After 4 days in a row of pedaling breathing dust, I arrive at Dabola pushing on the pedals helped by the impulse of each cough. Tired, dirty and sweaty, the illusion of a cold drink fades in the darkness of a town that eluded by electricity. Upon entering the first little shop, I soon realize that Dabola's refrigerators are as cold as an old wooden closet. Coca-Cola may be a devilish company when ti comes to its commercial practices, but in the absence of mangoes, its best-selling product, provides one of the most efficient ways of pumping energy back at the end of a long, hard day. The problem is that a Coke at room temperature on any given day in March in Guinea is as refreshing and tasty as quenching your thirst with a hot expired cough syrup.
As I wander the streets of Dabola dodging the craters on the road in search of my sugar fix, I run into the town’s priest while on his search of his alcohol fix. His is successful, mine isn’t. When I tell him that it is precisely in the churches where I’m usually offered a place to spend the night, he does not hesitate for a minute to invite…. ‘us’? Could it be that he already sees double or is he simply referring to me in the formal “you” in French? Judging by his glazed eyes, the stale scent of his breath, and the effort he puts into walking straight, I assume the former is true.
When we arrive, I immediately perceive that the facilities of the Catholic Church of Dabola and its dependencies are more consistent with the austerity of the times of Jesus than with those of the times of the Vatican. The hallways of the residence smell of confinement and cheap whiskey. Dust particles float in the dim light, shining in the fine beams of light that filter through the windows. The whole atmosphere of the room is a reflection of the taciturn humor of the Father. As he walks ahead of me, Guinean-style slow, securing every step, carefully feeling the walls so as not to bounce from one to the other, he shows me the facilities. Finally, he turns around and declares, pointing next to him to a room with walls painted pink and stained by moisture -this is your room-
Eager for rest, I decide to stay and rest in the lair of the alcoholic Father I never had. Like any expert drinker, he has learned to move normally through life and society while being permanently drunk without it being apparent to most people at first glance. He pays careful attention to the pace of his steps so that they are firm and continuous. He also watches the timing of his words to maintain a fluid speech while avoiding mistakes and prolonged silences. In his pocket, he always carries the 230 ml bottle of Sprite that he uses to disguise the elixir of the day: whiskey.
The next day, Monday, when the busy tasks of Sunday Mass are now behind, the Father invites me to go for a walk with him to visit people from the church in the surroundings of the town. When I step on the sidewalk, after almost two days of being indoors at the residence, it takes at least 2 minutes for my pupils to contract enough to be able see. Under the rays of this merciless sun I feel like a bat dazzled by the light of a flashlight. The Father has no better idea than to go out in the middle of the day and walk at the same slow pace as inside his house, but it is true that if he goes faster he runs the risk of falling. The truth is that it is not necessary to be fast either, since that would be more out of tune with the life of a Guinean town than falling in the middle of the street.
When we arrive at our destination we are greeted by a group of older women and, as usual, a battalion of girls and boys. The girls flirt with their smiles. They listen to music sitting under the shelter of a corrugated steel eave. Wrapped in their colorful dresses, they cultivate beauty by taking turns to help each other tying hair extensions to their real hair. Meanwhile another young woman shows up, raises the volume of the speaker to the verge of stridency and to the rhythm of the Guinean drums she begins to dance for my camera. She has just left her son in the arms of her mother to dance as if she had not given birth just two days ago!. The children surround her, following her pace and that of the song between spontaneous dance steps and childish mockeries. Father sits quietly on a chair that bends as if being melted by the heat. He gazes at us while sipping the booze that the devil poured in his little Sprite bottle.
It's all fun and if it weren't for the fact that the time and the calendar say so, it would be impossible for me to believe that it is Monday at 2pm. While in the world I come from, Monday is the most hated day of the week, here in Guinea people experience the same joy as in any other weekend. Under the view of the West and some societies of the Far East, they are surely lazy people whose laziness results in the precariousness in which they live. However, what my eyes see every day are smiles that reflect an innate joy, devoid of the negative aura that weighs on the shoulders of those who live in societies obsessed with productivity and the accumulation of objects.
