Sure, We'll Stay at the Chief's House!

While living or traveling in West Africa, one must get used to waiting. Time is relative and life rolls on at a leisurely pace. The taxi guys that Anna called to take us from Koempoga to the main street were about 45 minutes late, so we waited. We took a car halfway to Sinkasse and then the driver made us get out and wait for another car. A car finally came and in Sinkasse, we found a van to take us to the Togolese border (after waiting for it to fill up with people of course!).

Why yes, that is a motobike hanging off the side of the car...c'est la vie

We are becoming quite skilled in traveling in uncomfortable positions

We negotiated 750CFA (~$1.50US) for the taxi guys to take us to both immigration offices (leaving Burkina and entering Togo). Thank goodness that we had legitimate visas because we were stopped by police even before reaching immigration.

In all of my traveling experiences, the visas for Togo were the easiest to acquire! In the main room, there was a large sign dictating the prices for each respective country. Further, after providing the 15.000CFA each (~$30US), we received a receipt-looking stamp inside of our passports dictating exactly how much we paid – no corruption here!

At the Togolese border, we found a bush taxi (normal size taxi that crams in 8 passengers) to Dapaong for 1.000CFA (~$2US). We wanted to stay for the Saturday market of this lively city, but alas, we were called to the tiny village of Goundoga, 22km from civilization, in search of a secret castle in a cliff (okay, maybe not too secret as we read about it in a Lonely Planet travel guide, but it’s definitely off the beaten path)!

The ride was beautiful as we rode past Northern Togo’s mountains and greenery. My taxi man asked me where we would spend the night. There should be a hostel in the next village 1km out, I thought.

“Would you like to stay at the chief’s house?” he inquired. Let me think…yes!

Road to Goundoga, Togo

The chief’s son met us at the local school to direct us to the house. The taxi men also arranged to our transportation as well – so nice! The rest of the night was spent talking to the chief’s family.

Goundoga, Togo

So there we were just chatting away underneath the stars in this tiny West Africa village at the chief’s house. Moments like these make life feel dreamlike, yet so real at the same time.

I'll Pay $134.70 for that Visa (Along with an 8-Hour Bus Ride)

Finding information about visas in West Africa can be a bit challenging especially when requirements are different for those living in other countries, travelers with direct/indirect flights, etc.

After checking government and travel websites with contradictory information, we learned and decided that it would be better and cheaper to buy our Burkina Faso visas at the border crossing between Mali-Burkina. It should have been around $40US.

While in Mali, we learned from our Italian CouchSurfing host that a "new requirement" upped the price of the Burkina Faso visa to ~$120US. Upper further inquiry, a Returned PCV stated that another recent upgrade made the visa cost ~$185US!

Sigh...at the border crossing, we stayed quiet and kind to see what would happen. The immigration officers actually spent much time flipping through our passport pages as we already built a collection of stamps (gotta love those passport stamps as a traveler!).

"For the three visas, that will be 196,000CFA," the officer stated without hesitation. So, that would be 65,333CFA (~$134.70US) for each of us. Interesting!

We were happy enough not to pay the $185US, so after the bus full of Africans waited for us to finish, off we all went! Finally arriving in Bobo-Dioulasso eight hours later, we were exhausted!

Mopti, Mali

First let me discuss the visas…

Djenne to Mopti only took about 3 hours by “bush taxi” (caravan car where they stuff in 20+ people), so it was definitely one of the easier rides here in West Africa.

At arrival, we walked next door to the police to renew our visas. The serious looking man and woman stared at us intently as we put down our bags.

“That will be 5.000CFA each,” the male police officer said. “Oh, we already paid at the airport,” I smiled back. The woman stated that was Bamako, not Mopti, so we would have to pay 5.000CFA. He proceeded to state that a group of Americans had just paid as well. “No, we already paid at the airport. You must be kidding, my friend. We can call immigration there if you would like us too.” When she asked for the name of who we knew, I pulled out immigration officer’s card. Bam! They finished our paperwork and out the door we went with 5.000CFA still sitting in our pockets. Hazaa!

Always, always get phone numbers of authority figures and know how much to pay for visas!

Now let’s discuss the day…

Thanks to CouchSurfing, we had pre-arranged to stay with Marta, an Italian that lived fifteen minutes away in Severe. After having a nice chat at her place, Lindsey, Liz and I headed back to Mopti to grab lunch (i.e. pizza!) at Bissap Café and to meet a tour guide, Ousmane, that was the older brother of Modibow, who we had met in Djenne.

Our pinasse (motorized canoe) driver was so ready for a photoshoot

Jumping in the pinasse (motorized canoe), we enjoyed finally being on the water! First stop was to a Bozo village. The Bozo are fishermen who work on the Niger River. It was quite a juxtaposition as one side of the river lies Mopti, a bustling transit city, and the other side lies some of Mali's poorest and smallest villages.

Bozo village. We didn't plan this typical-Peace-Corps-Volunteers-in-Africa photo, I swear!

We actually thought that the tour was done as we paid 12.000CFA/hr., but Ousman was nice enough to take us to the village of the Tauregs. A nomadic people, the Tauregs practice a mixture of Islam and animists beliefs. And apparently, they wanted to make us play dress-up!

Being Tauregs

Travel buddies...we like to wear colors here!