I am always excited to arrive in a new country, especially when I come from crossing one that has not left with something very special inside. With the advent of the arrival, curiosity and uncertainty ignite once again like flames when pouring kerosene on a bonfire. Questions, doubts, and even fears jump like sparks inside the mind. The sensation throws vibrations throughout my entire body. Entering the Ivory Coast fills me with as much excitement as leaving Ghana. However, it also renews my concerns, because after all, this new country has not long enjoyed the social and political stability of the country I am leaving.
I feel the warmth of the return to French-speaking Africa from the moment I set foot in the migration post, which, in order not to break with the tradition of the usual African frontier, is nothing more than a wooden shack supported by a miracle. Even so, it is the main border post of the country along its most relevant trade route. Amid the usual bustle between bureaucrats and passengers, I talk to the officer who handles my passport. I tell him about my trip, I ask him the basic words of the local dialect and some things about the general security in the country. The tone of his voice comforts my uncertainties. Friendly gestures, honest glances, relaxed smiles, are always symbols of a positive beginning. From them, one begins to build the certainties of everything that we do not yet know. When one is exposed to the ups and downs of the world and life, the feeling of security is not something permanent that is with us but a dynamic variable that is built and reinvented (and undone) moment by moment.
With my passport stamped, I go out ready to roll energised by optimism. Trucks pass me kicking up dust. Suction, the product of speed, drags a trail of crazy bottles behind the wheels. Their squeak is the melody that accompanies the dance of plastic bags, paper buns, and cardboard drifting in the air around me. The motorcycles, cars, wooden carts, and even my humble bicycle contribute to keeping the dance uninterrupted. Nonetheless, when my heart is happy, no pestilence is enough to steal my smile. So, breathing dust and garbage dancing around me I can't stop exclaiming "Bonjour!" every time someone crosses my path.
Shortly after leaving the chaos of the first border town behind, the route turns inland after a full week of skirting the Atlantic Ocean since I left Accra. Suddenly everything turns green around me. Now, the thickness of the vegetation serves as an acoustic panel that absorbs the noise of the traffic. But not many kilometers go by until I realize that this is neither the jungle nor the tropical forest, but hectare after hectare of plantations laid by man. First there are those of bananas, then those of cocoa, and later that of rubber trees, but it is not until moments later that that plantation that brings me the saddest memories of Sumatra and Borneo reappears on my path: the palm oil. At least here, unlike Malaysia and Indonesia, the palm is an indigenous species and not a speculative transplant that leads to the destruction of the ancient forests of the planet. After many years of successive crises and civil wars, the Ivory Coast began its path of economic recovery through the export of agricultural products.
The monotony of the plantations accompanies me all the way to the gates of Aboisso, the first small town. As it is the end of the day, I have no time or possibility to find a place to camp alone before dark, so I play it safe and go straight to the local church. There, African hospitality touches my heart once more. Father François and a handful of resident priests warmly welcome me, offer me a room and invite me to dine with them. The enthusiasm with which they ask me about every detail of my trip and the nature of my decisions fills me with joy and gives me the energy I need to answer each of their curiosities. Every time I go to sleep after nights like these, I never stop fantasising about what would happen if I arrived with my bicycle at the expensive palaces of the Vatican. My prejudices make me suspect that I would not be received me like this.
The political and economic heart of the country
I leave Aboisso with a happy heart and full of energy. I return to the route that now leads me back to the Atlantic Ocean. I'm heading towards Grand-Bassam, the city that was once the capital of the French colony for a few years in the late 19th century, before an outbreak of yellow fever forced them to move it to Bingerville. Today, it is a seaside resort with private beaches behind high walls and armed security personnel, where the local wealthy and European expats come to flee the chaos of Abidjan. I cycle through the city along its main boulevard watching the rows of coconut trees sway gently in the wind, but I have no intention of staying. Nevertheless, I move slowly to enjoy the maritime air throughout this handful of kilometers, because they will be the last in a long time until I see the sea again. However, if I had known that weeks later, there would be a terrorist attack here that would claim several lives, I would not have been so relaxed.
