Wallis On Wheels Big Bicycle Adventure

After taking a few more days off than planned at my friend’s house in Brufut it was a reluctant departure, a feeling I had experienced before after being surrounded by the comforts a standard house has to offer. Heading of into the unknown, not sure of where the next nights accommodation will be. Nearing the end of the day the small town of Bwiam appeared to be a good stop. Needing to post two post-cards back to blighty I stopped at the post-office. Asking the guy behind the counter if there was somewhere in town that I could pitch my tent he replies “you can sleep in here”. Having slept in some unique places so far on the tour a post-office certainly takes poll position! For the next few hours Justin and I, along with friends coming and going sat at the front of the post-office watching the world pass by. Justin’s friend, Sainey, asked of my plans for the next night, saying his brother’s friend, Omar, was serving in the army at my proposed town, Farrafeni, and could put me up for the night. A quick phone-call and it’s arranged.



 Several miles after Bwiam the smooth tarmac road of the [as marked on the map] “Trans-Gambian Highway” just ended, I guess they ran out of tarmac…and money. This slowed my speed down to 7-8 mph, cautiously navigating wash-board sections, holes, sand, along with dust-showers as vehicles rattled past. At this speed I’d be arriving at Farrafeni several hours after dark, not a wise choice as there’s no street-lights and my bike light gives only limited illumination, not ideal for the state of the road I was on, so called it a day, after just 34 miles, at the river village of Tendaba.
The following day the road was the same all the way to Farrafeni, another slow going 34 miles of bumpy dusty “Trans-Gambian Highway”. Normally in the heat of the day I’d be drooling for a pint of ice cold beer, but here all I drooled for was some tarmac!






"Toubab! Toubab!" A word I soon got used to hearing shouted by the kids as I passed by, of which had started back in Senegal. It means ‘white-man’, with the following word normally being ‘Cadeaux’, which means ‘gift’. (This brings me to a literature T-junction, the L.H. turning being The Politics of African gift-aid, but let’s take the R.H turn and continue with blog post!!)





As the Gambia is such a small country with a population of only 1.7 million there’s always someone that knows someone in the neighbouring town. This was the case for my entire accommodation through the country. Omar new someone in the village of Wassu, a place I wanted to stop at to see the UNESCO World Heritage site listed stone circles. Here Demba showed me the town, along with the stones. These date back to 750AD, not as big as UK’s Stone-Henge but they cover a large area, many circles of stone columns dotted around the place, no one sure exactly what they represent but believed to be part of a burial service for important figures of the time.


The town’s people of Wassu were extremely proud of their vegetable allotment, of which Demba wanted to show me. This was a visually refreshing green site. A large fenced of area with 20-30 ladies busy caring for their crops and planting new ones. The lady in this picture thought it would be funny to see the Westerner pulling water from their well, little did she know I have recent training!

Inside the family compound, with my tent on the LH side. A ‘compound’ is the family’s fenced-off plot of land, containing huts where each of the family members live, children, parents and grand-parents, goats, chickens and donkey’s.


I just love their mulit-coloured kettles and buckets, seen from the start of Africa in Tangier. Before a Muslim commences praying, hands and feet are cleaned, the kettles being the standard way of pouring the water. Although in The Gambia Islamic isn’t such a big issue and the religion doesn’t ‘control’ their life to the extent as in Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali. It’s just a shame said countries don’t ‘cleanse’ their land better by containing the rubbish, oops, started to go down the L.H turn there I think, back to the blog-post…

Demba had a friend in Bansang, another Omar. Although only 25 miles further down I was getting comfortable with this hospitality so thought I’d have a short day. This gave me time to clean the bike and clothes and relax. Omar was a trainee nurse, on a 2 year course. I stayed with him in the hospital’s college accommodation block. That evening Omar showed me around the hospital. A sorry state for a hospital, built back in the 30’s by the British with brick-work now falling down and I need or surgery itself. But still the workers stand proud of what they have. The eye surgeon showed me around his department, equipment from the early 90’s. Similar to the night in Western Sahara spent at the telephone mast, a feeling of guilt sets in over what differences we have between our lives.



Even up to the last easterly village of The Gambia, Omar (from Farrafeni) was working his hospitality magic. He new a student at a small boarding school and managed to ‘book’ me a room for the night. One advantage of my tent, as there were mosquito’s in the room I can pitch just the inner fly-sheet, this fitted perfectly on-top of the mattress.







Cycling through The Gambia was a pleasure. The people couldn’t have been any friendlier. I had a check-point official asking to copy ‘my phone numbers’ he had seen in my passport so he could be my friend, it took some explaining that these were in-fact emergency phone numbers for anyone to call, should there be an accident, not my phone number. On the day I headed toward Bwiam a road construction chap called me over wanting to exchange emails, so I gladly obliged. Every man and his dog (or donkey around here!) wanted to be your friend. All of the people who accommodated me said they would like to see me again, it would be great to return for a fortnights holiday, catching the ‘bush-taxi’ from town to town, bumping down the Trans-Gambian Highway to see them all again, maybe seeing some other poor cyclits covered in a shower of dust, but from here-on it's back to Senegal…



Being stamped out of The Gambia gave no problems, but with no Senegal border patrol my re-entry into the country was not registered and gave slight concern. Upon reaching Tambacounda I called in the police station to explain matters, they didn’t seem too bothered and gave reluctant information, saying I should go to the ‘BSM’ building, or somewhere, just down the road. I looked for it but gave up after 5 minutes, frustration of my limited French proving too much hassle, deciding to blag my way out of any trouble at the border, in Kidira.


