May 23: Waking up on the 21st, I felt pretty damn weak and dehydrated. I had to sit down right after I got up. I ended up hanging around for the entire day; Alan stayed in bed for this whole time. At midday or so I went to the supermarket next to The Campagnard and bought some ravioli, a can of pork and beans (!!!), some apples, a cucumber, and a tomato. Alan did not want to eat anything, so I gave him an apple, which was his only meal for the day. In the evening I went to The Baron and had some burgers. A slow day, just recuperating from the trip.
Yesterday Alan was feeling better and was up. After some moping, we went to the supermarket and got stuff for a hearty spaghetti brunch (tomatoes, avocado, eggplant, onion, and ground hamburger!) In the afternoon we went downtown to check the visa situation with Burkina Faso. We take a cab to the embassy and they tell us a visa costs 13,000! Forget it! So Alan and I leave in search for the Ivory Coast embassy. After walking a couple of blocks, I ask this random guy and his sister how to get there. He says he’ll show us, and then has us follow him to his house a block away. We sit in his living room (with his sister) and I’m thinking that someone is going to take us to the embassy. Instead, the guy is out back in a heated argument with some woman. After a few minutes, we decide this is a little weird, so we leave. The sister agrees with our move, and follows us.
We end up just getting another taxi. The sister hops in after us. Alan thinks she’s probably looking for money. We get to the embassy, which is just a suite above the Air Afrique office. The sister follows us again, so we say thank you and goodbye to her. She’s cool and does the same. The embassy receptionist tells us that we don’t need to get visas because we’re Americans. Cool. We leave and walk near the river, and I show Alan the Palais de Congres where we had the guinea worm conference. After some walking back, we catch a cab and go back to the maison.
So we decide to go around Burkina Faso- it’s not worth the price of the visa to go. I suggest maybe we can check on visa prices from the Ivorian side- perhaps it’s cheaper. We also decide to go directly to Abidjan and save Dogon country for when we get back. What’s more, we decide to leave tomorrow. That night we go to The Baron for more burgers; we sit with some Malian volunteers: Eric, Liz, and another guy. We go back to the house and relax before going to bed and back on the road.
The morning we get our things together and hail a taxi. The driver tells us that there are buses going directly to Abidjan from Bamako- I’m a little surprised. He takes us to the gare and we buy our tickets for 14,000 CFA each. I buy a plate of noodles for breakfast, and soon we load into a large, comfortable, and not-too-old orange bus. I’m impressed! At 9:15 we leave the gare. It’s a comfortable ride on a main, paved road, so we move quickly. At early afternoon we get to the southern town of Sikasso- things are getting greener and greener!

A big storm looms in front of us and we soon drive into it. Not much lightning, but plenty of rain.
At 6-ish we come to the Ivorian border, and it’s raining steadily. We have no trouble crossing, even without visas. At the border town in Ivory Coast we had to get off the bus and wait around for an hour or two ‘til we boarded a new bus. Alan and I are right in front. Soon into the leg of this trip it gets dark, and we can only see the dense foliage and tall trees by the headlights.
The road is amazing! Plenty of signs, painted, perfectly maintained- a first-world road. We drive all night, stopping often to do god-knows-what. I’m soon hungry and fatigued; it’s impossible to sleep, although I doze off a few times. It’s even pretty cold, and we pass through some occasional fog. After a long night, it begins to lighten up at around 4 or 5 in the morning, maybe an hour or two away from Abidjan. I wake up a bit more to take in the scenery. Good god! Mali or Senegal has nothing on Ivory Coast! Green and lush is an understatement. It’s like Germany, the U.S. Northwest, and Hawaii wrapped into one. I wake up Alan to see all of this.
We get to Abidjan- the city is amazing- just like a city in the States, with overpasses and everything (by now we’re traveling on an actual highway). The morning sun is filtering through big, puffy storm clouds of last night. Our final destination is a crowded, unpaved, and very muddy taxi gare. We hop off as the bus is momentarily stuck between cars. All of the taxis are bright orange, and we immediately begin inquiring if anyone knows where the Corps de la Paix is. “Quoi?” Finally, our driver seems to know, so we get in. But then he says he doesn’t, so we start to get out. He suggests (or did we suggest?) we go to the U.S. embassy to inquire. So we go to the embassy, which is located on the “plateau”- the fanciest part of the city. I won’t give myself a hernia trying to describe how incredible the city is. The guard

BAM

I ordered this nigiri set so I could sample the quality of the fish. They were very generous in their chef-selected choices (minus the absence of hamachi, so cheap them), and I had to evaluate each one.

Sakke (Salmon) = s'okay, Seattle destroys this salmon in general. But the lemon slice did add a nice ceviche-touch to the salmon, cooking the surface with its acid

Ika (squid) = It's ika.

Tamago (egg) = Nice and soft, can tell they used that square omelette pan to cook it

Shrimp (ebi) = S'okay, wished there was amaebi

Tobikko Gunkan (Flying Fish Roe) = Nice and crunchy

Ikura (Salmon Roe) Gunkan = !!! Dizang, the ikura here is good. It's very rich, each egg bursting it's sweet/salty contents like a symphony in tandem with your chewing

Ahi = Stop the presses. It's over. Hands down great ahi. It's generously sliced (can barely put the whole thing in your mouth, much less so people with lesser mouths), and it lacked any connective tissue whatsoever. But, I must save my breath. From this prospect of ikura and maguro, the spicy ahi/ikura donburi needs it's own introduction.