Not much later I am entering the suburbs of Abidjan. I pedal between cars, trucks, and vans struggling between a sea of motorcycles, bicycles, and men pulling carts carrying piles of stuff. From the main avenues to the alleys of the neighborhoods there are people, many people walking, coming and going between the endless lines of market stalls. Women sell fruits and vegetables, men load and unload bags of up to 50 kg of grain. Street vendors who sell everything, passersby, workers, stalls selling SIM cards and charging for mobile phones. The horns, the bustle of commerce, the shouting here and there. This is the typical urban setting in Africa where I see life vibrate in every corner. There is no aesthetic beauty, there is social beauty.
Abidjan is to Ivory Coast what Lagos is to Nigeria, Douala to Cameroon, Cotonou to Benin, and for that matter, Sydney to Australia and Auckland to New Zealand. It is not the capital but the main economic center of the country or the best-known city. I go slowly across the chaos while absorbing the intensity. I rotate my head from one side to the other looking for street names, indicators, or any reference that helps me decipher the environment to find my way. After a while, a young Ivorian who is returning from work sees me lost and decides to help me. -Follow me! I know where that is-he tells me, after telling him my destination. I must be grateful to be in shape because this young man pedals at the speed of a gazelle fleeing from a hungry cheetah through the savannah, while I move at the pace of an elephant digesting its dinner. By the time we reach my destination, he smiles and I pant, but it would have been impossible for me to navigate this urban maze without his help. I never stop, nor will I stop thanking these gestures of hospitality that make life as a traveler so much, so much easier.
I stay at the residence of the Salesians, whom I get to on the recommendation of other cyclo-travelers who have passed there before. It is not my intention to stay long but Father José Luis, director of the Abidjan Mission, manages to persuade me to spend a few days there with him and his main local assistant, Father Emilio. During those days I not only have the opportunity to rest in a comfortable bed with clean sheets and eat rich and nutritious food, but I can also visit some of the Mission projects in the city. Most of them are dedicated to educating and protecting homeless children. It is an immense task due to the commitment, dedication, perseverance, and patience that it requires to carry it out because more often than not, obstacles and one barrier after another are what get in the way. I have come to Africa carrying longstanding prejudices towards the people of the church, many of them certainly well-founded. However, in these two years that I have been traveling the continent, I have seen many displays of love for humanity carried out by people who belong to the same church that I often criticize harshly. The days with José Luis and Emilio fill me with inspiration because their example transcends any religion. Their deep love and dedication to the world's most disadvantaged people have little to do with believing or not in a God (even if they are inspired by it) and much to do with concrete deeds and actions to help alleviate the suffering of others. They teach me a lesson in love and generosity, but they also do me the enormous favor of breaking down my prejudices or at least helping me know how to reconfigure them.
Days later, I leave the Mission first thing in the morning because I have to go through the entire city to be able to leave it. When I get on the highway that crosses the canal that separates the Plateau (central district) from the southern suburbs, I am struck by how similar my entrance to Lagos had been a few months ago. Reminiscence is unavoidable as I pedal the highway bridge over the water, sifting through traffic jams at rush hour and seeing the silhouette of downtown buildings outlining the horizon against the sky. Both cities are laid out on the islands of the delta in which the continent is shelled in its encounter with the Atlantic Ocean. As expected, it takes me at least two hours to cross the city to find the exit on the other side of it, but I am happy. That is the great power of surrounding yourself with people who radiate kindness. They transform us in ways that we may not be able to elucidate on the spot, but that we know cause changes within us that we will never return from.
I am heading north in a more or less straight line through the center of the country towards Mali. As usual, I do not have a planned route but rather a slight idea, so I will make my way as I go. The first days I do not make the best decisions, since, in order to speed up the pace a bit, I decide to stay on the main road that connects Abidjan with Yamoussoukro, the capital of the country. Honestly, the monotony of these days bores me a lot, but it is in the villages along the way that I find not only a respite but also joy. Each one in which I stop, I expand a little more my vision of Ivorian life. In them, I see the same African simplicity that I have been experiencing in the last two years, and here of course, with the particular nuances of the Ivory Coast. I really enjoy every day and every night that I spend in this country, despite the monotony of an essentially nondescript route. It is February and we are in the dry season. That also helps a lot to make days more enjoyable in this part of the world where the rainy season can make things noticeably more complicated.
