Monday, September 17, 2012

Kindia Part 1


This past weekend was a visit to a city about 120 km outside of Conakry. Guinea has beautiful landscapes and forests and mountains as you move east in the country, but being in the port at the western point of a 2 million inhabitant city, I had no idea that so much green existed. The main color scheme of our life on the ship is ocean blue and the dusty brown and gray of a city, but it took leaving the boat to realize how much I missed the grass and trees and even cucumber plants we saw as we left the city.
Though Kindia is only 120 km (aka 75 ish miles) from us, it took us 5 hours in the backseat of the equivalent of a Toyota Corolla to reach our hotel. It was so cramped I was actually thankful for the three police checkpoints, because it meant a chance to stretch our legs as we showed our ID badges and explained that we just wanted to see waterfalls. Thankfully, our guide, Ansulman, was great at making everything go smoothly, and his friend, Tiran (I'm not sure how to spell it) who was our driver for the weekend, was equally skilled at avoiding the "potholes" in the roads. I will never complain about Indiana potholes again. This car was practically off-roading at some points, and there was one time we jumped off the road through a market parking area and drove around a gas station to climb a 45 degree shoulder to get back on the road again. For anyone who says I'm a bad driver-I'm merely driving like I'm in Guinea. Here were my partners in crime for our weekend adventure.


Cathy (in purple) and Olivia (in grey) are two med techs on the ship and work just down the hall from me. Both are from the States, and we were laughing about how we've only known each other 2.5 weeks, and we're already going on vacation together. This is Cathy's first time out of the States, so we were all admiring how brave she was to venture out to such an unknown area during her first trip.


Petra (the girl who isn't me) is from Austria and is a radiology technician who works next door to me. She'll be on the ship for 6 months, and was gracious enough not to be offended when we made sweeping comments about our group being typical Americans. Most of the trip she was holding her camera, trying to capture every moment, and generally looking like a National Geographic photographer.

Our first stop was the hotel-Hotel Masabi-who somehow didn't have our reservations, but they were very gracious and helpful in adjusting the two rooms to fit 6 people. Everyone had mosquito nets and a mattress to sleep on, and the rooms had air-conditioning, which was rather luxurious (though it only had electricity after 7pm until 8am, which made the light situation a bit complicated for a few hours). The hotel has a common room that's open and sunny where you eat breakfast and can sit to chat or have a drink or just relax. The walls are filled with art-from fabric covered canvases to flowers made of dyed bird feathers, and it just had a relaxed, tropical feel to the whole room. Sadly I didn't take photos of it, but I'll try to get some from one of the other girls.


Ansulman (pictured above) majored in hospitality and tourism, and he's working on Mercy Ships during the Guinea field service as a staff development assistant. After Mercy Ships leaves, he wants to be a tour guide, so he can show visitors the beauty of Guinea. He's particularly fond of the waterfalls. He also speaks at least 4 languages very well (Susu, Malink´e, French, and English), and loves to say "Wow, wow, wow" at anything exciting or surprising or amazing.




After we straightened out the hotel situation, Ansulman took us to the Bride's Veil waterfall. It looks like a regular state park at first, with some well outlined paths lined with trees, but once you break through to the falls, it's breathtaking. I'm used to waterfalls that trickle (or sometimes gush) down the rocks, but this just falls from an overhang. Ansulman said that, whether it's rainy or dry season, the waterfall always looks the same.




It was hard to pull away from the fall, but we were all rather hungry, so we headed toward town. We found a Senegalese restaurant, and I ordered riz au gras which is rice with chicken and creamy mushroom-like sauce (yep, I ate mushrooms). I discovered I really like Senegalese food.


Everyone was pretty beat after our travel day, so we headed back to the hotel for some showers and sleep. Day 2 to come tomorrow, same bat time, same bat station.


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