenya as well as Lake Victoria in the hazy distance. The flight back to Nairobi only lands at 5am, so it will probably be too dark to see Kili on the way back 
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| Shops and commerce in Abidjan | So much water here, perfect for watersports developments – if not for the fact that its in the Ivory Coast |
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| Abidjan CBD | Taxis – bright orange or green |
No sooner had we landed in Abidjan we were bundled into a car for a 4 hour drive to the country’s official capital city, Yamoussoukro. Yamoussoukro has very wide streets, but appears to be an old, run down town that used to be a powerhouse of the country but not any longer. Abidjan is definitely the economic centre and by far the largest city in Ivory Coast.
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| Never worked out what these were | Many areas of grass along the motorways used for drying clothes |
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| Market stalls in most small villages along the road | Hotel President, Yamoussoukro. Restaurant on the top – this is the posh section |
We spent the night in the Hotel President, a large, towering hotel in two parts. One completely separate section (a hotel all by itself) contains the rooms we stayed in and is marbled everywhere – walls, floors, everywhere. The cheapest rooms are here, presumably due to the age. Across the gardens and past a large swimming pool is a second even larger hotel block. This has the more expensive, larger, newer rooms with suites that diplomats would stay in when visiting. It has a massive restaurant on the top of a tall tower, and a movie theatre.
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| Behind the previous picture is the old hotel – marble everywhere and very old school | The main entrance to the presidential palace |
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| Basilica de Notre Dame de la Paix | Rice? |
The following morning we left again for a second car journey to the camp, 7 hours drive away. I was sooo loving sitting still for hours on end at this point! A few plusses to the trip included a drive out of Yamoussoukro past the presidential palace (not very pretty to look at, but standing in a huge area behind high walls and surrounded by a moat filled with crocodiles. According to a tourist website, one can feed the crocodiles with chicken carcases.
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| A few river crossings but quite a dry country overall | Quality roads – Zambia appeared to do much better there |
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| More village roadside stalls | A wide variety of items on sale |
Just before leaving the city limits we passed a structure that one website claims is the “largest Christian place of worship on earth!” Wikipedia agrees. It stands out above everything else in the city, is visible for miles around and is called the Basilica of our Lady of Peace (Notre Dame de la Paix) consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1990. It is regarded by the Guinness World Records as the largest church in the world, just beating St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome (or the Vatican City if you want to be pedantic) although it can only accommodate 18,000 people, compared to 60,000 for St. Peter’s.
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| Small shops or stalls | Some sort of rest area? Temperature in the upper 30s to 40s during the day. |
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| Must be a shopping hub in this village | One of a couple of lakes along the way |
The drive was long, and exhausting. I tried to curl up on the back seat to sleep, but the traffic, incredibly potholed tar road and consequential lurching and swerving from the driver made it impossible. In spite of the potholes being so bad, everyone drives at between 70 and 140kph and has to swerve aggressively to miss holes, often crossing into oncoming traffic who have to brake themselves, flash lights and hoot to allow you to dodge your pothole and get back into your lane before hitting them. And its the norm! Its not regarded as a near miss at all. Everyone drives like that – weaving all over the road even if traffic is coming the other way.
We were stopped about 6 times along the journey at police check points, and let through a dozen more. The driver explained that they are not really looking for anything specific, but if there is the chance they can catch you out with some kind of paperwork problem, they can “spot fine” you and that’s how they make money. He told us that every citizen is required to carry an ID card on them at all times and these cards can expire and have to be renewed. The police subsequently love to place road blocks in the rural areas and they pull over and search taxis and busses and try to catch the poor villager who is trying to get from A to B and has an expired ID card because he hasn’t been to the city in years and thus hasn’t been able to renew it. If he doesn’t have the money the taxi isn’t allowed to leave until money is found. Often the other occupants have to chip in to help pay the fine just to get going again. And at the next roadblock he can get caught again and so it goes on. Bastards!
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| Sneaky pic of a roadblock – red and white striped bar on ground is the spike strip | Distance boards along the road – looking very new and out of place |
The roadblocks are simple but effective. A barricade of tyres with just enough space for a single vehicle to pass through, and across that gap they lay a spike strip on caster wheels that they can pull out of the way to let you pass. No-one is getting past them. Added to which they all carry AK47s. But there are so many police at each road block, so it must be a lucrative venture.
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| At one roadblock this lady offered us a cane rat for dinner – its the size of a cat! | “The wife said, ‘You make sure you’re home by 5 – NO EXCUSES!!’” The taxi was bouncing along at about 70kph! Don’t know how he could hang on |
UN trucks and vehicles are everywhere, apparently the Pakistan military can’t pay their soldiers so they send them all here where the UN pays their salaries, so most of the UN vehicles are filled with Pakistanis.