A mouthful of fresh air
Right after I leave Dabola, I receive with relief the return of the tarmac and my lungs thank me for it. I am heading north, towards the Fouta Djallon region that I have been dreaming of visiting for so many years. In less than two days, I begin the imminent ascent to this plateau of mountains that rises above the plains of Guinea. Motivated by the immense desire to gain altitude just to see even a handful of degrees of temperature fall, I pedal almost without stopping to rest. By the time I arrive in Dalaba, at about 1,200 meters above sea level, I feel in a different country already. Not only because of the weather but because I finally entered Fulani territory. The culture changes, the language changes, the colors and designs of the textiles change and the religion changes. From a geographic, climatic, political and social history point of view, the Fulani of Guinea are different from those found in the rest of Africa. What does not change at all is the hospitality with which they win me over, almost as if they deliberately wanted to take over the space the other Guineans have already earned in my heart.
From then on, I continue up and down moderate slopes. The cool, dry air is a balm for my body. The scent of the forest has a purifying effect on my lungs that are still recovering from the poison consumed during the previous week. Now, the conifers defend me from the sun by extending their shadow onto the path where I pedal. Their leaves and their bark release the freshness that renews the air and suddenly I feel like I am riding an air-conditioned bicycle.
In just three days I arrive in Labe, the largest city in Fouta Djallon where the friendly priests of the local church welcome me to their residence. They don't smuggle alcohol in little Sprite bottles like the Father of Dabola, but at breakfast my eyes pop while seeing them dip their mayonnaise sandwiches in their mugs filled to the rim with coffee with milk until getting them completely soaked. When I watch them swallow, I think I need to drink a 2L bottle of cognac to get the image out of my head forever. If I were a Christian I think I would blame the Devil for the culinary tastes of these priests.
I leave there with renewed energy. The speed at which my body recovers just by reducing the intensity level for a couple of days alone, never ceases to amaze me. My mind relaxes more and allows me to absorb the present moment as much as in times of high tension. One does not realize how deeply the monotony of the landscape digs into the psyche until diversity returns to reactivate the senses. As I look at the mountains around me, dense in vegetation, the depressions filled with mist, and feel the fresh air caress my body, a tingling similar to that of coming out of an anesthetic runs through me.
The variety remains, but the rigour of the terrain becomes the hell that now I have to deal with, cycling up and down between craters, dust and stones on increasingly steeper slopes. I am grateful that I am cycling across one of the most remote corners of West Africa and the absence of traffic allows me to continue to breathe clean air most of the time. If not, I don't think my lungs would have been able to do it. It's a beating that lasts for two whole days, until on the third, at kilometer 70, Mali-ville finally appears up there on the horizon. It is the highest town in Guinea, resting on the slopes of one of the highest and most distant peaks of the Fouta-Djallon, at about 1400 meters above sea level. The view is sublime but I still have 5km to push the bike uphill to get there.
If in Dalaba, the first city of the Fouta Djallon that I arrived in, I felt in another country, in Mali-ville I feel in a world apart. The town is called ‘Mali’ only, but people add the suffix ville (city in French) to differentiate it from the neighboring country of the same name. There are many aspects that characterize it. It is the isolated place where it is, sheltered by the altitude, the irregularity of the mountains that surround it and the diabolical roads that lead in and out of it. It is also the magical climate and the uniqueness of having a green landscape in the middle of an arid region. But it is one particular event for which the town is known that makes the difference and that is its Sunday market. I have to wait 5 days until the weekend in a town where technologies of the distant future such as electricity only arrive for just a few minutes a day. However, I have assimilated the Guinean slowness so well by now that not only is it ideal for me, but being here becomes almost like a spiritual retreat.
