In no particular order. Weekdays were so different from the Sunday.
Very busy. Very hot, very dusty and sandy. There are a few cars, much less dense than Accra; the taxis are ancient Renaults and Peugeots, an odd dark green. For every car though there are at least 50 bikes and motor cycles. Its totally mad. No 2 bikes are alike. Lots of Moped Peugeot type things, pedal off to start then a small motor kicks in. Lots of very small cc motorcycles, nearly all between 80 and 150cc. I have seen thousands of them now but not a single 900cc or larger. Even the police and soldiers ride small bikes. There are models I have never seen, a huge range. Most are old fashioned and look like smaller versions of the American style in the 50’s.
Complete chaos. The roads are all well made and sealed, but there is no footpath. Where the roadside ends, there is a dust zone between the road and the shops/houses. That is a shared zone for pedestrians, moving vehicles, and parking. Theyre all packed with parked bikes of all types, which you weave around, negotiating the moving bikes and cars as well.
Very muslim. A huge mosque, the Grande Mosquée, dominates centre ville. People have mats facing east on paths everywhere and prostrate suddenly. There is a huge market in the centre which I understand is off limits to non muslims, I’m trying to confirm that. The worlds most polite hawkers. Unlike Ghana, where you can but anything at all from an army of roving merchants who carry things on their head, no one does that here. Lots more small fixed stalls. Countless roving hawkers as well though, selling just a few things: belts, lottery tickets, phone cards.
A lot of Bedouin dressed people. The day I got completely lost, a raison de dodgy maps, I asked a Bedouin guy for the way to Centre Ville. Centre Ville? Oui, SVP. He pointed in an unexpected direction. I didnt mind which way he pointed horizontally, but he pointed into the sky maybe a 40 degree azimuth. I followed the direction of his finger and we gazed into the sky together. Then I confirmed, Centre Ville? Centre Ville. Merci! It is so limiting when you stay grounded in a city. Apparently, onward and upward is liberating.
Dust and sand and dust and sand. This is what I do couple of times a day. Go back to the hotel and shower. I wash my shirt and sometimes pants while there. Then i put them back on and go out again. It is very wet and cool for 1 minute in the sun, damp and cool for up to 10 minutes more, then bone dry and back to normal. The coolness buys me a little extra time in the heat and feels great. You can do that for everything except socks.
French cuisine everywhere, poulet roti, legumes et haricots verts, salade avocat, cote d’agneau. Today I’ll try to find something more local. They have stalls selling skewered grasscutters, which is a rodent the size of a small rabbit but the shape of a large rat. Complete english free zone, I cant even find a single newspaper. I helped one Japanese guy in a cyber cafe who spoke no french and just a little heavily accented english. He wanted to confirm, before buying time, that the PC’s would display Japanese writing. I translated and I wish I had a video for the reaction from the desk. They may still be laughing. As it turns out, they do show script, at least his yahoo mail. I wondered how he gets by with no language at all, that must be really challenging.
Did I mention dust and sand? But the streets are very clean, no rubbish anywhere, and people sweep the dust outside their houses and shops regularly.
My visa card works fine here for cash, which is always a relief this part of the world. Savings/ATM cards, and Mastercards, dont work at all. Just the one and only Visa card. Plan B, if I lose it or it fails, is to send money to myself using a web browser and Western Union. Western Union are really everywhere, even small African towns.
The big avenues do have proper footpaths. Theyre very wide, multi lane, and converge on huge roundabouts. I can never see the sun due to the haze, except for dawn and dusk, when it looks like a pale moon rising and setting. There are no animals in the city at all. Occasionally someone carries 10 perplexed hens, upside down and together, on a motor cycle.
Theyre not big on roadworthy vehicles. Avoiding getting hit it tricky enough as it is, but after dark headlights are optional. Lots of dark bikes and cars whizzing around, using the road and the shared zone to pass each other.
That was day two.