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| UN vehicles everywhere – we passed a UN camp too. All driven by Pakistanis | Local soldiers on the back with AKs |
We passed a few large trees absolutely sagging under the weight of thousands of bats – about the size of a guinea fowl.
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| Tree loaded with massive bats |
I noticed that there didn’t appear to be as many schools along the roads as in Zambia, but there must have been a small village every few kilometres of road – literally every few kms! Each village had a “cemetery” section at the start and end of it and the gravestones were more like tombs. Many had roofs and pillars! Quite extraordinary for a tiny rural village in the middle of nowhere. And the graves were always more or less along the side of the roads.
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| Just a few tombs next to a village – always going too fast to get pics of more populated cemeteries | Many far larger and more elaborate than these – I tried so hard to get pics but too blurred |
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| Arrival in Dioradougou where the exploration camp was | A proper rural village |
Anyway, long drive, finally arrived in the middle of nowhere in a small village containing a prospection camp which was where the helicopter had been operating from for the survey work. Apparently the survey crowd have been looking for gold, drilling core samples (long tubes of rock drilled out of the ground and then studied and sampled for gold content – it tells them where to start mining, essentially). I was pleased to see I had my own room (with real walls!) en suite bathroom and desk. Niiiice!
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| My room – luxurious |
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| No hole in the ground for me! | The drilling cores in racks, waiting to be logged and then sampled |
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| Front entrance to the exploration camp | More mud huts surrounding the camp |
It was, however, basic and built and set up for drillers so the kitchen mostly cooked local food although the chef did give us food we were more familiar with, thankfully. But the French evidently don’t do vegetables. I haven’t seen any salad or veggies other than a few slices of tomato and some tinned peas in a week. But plenty bread and butter. Very very dusty and with the wood fires used to heat the shower water my bed was constantly showered in ash and dust which made its way through the tin roof of my room.
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| Dust and ash covering everything | True to form I made friends quickly |
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| Very cute and excited puppy of one of the local hired staff | Unusual butterfly |
The village we were in was a busy one with a water pump in the centre that women and kids filled containers of borehole water from. It had a school and plenty kids and of course with the African Cup of Nations in full swing people were glued to their TVs and when Ivory Coast had a match the cheering and screaming from various homes or shebeens was very similar to what one would hear in SA – thankfully no vuvuzelas! These people were far more civilised than that! After every match the kids would pour out from everywhere and start up a game of soccer on their dusty soccer field, or take turns kicking at goal.
The flying was VERY different to Zambia. Here the terrain was very hilly – with hills climbing 2000 feet very suddenly and flying the loop as close to the ground as possible but ensuring the climb was started soon enough to make it over the mountain ahead proved quite a trick. I was sweating like a madman on my first day, with Martin sitting next to me telling me to go lower and not climb too early. Yeah right! I just saw granite staring me in the face – and I still had to get the loop, 200 feet below me, over the hill. When he forced me to keep low and accelerate towards the mountain until I was convinced he was a Japanese fighter pilot from WW2 in a previous life and we were going to make a little “splat” mark on the rocky face, he then told me to “pull power, don’t be so gentle” and we skimmed over the crest so I could start breathing again and my poephol could release its grip on the seat. Not for sissies!
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| The remoteness of the village – very close to the border to the northwest of the country | The soccer field slightly above centre was where the helicopter operated from. The exploration camp barely noticeable amongst the village houses to the right |
And knowing my luck it was inevitable that something would go wrong – and indeed it did. I flew a day and a half with Martin until he was confident I could handle it all by myself (at least one of us was! 
) and lo and behold, the first flight I did on my own, the loop folded spectacularly. Thankfully I really don’t think I had a specific hand in it. I was just beginning the descent to land and wasn’t going too fast. With a big bump and shudder I looked below me and saw a pretzel in the mirror where moments before there had been a circle. It broke two sections of the tubing and took a day to rebuild.
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| The correct shape of the loop | The incorrect shape… ouch! |
But we finished the job the following day and packed up and flew the chopper back to Yamoussoukro where we have left it until Mali calms down. I am back in Abidjan at the moment, waiting for my flight back to SA this evening, leaving at 20h30 (another sleepless night) and hopefully not a long wait until I am sent up to Saudi Arabia to help with the project there. I do hope that the loop is built correctly this time and behaves itself during my time there….
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| How porno is the passage to the rooms of my hotel in Abidjan?! Freeman Hotel | The room inside is quite tidy – with a small walk in closet |
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| View from my window – most of the cars are taxis | Pretty restaurant we went to dinner to last night |