The Senegal / Mali border town was a two day ride from Tambacounda, a town that looked like it had been sprinkled with the contents of a huge Hoover bag, dust and sand down every road, along with the plastic bags and usual litter.

Upon arriving at Kidira I made use of another road-side restaurant stall. My staple diet had become omelette filled baguette with a coffee. I could always see which of the stalls made omelette as there would be a stack of egg trays on the table. For the coffee instead of using powdered milk it can be served with sweetened condensed milk, which is basically liquid sugar, excellent for glucose levels, and hence energy. Moving on to the border post the barrier was down but with no one around, the office was set back down a gravel embankment with truckers ambling around at the front. With a pedestrian gap at the side of the barrier I thought I’d just carry on cycling, a gingerly, part guilty pace, like a mouse creeping past the sleeping cat, edging closer to the river border bridge, expecting to hear cries of “Monsieur, Monsieur!!” but nothing. Moments later I'm in Mali, African country #5.

The first building on Mali soil had a several people at the front, one of them calling me over. Naturally assuming he was a border official I take out my passport, and cash ready to pay for the visa, but no, this was just a post-office with a welcoming Mali post-man. Asking where the border patrol office was I cycled a km down the road. My West Africa guide book says the visa is 15,000 francs at the border and is valid for five days and can be extended in Bamako, the capital. This official said he would issue a month visa there and then for 15,000 francs plus his 9,000 ‘tip’. Giving him two 10,000 bills (do the sums!) he stamped my passport and gave me the month’s visa, two minutes of time and no problems, welcome to Mali! Getting to Bamako in five days from Kayes, the first main town, for the visa extension would have proved difficult so paying the 5000 ‘tip’ (£6) was money well spent.

The main road to Kayes had a manned toll barrier, one of the men indicated for me to skirt around the side of the barrier on a service vehicle slip. The man offered me a chilled bag-of-water of which I declined as I filled all my bottles in Kidira, Senegal. Continuing around the building another guy [in wait] collared me and said I had to pay for a ticket, he wanted 15000 francs (£18!!) I laughed out loud at his suggestion with an almost W.T.F tone, realising now the bag-of-water was (would have been) a priming ‘free-gift’ for their trap. Seeing the vehicle toll-rate sign I started to walk towards it to check vehicle fee's, shouting at me to come back but continuing to the sign, at this the second man now also new what I was doing and said "ok, ok, continue". (There’s a fine line between greed and stupidity, they clearly preferred to bathe in the latter)


Kayes was 85Km away, too far so realised I’d have to ask at a village if I could stay the night. Finding one after 25km. I was led to the compound and found a spot for the tent, the kids found it fun, toubab in their compound. Later an old lady came over and said she had pains from a bad knee, wondering what she wanted me to do I sympathized with her. Then later yet another lady said she had a headache, only now did I realise they were actually after paracetamol tablets, only carrying a few for my emergencies I declined.

As dusk was falling two men and some children came over and started implying their children need bicycles to go school (here we bloody go!). One of the guys was caressing my bicycle, squeezing the handle-bar foam, checking tyre pressure, pushing down on the saddle’s springs, unable to stop staring at it. He kept making suggestions that I could give it to him, quite an uncomfortable situation. I just wanted to relax in my tent and eat some food but now felt like packing up and going, but dusk prevented this, I tried to stay calm and smile. It annoys me, assuming toubab has an endless supply of money to throw at every road-lined tom, dick and harry. The lady held out some cash to ensure what they were after was clear, struggling to explain in pigeon-french my ride is also to raise money for charity I said it was for the Against Malaria foundation, hoping this may seem more beneficial to them than the World Wildlife Fund, most of them wouldn’t have a clue what this is and trying to explain would take hours. I was now paranoid about the bike’s security so locked it to the tent’s frame. In the morning to avoid children (and parents!) seeing what else toubab may have for them I was up at the crack-of-dawn, and literally ‘on my bike’, gone.

In the town of Kayes I noticed many moped riders using face masks. Cycling in I had noticed how in all directions it appeared smog like, this was in-fact the Harmattan winds, a dry and dusty West African trade wind that blows south from Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. Learning this I bought myself a face-mask.

Following the main road east for the first three days before dropping south I was riding into constant headwinds, not blustery as in U.K, but just a constant wind. Towns on this section had little to offer, just small shack-shops, fortunately there was always an omelette restaurant close by for breakfast and dinner. After my previous encounter at the village compound the only type of camping I’d be doing was in the bush on my own. Toward the end of the day I’d fill the bottles and then pitch the tent a few miles out from the last village or town, this meant an undisturbed night, also, as before, using only the tent’s inner fly-sheet meant I could star-gaze as I fell asleep along with a nice cool breeze blowing through in the early hours of the morning.


In the town of Didjeni I met an American girl, Liz, from Washington D.C. Working for the American Peace Corps she was on a voluntary two year posting and was glad to have conversation with a westerner, as I was. Letting me pitch the tent in the court-yard of the flats she was staying at.


Eventually making it to the moped riddled, car horn tooting city of Bamako. Cities do little for my interest but the only reason for coming here was that my planned route goes through the middle, and I could also take advantage of some internet use (for a blog post!). Also, with the bike’s total mileage recently rolled over 10,000 miles, from all tours, I had started to become paranoid thinking if one of the gear-shifter cables break in the middle of no-where then it would be hassle fitting the spares, mainly as I’d forgot to bring wire cutters. A big city meant I could soon find the tools and do the job in a relaxed auberge court-yard, with running water to clean parts. The wire cutters I found were not quite Snap-On quality, thinking they may snap, on using, but no, they actualy done the job quite well.