Koroussa to Kankan - Day 236

Date: April 11th, 2010
Distance: 90km
Country: Guinea
Song of the Day: Bone Driven - Bush

Today things went pretty well. I really felt good about the accomplishment. Woke up pretty early. Got packed and had a good breakfast. I got on the road early, before it was to hot and was just killing the kilometers. I must admit I had a little help. I think I am finally getting a steady tail wind. I hope it helps through Mali. Then again, wind is a fickle creature.

The terrain here seems to be some kind of plateau. I am not sure how true that is. For some reason it just felt like I was at a decent elevation. There were a lot of little ups and downs. I just didn't seem to gaining or losing much over the course of the day.

At my 2:00 PM cut-off point, I was at 75km. I felt really good about that. Of course it was pretty hot and I had to hide in the tiny spot of shade under a little tree. There was no nice cloud cover like the day before. I spent a good while there cooling down and having some food. I try to eat at least every 25km. I could have stayed there for a bit but I knew Kankan was only about 8km further on.

Okay, that turned out to be a lie. Not my fault. That is what the mile markers on the road said. Who was I to think they were lying to me? Fortunately the last stretch was mostly downhill with that nice wind.

I got into town and started asking around for a cyber cafe. That always seems to be the part that I have the most trouble with. The last couple of countries have been really bad about that. One guy on a moto, Douku, wanted to come with me, and said he could show me a cyber cafe. Good enough.

We set off through the city, and it really is a pretty big place. We went to the area around the University and checked at a couple of places there. Only one place had an internet connection at the time. At least they were open. I didn't realize it was a Sunday.

Before I sat around for a while using the internet, I wanted to get all my stuff safely away at a hotel. After a couple of tries Douku and I found a place run by the Catholic church in town. Nice place, but a bit pricey for me. Still I didn't much feel like haggling.

From there I headed back to the cyber cafe. Well, it turns out that they only have one computer with an internet connection. I wanted to plug my laptop in and upload some posts. Well it wasn't picking up the connection. I think they would have to reboot their router, as it is probably locked to the MAC address of the other computer. Explaining that though was more that my meager skills with the French language could handle. I will try another place tomorrow.

-Dravis