It is Sunday and in one of the villages where I stop the bike is Communion Day. The contrast between boys and girls all dressed up in this village of huts where dust abounds in the air captures my attention. The girls wear flawless dresses, some incandescent white and others in strident colors. One of the boys running up to me is wearing brown cloth pants, a plaid shirt, and his tie tied directly around his neck, outside the collar of the shirt. Far from losing elegance, it adds to the charisma that emanates from the sincerity of his smile. Everyone without distinction plays as if the dust they raise when running were to ignore the cleanliness of their clothes. I can stay for hours watching them laughing their asses off as if there was no tomorrow.
In between them, the women prepare food for the event. A grandmother is sitting on a stone concentrated in her pot on the fire. The soot-blackened iron contrasts with the deep orange of the juice extracted from the boiling fruits. A few meters ahead, a slim young mother with a broad back, sensual curves and a lean body grinds boiled bananas in her wooden mortar to make the fufu dough. She lights me up with her clean white smile while I watch her drive the wooden bar over and over again. She wears a black tank top, a colourful superwax and a blue scarf wrapping her hair. The high noon sun defines the outline of an exquisite body of muscles shaped by years of rural life. One of her youngest daughters is standing next to her salivating a ball of bread that brings together all the bacteria that live on her little hands full of dirt. The baby garment that she wears, torn and eaten by dirt, is a sign that she does not participate in the ceremony of the day. On the contrary, she is comfortably hypnotized by the repetition of the almost perfect mechanical movement with which her mother raises the wooden bar and drives it into the mortar until it rumbles. It will surely not be many years until she herself must join the troops of women who do the heavy lifting of every day life in African villages.
If it were up to me, I would stay for the day in every village I stop in, because the affection with which people receive me is so great that I need to force myself to keep pedaling if I ever hope to reach Europe. Therefore, in order not to miss out on these beautiful moments of humanity, I decide to spend my night in the villages instead of camping alone. In each of them, it is the chief of the village himself who grants me permission and at the same time offers me his house to spend the night.
Ivorians have warm glances and shy smiles. They have a slow tone when speaking and respond with kindness and simplicity throughout the course of our conversations. I am impressed by the cleanliness and tidiness of both their clothes and their homes. They tear down the false prejudice held by those who associate material poverty with dirty people. Above all, the affable spirit they reflect leads me to wonder how it is that so many years of civil war have passed in this country, because I have been in the country for a week and I could say a lot of things about the Ivorians except that they are belligerents. Quite the opposite.
This is how after a few days I arrive in Yamoussoukro, in the heart of the country. Birthplace of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny who for 33 years led the country since its independence in 1960. According to the consensus of many international analysts, “Papa Houphouët”, as he is affectionately called, led the country in peace and towards economic prosperity although, of course, without getting rid of the usual accusations of every chieftain: the destruction of dissent, annulment of the opposition and perpetuation in power. Still, given the prosperous economy and social peace, he left with a better image than the average African dictator, who is generally a despot, predator of resources, and often genocidal.
In 1983, Houphouët-Boigny decided to make his hometown the nation's capital as part of a strategic plan, although I suspect it was also a typical gesture of megalomania. Whatever the case, Yamoussoukro is clearly a town that has become a capital city where its original small-town simplicity must have been crushed by the grandiloquence of its endless boulevards, government palaces, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace (the world's largest church), and some other urban aberrations. There is absolutely nothing that invites me to stay in Yamoussoukro so by cycling across it in the middle of the day I have enough time to hurt my retinas and get out as quickly as possible to return to the most precious cell in Africa: the village. From here onwards, I enter the northern region of the country, the epicenter of conflicts that began shortly after Papá Houphouët's death in 93 ', and led to decades of uninterrupted social conflict, civil war, and a declining economy. Today, the country is at peace and now it is my turn to see inside, what life is like in this highly compromised region.I am always excited to arrive in a new country, especially when I come from crossing one that has not left with something very special inside. With the advent of the arrival, curiosity and uncertainty ignite once again like flames when pouring kerosene on a bonfire. Questions, doubts, and even fears jump like sparks inside the mind. The sensation throws vibrations throughout my entire body. Entering the Ivory Coast fills me with as much excitement as leaving Ghana. However, it also renews my concerns, because after all, this new country has not long enjoyed the social and political stability of the country I am leaving.
