Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10: Côte d'Ivoire
Immediately after crossing the wooden bridge, the road rose too sharply for me to
cycle. Since I only had one functioning gear, I decided not to strain my legs or the chain so
I simply walked up. Erik waited for me until I reached the top and then we cycled together
for a short distance until we arrived at Côte d'Ivoire's border checkpoint. The guard on duty
was extremely kind and offered us lots of tangerines and two ice cold Cokes! After having
our passports stamped, we stayed back to drink and chat with the guard. Since we still had
49 kilometres to Danané, we cut our conversation a bit short, got up and thanked our host
again for his kindness. He bid us a safe journey as we mounted our bikes and pushed off.
TheroadinCôted'Ivoirewasrelativelygoodinqualityandthankfullylesshillythan
in Guinea. Again, Erik and I cycled at our own paces and he just shot ahead of me. Bas-
tard. As I progressed toward Danané, the greenery became denser with trees and shrubbery
growing right up to the edge of the road. As a result, whenever the road curved, I couldn't
tell what was around the bend. About 28 kilometres from Danané, just as I was coming out
of a blind curve, I noticed something in front of me moving across the road. I came to an
immediate stop and stood there motionless. No more than 3 metres (10 feet) in front of me,
I watched in wonderment as an enormous, green, and shiny snake slithered from one side of
theroadtotheother.ImustaddherethatitwasthelargestsnakeIhaveeverseen.Thebody
had a circumference similar to my thigh. It was much longer than the width of the road. In
fact, its head had already crossed the road and its tail was still in the bush on the other side.
Once its tail came into view and then disappeared, I waited a few minutes more (to be safe)
before I resumed cycling. I was very calm and relaxed through it all as if I experienced it a
million times before. I guess it was because of my attitude toward wildlife.
i.e.,
animals are
more afraid of me than I am of them. Animals have two choices when they are in danger:
fight or flight. Whenever an animal has an escape route, it will take it over attacking. Since
I didn't pose any sort of threat to the snake, it just instinctively ran away. (And no, running
over it with my bike never crossed my mind…at first.)
Astheeveningfastapproached,thenumberofmosquitoesandgnatsincreased.Ihad
to stop and put repellent on my exposed skin. About 8 kilometres from Danané, I met up
with Erik and since it became too dark to cycle safely (the moon wasn't up yet), we walked
ourbikesside-by-side.Topassthetime,westartedtosingtogetherandplannedourultimate
dinnerwewouldprepareuponarrival.Ithelpeduskeepourmindsoffthebugs,thedarkness
and oddly enough our hunger.
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