I spend the whole week enjoying the microclimate, reading lying on the grass in the sun without being afraid of ending up carbonised by the sun. I find it delightful to just simply lie on my back, face up, looking at the blue sky that I already missed so much. I take a deep breath of clean air, imagining that this is how I purify my dust-damaged lungs. I am disconnected from the world thanks to the blessing of the absence of the Internet. I am surrounded by friends, because I make friends with the friends of my friends and their friends too. Here in Mali-ville everyone seems belong to the same big family.
Sunday finally arrives and when I get out in the early morning I immediately understand why this is the day that Mali-ville is famous for. I see the same town where I have been for the last 6 days now transformed into a massive market thriving with life. Commerce is in full swing, practised as it’s been since the beginning of time. Fulanis from all the surrounding villages walk up here to sell, buy and barter their products. There are fruits, vegetables, honey, flour, clothes, shoes, trinkets and the ever-ubiquitous cheap Chinese crap that have found their way here as well. Caught in a river of people that does not stop flowing in all directions, I need to wedge myself through a crowd completely focused into trading. I want to see everything and not miss anything. It frustrates me not knowing how to speak Pular to socialize with them and to be able to decode all the noise of conversations, haggling, arguments, disputes and gossip that resonates around me. I feel like the surprise guest at a party where everyone socializes, be it between groups or individuals, and everyone seems to know each other. I am the only one who is out of tune wearing clothes muted by dirt in the midst of this gala of multicolored outfits that tune even with the fruits and the colors of the umbrellas lined up along the streets. What an unforgettable spectacle to spend this day, the last before the last day in Guinea.
The relativity of shortcuts
The morning of my last day begins early with a debate among my local friends, about which path I should to take to make the descent to the border with Senegal. There are two options and neither is in good condition because it is such a remote border crossing that hardly anyone uses it. One of the alternatives is to take what they call the "main" road. However, this denomination isn’t about an official road that connects the two countries. On the contrary, it is more like a trail that goes around a long and intricate loop connecting villages and that at a certain point there is a detour along which one can reach the border. The other alternative is to take what they call the "shortcut", which to do its name justice, is no more nor less than a descent almost in a straight line of roughly 30km that ends in the actual village at the border. The point under discussion during the debate is whether or not it can be done by bicycle. Some say yes, others say no way, but what they don't know is that for me there are not two options but one: the shortcut.
To find it, first I have to climb even higher, up to 1500 meters high where "The Lady of Mali" is located. I’ve heard so much about her during my stay that I’m happy to have chosen this path, otherwise, I would have been left with the intrigue of leaving without knowing what she looks like. I must say it takes a lot of imagination to recognize the profile of a lady's face sculpted by nature on a vertical cliff at the confines of Fouta Djallon. Nonetheless, with her to my left contemplating the horizon from high above, I too pause for a few moments to reflect. I am probably at the highest point in Guinea. From here, in this miraculous spring weather, I can see below the plain that stretches all the way down until it dissolves beyond the Gambia River into the fuzzy horizon of Senegal. I take a mental photo of the greatness of the place, I bow down to the Lady of Mali to say farewell and a few meters later, I find the head of the shortcut where the descent begins.
From the first moment, the descent is imminent and the trail does not forgive. The steeper the gradient of the slope the more the brakes wail in pain. The rims screech, burning from the pressure exerted by the brake pads. As for myself, I’m in a constant struggle to defy the laws of inertia and gravity. I need to maintain my balance to the limit of my dexterity so as not to fall while dodging craters and loose rocks because I am sure that I will pay with a broken bone the price of a fall. My hands, moist in sweat keep sliding off the shiny metal of the brake handles. The more pressure I put in to brake, the faster they slide. It's a challenge in itself, in the midst of a balancing feat, to have no choice but to let go of the handles and get hold of them again as quickly as possible, over and over again to be able to keep the bicycle under control.
Every now and then I find relief on the flat terrain where the Fulani villages are. They are the only people I see all day in the solitude of this descent. I arrive unnoticed and leave a few minutes later carrying a trail of children behind my bicycle on the verge of delirium. They sing, they shout, they laugh their little asses off, they push the bike while they run, they cheer me on. Away from everything, in the shelter of this secluded slope of the Fouta Djallon, I have no doubt that I am the closest thing that they have seen in all their lives, to an alien piloting a UFO.
