Transportation

We are now three days into our trip to Mali, and although we have not seen much in the way of famous sights, we have experienced some really amazing things. It seems like there is something exciting happening every day. We were unqble to get seats on the luxurious STC 24 hour bus to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, so we decided to use other means. We took a bus to Kumasi from Ghana and then got on another one to Bolgatanga in the north of Ghana. However, this bus broke down at about ten at night and the passengers all got out to stretch qnd relax as we waited for it to get fixed. We laid on the side of the road, with the bus behind us for protection. Soon, we started to drift to sleep and I awoke several times in the night to feelings that I was certainly going to be killed by the cars and buses speeding by. At 6 AM we were still lying on the road and went into a neqrby village where a very friendly group of people allowed us to shower and fed us boiled yams. We ultimately backtracked and took alternative transportation to the North of Ghana.

However, this night on the road was nothing compared to the leg from Paga to Ouaga. We hired a car which was rather slow and the driver had to keep stopping every 5 minutes or so to pour water onto the engine. We should have taken this as a sign. Instead, we continued on our way and were mid conversation when the car began to spin. We had no seatbelts and the doors didnt even open from the inside. The car spun and spun and I was sure that it was going to flip and that we were going to be seriously hurt on this very remote road. Luckily, the car stopped spinning and we were able to climb out as gas leaked from the tank. When we looked, the whole bottomof the car had fallen off including wheels and axle. No one was seriously hurt although it was scary to think of how it could have ended. We were qble to get into the back of a bus of people heqded to Ouaga and are now here staying with friends. Scary lesson in African transportation though... We have our visas and all for Mali and are headed there tomorrow if all goes as planned and there are no more transportation disasters. Should be beautiful. I wont have a lot of internet access out there so I will report later. Everyone take care and be safe. I am going to travel smarter from here on out...