Guinea, is known as a water tower of West Africa, where all major rivers like Gambia, Senegal and Niger start. It is very resource-rich country and holds one quarter of bauxite in the world, which is mainly used for aluminium production. Combined with big diamond, gold, iron ore and uranium deposits, one could easily say that life here must be nice and prosperous. Well thats not the case, especially in rural areas, were almost 50% of people live below poverty line. One could blame that on years of unstable governments, military coups, civils wars and politicians who only care about their own pockets. And they would be right:) On top of that, Guinea was hit by Ebola virus quite badly, with 2500 deaths.
On more positive note, Guinea has lovely nature with beautiful beaches and national parks with big forests. Especially the Nimba mountain region is very picturesque and its listed in the Unesco heritage. Its a relatively safe country with very friendly people and I hope in next few decades they can unleash their potential and become a small paradise at a Gulf of Guinea. There are 3 countries in Africa with a word Guinea in their name and they all have a different main language. Guinea-Bissau is Portuguese, Guinea is French and Equatorial Guinea is Spanish. Guinean cuisine is delicious, my favourite food was jollof rice, which is enriched by tomatoes, ginger and curry powder.
My journey to Conacry from Bissau had two options. I could either take to short and treacherous route via Boke or a longer one via Labe. The difference was quite big, almost 400km. During rainy season the road conditions can be abysmal and the short route would probably be doable only on a motorbike. I already experienced roads in the west part of Guinea-Bissau and had a feeling that the quality would not improve on the east:) The border crossing was super easy, I was the only person there and it took me less than 30mins to go through. Was very happy to cross the border and expected the roads to change. Well they did, they were much worse:) Next 50km took me around 6 hours to drive and it was the worst road I have ever driven on. There were parts, where the road completely disappeared and it was just driving through pools of mud, some potholes were almost 1m deep. The cherry on the top was when I had to cross a small river. Nonetheless, this was my favourite part of the journey. This part was called The Highlands and the road was just next to a big table-top mountain. There is a very similar mountain in Venezuela called Mount Roraima which I am very eager to climb one day, so seeing a smaller version of that mountain really made my day. The morning of the next day didnt start well for me, a flood took away a bridge just 2 hours before I wanted to cross it and had to take a few hours detour.
Overall, the 950km journey between both capitals took my three and a half days. I had a warm welcome in Conacry, where I was stopped at 7 roundabouts in a row and corrupt cops demanded money from me for whatever reason. Most of them were quite arrogant, the most absurd reason for a fine was that I am wearing shorts while driving:) I would say that 95% of the time the police in Africa were nice and respectful, so this was quite disappointing. I spent most of my chess activities at Jardin de Guinee, lovely restaurant and a hub for chess players in the capitol city. Unfortunately, there was a teacher strike during my visit in Guinea and schools were closed. My huge thanks goes to Dr Foftivan Fofana, president of the chess federation, who prepared the program for me and distributed all the materials to schools. He is doing a great job and many schools in Conacry have chess. Few months ago Guinea became a part of Fide family and will be able to send their teams to Olympiad for the first time. The question I get asked the most is what do I do with my car when I am back at home. Well, all I need to do is find a trustworthy person who is kind enough to take care of my car. This time it was Dr. Bansoumane, thank you so much.