I feel the warmth of the return to French-speaking Africa from the moment I set foot in the migration post, which, in order not to break with the tradition of the usual African frontier, is nothing more than a wooden shack supported by a miracle. Even so, it is the main border post of the country along its most relevant trade route. Amid the usual bustle between bureaucrats and passengers, I talk to the officer who handles my passport. I tell him about my trip, I ask him the basic words of the local dialect and some things about the general security in the country. The tone of his voice comforts my uncertainties. Friendly gestures, honest glances, relaxed smiles, are always symbols of a positive beginning. From them, one begins to build the certainties of everything that we do not yet know. When one is exposed to the ups and downs of the world and life, the feeling of security is not something permanent that is with us but a dynamic variable that is built and reinvented (and undone) moment by moment.
With my passport stamped, I go out ready to roll energised by optimism. Trucks pass me kicking up dust. Suction, the product of speed, drags a trail of crazy bottles behind the wheels. Their squeak is the melody that accompanies the dance of plastic bags, paper buns, and cardboard drifting in the air around me. The motorcycles, cars, wooden carts, and even my humble bicycle contribute to keeping the dance uninterrupted. Nonetheless, when my heart is happy, no pestilence is enough to steal my smile. So, breathing dust and garbage dancing around me I can't stop exclaiming "Bonjour!" every time someone crosses my path.
Shortly after leaving the chaos of the first border town behind, the route turns inland after a full week of skirting the Atlantic Ocean since I left Accra. Suddenly everything turns green around me. Now, the thickness of the vegetation serves as an acoustic panel that absorbs the noise of the traffic. But not many kilometers go by until I realize that this is neither the jungle nor the tropical forest, but hectare after hectare of plantations laid by man. First there are those of bananas, then those of cocoa, and later that of rubber trees, but it is not until moments later that that plantation that brings me the saddest memories of Sumatra and Borneo reappears on my path: the palm oil. At least here, unlike Malaysia and Indonesia, the palm is an indigenous species and not a speculative transplant that leads to the destruction of the ancient forests of the planet. After many years of successive crises and civil wars, the Ivory Coast began its path of economic recovery through the export of agricultural products.
The monotony of the plantations accompanies me all the way to the gates of Aboisso, the first small town. As it is the end of the day, I have no time or possibility to find a place to camp alone before dark, so I play it safe and go straight to the local church. There, African hospitality touches my heart once more. Father François and a handful of resident priests warmly welcome me, offer me a room and invite me to dine with them. The enthusiasm with which they ask me about every detail of my trip and the nature of my decisions fills me with joy and gives me the energy I need to answer each of their curiosities. Every time I go to sleep after nights like these, I never stop fantasising about what would happen if I arrived with my bicycle at the expensive palaces of the Vatican. My prejudices make me suspect that I would not be received me like this.
The political and economic heart of the country
I leave Aboisso with a happy heart and full of energy. I return to the route that now leads me back to the Atlantic Ocean. I'm heading towards Grand-Bassam, the city that was once the capital of the French colony for a few years in the late 19th century, before an outbreak of yellow fever forced them to move it to Bingerville. Today, it is a seaside resort with private beaches behind high walls and armed security personnel, where the local wealthy and European expats come to flee the chaos of Abidjan. I cycle through the city along its main boulevard watching the rows of coconut trees sway gently in the wind, but I have no intention of staying. Nevertheless, I move slowly to enjoy the maritime air throughout this handful of kilometers, because they will be the last in a long time until I see the sea again. However, if I had known that weeks later, there would be a terrorist attack here that would claim several lives, I would not have been so relaxed.