I try to enjoy the last views as I descend but the brutal condition of the road absorbs all my concentration. In order to appreciate them, I need to stop, but I can't do it as much as I want, because after more than three hours I have only descended a miserable 10 km and I’m beginning to wonder whether I will ever be able to get out of this mess before the end of the day. The progressive decrease of the gradient of the slope ignites the illusion for a while that the worst is already behind me. It doesn’t last long though when I see the road ahead of me disintegrate into a river of rubble where I can’t even stay on top of the bike any longer. Pushing becomes as difficult as in the mud of the Congo months ago. The difference is that here instead of sinking, I can't find a stable place to step on between all the loose stones to generate the thrust I need to be able to move my unstable 75kg-bicycle.
The journey so far left me with tendinitis in my hands due to the constant force that I had to apply to the brakes throughout the descent. Now, back on the plain, the sun re-ignites the burners of this hell and I have run out of water. I'm all alone. Sweat trickles down my body from head to toe. Every so often, a few drops manage to get around the obstacles of my eyebrows and lashes until they find their way into my eyes. The concentration of salt they have corrodes my retinas making them burn until to the point of blinding for several seconds at a time. In 5 hours of descent since I left the "Lady of Mali" I have pulled off 22km. Without a doubt this is the longest shortcut of my life. It's my last day and Guinea insists on keeping me trapped in the web of her slowness.
The rubble odyssey takes officially two more hours of my life in chronological terms but an eternity for my mind. Then, all of a sudden, a dirt road appears right in front of me out of nowhere. In my mouth I savour the most brutal memories of the Sudanese Sahara at 60 C, chewing the same disgusting white paste that is formed from severe dehydration. In an effort to avoid an imminent heat stroke, I get back on the saddle to ride the last 10 km until I reach the border village of Gadalougué. It is already the end of the afternoon and the magnificent Fouta Djallon lies now behind me in the shape of a cake sitting on a flat tray but dehydration does not allow time for poetic contemplations. I urgently stop at the first hurt I find to ask for water. As I gulp down one bottle of water after another I can see the eyes of the villager pop. I can feel each liter penetrate like a spring that irrigates the channels that lead to every corner of my body. We have all learned in one way or another at some point, that water is essential for life, but only when the extremes of its need are reached, can one experience with full certainty the relevance of this fact.
Several minutes go by. I am lying on a chair with my legs stretched out, immersed in a kind of deep ecstasy as a result of the hydration process that is taking place inside me. Meanwhile, I keep on sipping. Soon after, the villager who owns the house reappears. Before I can ask him anything, he offers me to stay there for the night at his son's hut. His fluorescent white smile is the same smile from ear to ear that Guinea leaves drawn on my face at the end of my journey.
Guinea in my heart
During that first day, as I was riding, breathing in dust, along a road flanked by mountains of accumulated garbage, I could not imagine the impact that the experience lying ahead of me in the rest of the country would have on me. It is true that Guinea has a very serious problem with plastic garbage, the scarcity of almost all material comforts and an immanent precariousness in daily life similar to that of the poorest countries in which I have been. However, time and again, people have captivated me with their carefree smiles, their easy laugh, their simplicity and the warmth of their hearts.
Women, doing justice to the consul of the Guinean embassy back in Bámako, have made me fall in love with the charm of their looks and the sensuality of their curves. Men, on the other hand, have always tried to ensure my safety and make each brutal day an easier and more beautiful one.
The slowness of Guinean life is offset by the speed with which people smile at you, lend you a hand and welcome you as if you were part of their family.
I am leaving Guinea with a heart full of caresses. I leave with a feeling of profound admiration for its people who do not complain, who do not lament, who have this uncanny ability to smile and dance despite the deep adversity they deal with on a daily basis. They do not know it, but seeing them live like this has given me lessons that no book or institution has ever taught me, and for that I will always be infinitely grateful.
