Africa Through the Bottom of a Glass #7

We just left Abidjan in the Ivory Coast and one thing has become clear. After Angola, Ghana and Ivory Coast I can say with absolute certainty that there are no buses with operating PA systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. More on this later but while on the subject of truisms, I had previously mentioned that cruisers can surround and decimate a buffet as quickly as Sitting Bull took out Custer’s 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Similarly experienced cruisers always get the best seats on buses as the child bride and I can attest. Their positioning in the cabaret lounge where we get our riding instructions prior to disembarking for our shore excursions is strategic and cunning. And even though the herd moves at the pace of the slowest member (which in this situation matches the hour hand on your watch), the passageway to the gangway is only one American wide. So the ever respectful and courteous (“after-you”) CB and I always get the very back seat on the bus.

In theory we’ve had three to-and-from bus rides, one each in Angola, Ghana and Ivory Coast respectively. I say in theory because yesterday our full-size tourist bus in Ghana broke down. An hour later after waiting on the side of a completely non-descript road, replacement mini-buses arrived to complete the journey to the Cape Coast slave fort – an extremely interesting place with thousands of tragic stories. The CB and I found ourselves in one mini-bus with half of our previous bus-mates. The air conditioning didn’t work so for the return journey to the ship, the CB and I (well, me actually) decided to switch to the other bus. It was then that I realized all or our fellow passengers are aspergers. We occupied seats previously occupied by others. The people around us reacted like our cats do when we rearrange the furniture – the minutest of changes will just not do. Notice how on a bus trip everyone returns to the same seat after getting on and off. Not me. The CB whispered that maybe we should switch back to the other bus because we were being looked at like we had the plague. I, being a bit pissed off by this stage said “fuck em”.

Back to the PA systems. Tour guides by definition, should guide the tour with interesting and stimulating information, especially when on a history-based tour, as we tend to go for. In Angola we couldn’t work out much of what the young lady guide was saying so when we stopped at the military museum after passing the 18 rock (one for each province) monument built by the Cubans, I asked her about Cuban involvement in the civil war. She assured me that Angola had been absolutely at peace since independence in 1975. I guess she forgot about the civil war which continued until 2002. It was a very confusing situation but I think the communist backed coalition won so maybe that’s why they don’t mention the war. No one re-writes history like the communists.

Yesterday the dodgy PA’s were replaced by shouting guides in the much smaller buses after our unfortunate bus-mishap. Our aforementioned switch to an air conditioned bus (which was too cold according to one of us – sigh) meant we were also exposed to a one hour harangue from our guide who shouted a parenting-101 sermon. Who isn’t riveted by a discussion on what to do when young girls reach puberty when you’re on a historical tour taking in the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. The only riveting was to our seats as there was no escape. Oh for a bigger bus and a dodgy PA.