Our two weeks away from the capital started interestingly. We had a 7 hour bus journey ahead of us and so left the house at half 5 on the Monday morning. As Mike and I cycled to the uni to meet Sana the only thing we had to stop for was a big herd of goats that were blocking the way...in the capital...at half 5 in the morning. They didn't seem to have a shepherd either!

We got to the 'bus station' at about half 6 for the first bus of the day. Unfortunately, the fist bus of the day only managed to get itself out of the bus station at about half 10. This was partly because the schedule was fairly flexible, partly because the mechanics had to change one of the wheels twice and partly because push-starting a bus is pretty hard work, especially if the roof is fully laden with bicycles. I was amazed that the only way to get the engine going on the bus was to jump start it with about 20 guys pushing it. I was even more amazed that once we were on the road it turned out that the bus had no brakes! Every stop had to be well planned so that we could roll to a halt at a point where someone could jump out and put blocks under the wheels to hold us in place.

Still, apart from a hairy moment when a cow (who obviously didn't realise our brake predicament) strolled in front of the bus, we made it to the next destination safe and sound. Far from comfortable but at least in one piece. And our bikes had enjoyed the fresh air on the roof. At the next destination (Kedougou) we had to catch another bus. Thankfully this was a splendid beast compared to the last one. It had proper seats and everything! Unfortunately the bus was about to leave when we got to the depot. So, our bikes were loaded onto the next bus while we tried to get Mike's bag from the roof of the first. The driver of the second bus however decided to leave with our bikes but without us and so we ended up chasing the it down the road and jumping onboard through the back door. It was pretty good fun and we even had all our belongings. And so we eventually arrived that afternoon in the village of Ouarkoye...