Not much later I am entering the suburbs of Abidjan. I pedal between cars, trucks, and vans struggling between a sea of motorcycles, bicycles, and men pulling carts carrying piles of stuff. From the main avenues to the alleys of the neighborhoods there are people, many people walking, coming and going between the endless lines of market stalls. Women sell fruits and vegetables, men load and unload bags of up to 50 kg of grain. Street vendors who sell everything, passersby, workers, stalls selling SIM cards and charging for mobile phones. The horns, the bustle of commerce, the shouting here and there. This is the typical urban setting in Africa where I see life vibrate in every corner. There is no aesthetic beauty, there is social beauty.
Abidjan is to Ivory Coast what Lagos is to Nigeria, Douala to Cameroon, Cotonou to Benin, and for that matter, Sydney to Australia and Auckland to New Zealand. It is not the capital but the main economic center of the country or the best-known city. I go slowly across the chaos while absorbing the intensity. I rotate my head from one side to the other looking for street names, indicators, or any reference that helps me decipher the environment to find my way. After a while, a young Ivorian who is returning from work sees me lost and decides to help me. -Follow me! I know where that is-he tells me, after telling him my destination. I must be grateful to be in shape because this young man pedals at the speed of a gazelle fleeing from a hungry cheetah through the savannah, while I move at the pace of an elephant digesting its dinner. By the time we reach my destination, he smiles and I pant, but it would have been impossible for me to navigate this urban maze without his help. I never stop, nor will I stop thanking these gestures of hospitality that make life as a traveler so much, so much easier.
I stay at the residence of the Salesians, whom I get to on the recommendation of other cyclo-travelers who have passed there before. It is not my intention to stay long but Father José Luis, director of the Abidjan Mission, manages to persuade me to spend a few days there with him and his main local assistant, Father Emilio. During those days I not only have the opportunity to rest in a comfortable bed with clean sheets and eat rich and nutritious food, but I can also visit some of the Mission projects in the city. Most of them are dedicated to educating and protecting homeless children. It is an immense task due to the commitment, dedication, perseverance, and patience that it requires to carry it out because more often than not, obstacles and one barrier after another are what get in the way. I have come to Africa carrying longstanding prejudices towards the people of the church, many of them certainly well-founded. However, in these two years that I have been traveling the continent, I have seen many displays of love for humanity carried out by people who belong to the same church that I often criticize harshly. The days with José Luis and Emilio fill me with inspiration because their example transcends any religion. Their deep love and dedication to the world's most disadvantaged people have little to do with believing or not in a God (even if they are inspired by it) and much to do with concrete deeds and actions to help alleviate the suffering of others. They teach me a lesson in love and generosity, but they also do me the enormous favor of breaking down my prejudices or at least helping me know how to reconfigure them.
Days later, I leave the Mission first thing in the morning because I have to go through the entire city to be able to leave it. When I get on the highway that crosses the canal that separates the Plateau (central district) from the southern suburbs, I am struck by how similar my entrance to Lagos had been a few months ago. Reminiscence is unavoidable as I pedal the highway bridge over the water, sifting through traffic jams at rush hour and seeing the silhouette of downtown buildings outlining the horizon against the sky. Both cities are laid out on the islands of the delta in which the continent is shelled in its encounter with the Atlantic Ocean. As expected, it takes me at least two hours to cross the city to find the exit on the other side of it, but I am happy. That is the great power of surrounding yourself with people who radiate kindness. They transform us in ways that we may not be able to elucidate on the spot, but that we know cause changes within us that we will never return from.
I am heading north in a more or less straight line through the center of the country towards Mali. As usual, I do not have a planned route but rather a slight idea, so I will make my way as I go. The first days I do not make the best decisions, since, in order to speed up the pace a bit, I decide to stay on the main road that connects Abidjan with Yamoussoukro, the capital of the country. Honestly, the monotony of these days bores me a lot, but it is in the villages along the way that I find not only a respite but also joy. Each one in which I stop, I expand a little more my vision of Ivorian life. In them, I see the same African simplicity that I have been experiencing in the last two years, and here of course, with the particular nuances of the Ivory Coast. I really enjoy every day and every night that I spend in this country, despite the monotony of an essentially nondescript route. It is February and we are in the dry season. That also helps a lot to make days more enjoyable in this part of the world where the rainy season can make things noticeably more complicated.
