It just keeps getting better. Saturday, after 4 hours in a bush taxi (2 hours of which were spent waiting for the taxi to actually leave), we found ourselves in Assini, whose sandy beaches are the first ivory I have seen since arriving in Cote d'Ivoire.
This is for all of you who asked me to send post cards (I haven't actually found any of those yet).
Wait, I skipped a few things. First of all, Abidjan is entirely too chic for me. Look how our friend, A., shows up for a day at the beach. (That's his suitcase.)
After finally arriving in the town of Assini, we had to hire a pirogue=small, flat-bottomed dugout type of boat that is either poled or paddled by a local after a lot of haggling across the lagoon to get to an island in the middle, where the beach was.
Look how I helped.
Two different forms of rice power: some of the other pirogues had sails (like this one made of rice bags) rather than paddlers.
Once on the island, we were obliged to patronize the bar to earn the right to stay there. In that bar, as sometimes happens, I was challenged to a reggae dance-off. It would have be culturally unacceptable, of course, to refuse. Aicha wasn't quite ready with the camera to catch the actual competition, but I'm going to post here her take on the delivery of the results, because I keep watching this video and I think the reactions of both winner and loser get funnier every time.
SUBTITLES: The self-appointed judge says to my rival: out of 20, you get... 12. Then he turns to me and says: out of 60... 22. I don't know which makes less sense: the scoring scheme, or the fact that I lost.
After my humiliating defeat, we got back in the pirogue to paddle down the lagoon toward the Atlantic Ocean.
These are the docks on the other side of the lagoon, near the Ghanaian border. They call this part "Air France"... I guess because it is the jumping-off point for so many people headed into Ghana. Coke float, Pepsi float. Look how nicely the competitors are getting along.
After so long above all that glistening water and beneath all that gleaming sun, nothing could have seemed more inviting than a dip in the pacific waters of the Atlantic. So when we got through the mouth of the lagoon, where the brackish water met the ocean, I just jumped off the boat... just like that.
It was at that moment that I recalled a passage from the Lonely Planet guidebook, under the heading "Dangers and Annoyances", just below street riots, security checkpoints, and the need for rebel paperwork when traveling in the north. I quote,
"Finally, take care at the beach. The Atlantic has fierce currents and a ripping undertow and people drown every year; often strong, overly confident swimmers." [Overly confident swimmer pictured below.]
Oops. The beach seemed so close and there were no waves at all, but swimming with all my might, it was all I could do was try to hold my position, and not get sucked out to sea. The astonished piroguer swung back around and motioned to me to try to crawl back into the boat, which I did, "like a crab." Hey, it couldn't have been all that serious... Aicha was snapping photos. Note the lack of other swimmers, though.
Unrelated image from Yamoussoukro:
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