We did everything possible to ensure smooth travel and easy crossing at the Senegal-Gambia border. Then this happened.
The bus broke down in a village called Sokone. A broken fan belt.
At the time of the video the delay is less than an hour and there is hope. More than 2 hours now as I write this and we’re waiting for a replacement bus to arrive.
It’s hot (over 100F) and we’re all tired. We just want to get on the road again.
Yes, sometimes travel is miserable.
More in the next Live video – hopefully it’ll be Gambia Travel Diary #1.
Yes, sometimes travel is miserable.
Video Transcript
- [Trina] It has happened.
- Oh, believe.
- [Trina] Okay. So I’m gonna go show them
and I’m gonna show them
around the town a little bit.
If I can get this mic clipped properly.
Okay. So.
Let me show you the breakdown.
We lost a belt.
And having had old cars my
whole life, don’t worry.
(laughing)
Having old cars I know what this is,
I know what this means.
That’s a fan belt.
And the thing started overheating
and he pulled over right away
and we are working on
getting a replacement part.
That’s the bus’s motor.
Oh, that’s the bus’s motor.
It’s hot.
Everyone left the bus except him and me
because these stairs are
very difficult for Tim.
And so give me a second while
I work my way out of them.
(grunting)
There we go.
I’m gonna show you around
this town a little bit.
Whoa.
(laughing)
Okay.
Let me just show you what I just did.
From those stairs,
stepped out,
onto that ledge and
then have that drop off.
Gosh, sometimes I love Africa.
(laughing)
There’s always a surprise here.
And we are in a town called Sokone.
It is about halfway between
Kaolack and Karang in Senegal.
We are on our way to Karang
which is the border town
to get into The Gambia.
Now, Tim and I are ready.
We’ve got our vaccination cards,
we’ve got our boosters,
we got our yellow fever vaccination cards.
The first ones were the Covid of course.
We got our visa already,
a lot of people can get
the visa at the border,
and we’re all prepared, all prepared to
make this as easy as possible.
And the bus has to break down.
I am not criticizing the bus.
This is actually one of the nicer buses.
It’s comfortable.
The driver was doing
fine till the belt broke.
So I’m not putting any blame,
this isn’t one of those things where
we’re on a crappy bus or a crappy tro-tro
and it was inevitable.
It’s actually a pretty good bus.
We got,
oh a three donkey cart over there.
Check that out,
can we zoom in on that?
We got a three donkey
cart going on over there.
And they don’t have it too loaded up yet.
I wonder what they’re gonna put on it
that requires three donkeys.
So yeah, this is a fairly small town.
And there’s places, I might go check out
that market over there.
But I just wanted to say this
happens sometimes in Africa.
Things break down.
- Man use recording
- Huh?
No, it’s other way.
Getting scolded for taking photos
but I’m not getting people on photo.
So I’m trying to be careful of that.
Not excessively.
So that’s why I’m keeping
most of this fairly distant,
but no, this happens in Africa.
And it can happen anywhere of course,
but these things seem to happen more often
when we travel in Africa
and you just gotta wait it out.
There’s not much else to do.
If it were absolutely necessary
they’d probably find
another bus to put us on
or alternate transportation.
But as long as they think they can fix it
that’s gonna be the case.
I’m gonna talk to you guys for a second.
This is not gonna be a really long one
’cause as you can see
there’s not a lot to show.
I just wanted to let you know what was up.
And
as I say, to keep it real.
Sometimes travel goes wrong.
And I like to show the good stuff too,
but sometimes the bad
stuff is more interesting.
So,
(laughing)
and I was gonna show,
I might do another live from
the ferry in a little bit.
We have to take a ferry,
but we’re gonna be on the
bus on the ferry I believe.
After we get across the border.
So I was gonna do a live from there,
but I thought,
well I might as well do one from here.
We’ve been up since
like 3:30 this morning,
so, it’s gonna be a long day.
And hopefully the next
time I’m contacting you
it’ll be from The Gambia.
Thanks for joining me.
See you next time.
I’m gonna flip put around here.
So you get a little more view of the town
as I find the buttons to turn this off.
Yeah, sleepy little town here.
Just a sleepy little town,
nothing wrong with that.
See you next time.
(motorcycle engine revving)
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