It is Sunday and in one of the villages where I stop the bike is Communion Day. The contrast between boys and girls all dressed up in this village of huts where dust abounds in the air captures my attention. The girls wear flawless dresses, some incandescent white and others in strident colors. One of the boys running up to me is wearing brown cloth pants, a plaid shirt, and his tie tied directly around his neck, outside the collar of the shirt. Far from losing elegance, it adds to the charisma that emanates from the sincerity of his smile. Everyone without distinction plays as if the dust they raise when running were to ignore the cleanliness of their clothes. I can stay for hours watching them laughing their asses off as if there was no tomorrow.
In between them, the women prepare food for the event. A grandmother is sitting on a stone concentrated in her pot on the fire. The soot-blackened iron contrasts with the deep orange of the juice extracted from the boiling fruits. A few meters ahead, a slim young mother with a broad back, sensual curves and a lean body grinds boiled bananas in her wooden mortar to make the fufu dough. She lights me up with her clean white smile while I watch her drive the wooden bar over and over again. She wears a black tank top, a colourful superwax and a blue scarf wrapping her hair. The high noon sun defines the outline of an exquisite body of muscles shaped by years of rural life. One of her youngest daughters is standing next to her salivating a ball of bread that brings together all the bacteria that live on her little hands full of dirt. The baby garment that she wears, torn and eaten by dirt, is a sign that she does not participate in the ceremony of the day. On the contrary, she is comfortably hypnotized by the repetition of the almost perfect mechanical movement with which her mother raises the wooden bar and drives it into the mortar until it rumbles. It will surely not be many years until she herself must join the troops of women who do the heavy lifting of every day life in African villages.
If it were up to me, I would stay for the day in every village I stop in, because the affection with which people receive me is so great that I need to force myself to keep pedaling if I ever hope to reach Europe. Therefore, in order not to miss out on these beautiful moments of humanity, I decide to spend my night in the villages instead of camping alone. In each of them, it is the chief of the village himself who grants me permission and at the same time offers me his house to spend the night.
Ivorians have warm glances and shy smiles. They have a slow tone when speaking and respond with kindness and simplicity throughout the course of our conversations. I am impressed by the cleanliness and tidiness of both their clothes and their homes. They tear down the false prejudice held by those who associate material poverty with dirty people. Above all, the affable spirit they reflect leads me to wonder how it is that so many years of civil war have passed in this country, because I have been in the country for a week and I could say a lot of things about the Ivorians except that they are belligerents. Quite the opposite.
This is how after a few days I arrive in Yamoussoukro, in the heart of the country. Birthplace of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny who for 33 years led the country since its independence in 1960. According to the consensus of many international analysts, “Papa Houphouët”, as he is affectionately called, led the country in peace and towards economic prosperity although, of course, without getting rid of the usual accusations of every chieftain: the destruction of dissent, annulment of the opposition and perpetuation in power. Still, given the prosperous economy and social peace, he left with a better image than the average African dictator, who is generally a despot, predator of resources, and often genocidal.
In 1983, Houphouët-Boigny decided to make his hometown the nation's capital as part of a strategic plan, although I suspect it was also a typical gesture of megalomania. Whatever the case, Yamoussoukro is clearly a town that has become a capital city where its original small-town simplicity must have been crushed by the grandiloquence of its endless boulevards, government palaces, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace (the world's largest church), and some other urban aberrations. There is absolutely nothing that invites me to stay in Yamoussoukro so by cycling across it in the middle of the day I have enough time to hurt my retinas and get out as quickly as possible to return to the most precious cell in Africa: the village. From here onwards, I enter the northern region of the country, the epicenter of conflicts that began shortly after Papá Houphouët's death in 93 ', and led to decades of uninterrupted social conflict, civil war, and a declining economy. Today, the country is at peace and now it is my turn to see inside, what life is like in this highly compromised region.
