01/20/2024 Bikepacking The Ivory Coast Day 165 : Man

When crossing the border into Ivory Coast, I asked, “Il y a électricité ici?” (Is there electricity here?)

The man gave me a funny look, so I tried a different word.

“Courant? Il y a courant en Côte d’Ivoire ?”
(Electricity… is there electricity in Ivory Coast?)

He replied, “yes, there is electricity in the villages and towns, but there isn’t electricity in the forest.”

I wonder if he thought there was electricity in American forests?

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I had just come from Guinea where electricity is hard to come by, so it seemed like a reasonable question. Ivory Coast looks like an upgrade to my previous two months; I told Janet on the phone last night that it felt as if I had upgraded to Honduras. The power only went out once yesterday.

The reason for coming this far South was to visit the “waterfall of Man.” I told Janet this town would be good because “tourists come here.” After visiting 3 ATMs that were powered on, but didn’t dispense cash… and spending 3 hours working as an HVAC repairman, I realized that the Africa challenge is still ongoing.

A guy on the side of the road asked me for money, so I flipped around to ask him why. He said, “because you’re white.” I wouldn’t have mentioned this, except the same day when I parked my bike at a store, a man came up to me and said I owed him money for watching my bike.

There was another guy about ready to leave. He was straddling his motorcycle nearby, so I asked him, “is it normal to pay someone for watching your bike here?”

“I wouldn’t… But you can if you want.”

So, I looked back at the “security guard” and asked why I should pay.

“Because you’re white.”

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I think it is fair to say that I’m getting a feel for what “racial discrimination” feels like. In fact, I have been wondering, “Is this racism?” Then I thought to myself, “no… racism includes hate… and I don’t feel like anyone here hates me.” In fact, many people say, “I love you, my friend” - solely because I am white.

I finally got an opportunity to look up the definition of racism:

“prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

You can decide if this is racism.

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“Blanc,” (‘white’ in French) seems to be the new refrain in Ivory Coast. I hear kids yelling it now. This too is an upgrade; I’ve been here two days now, and people actually speak French - well enough to correct my mistakes (which I don’t mind). Long lines of kids in uniforms walk on the shoulders of the roads - even on a Saturday. Granted, this is city life, but it seems like more education is happening in the Ivory Coast.

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The name “Ivory Coast,” is kind of alluring. Before planning this trip, I didn’t even know there was a country called “Sierra Leone,” but even as a kid I had daydreamed about “The Ivory Coast” being some sort of magical place with white sand beaches, or maybe pelagic elephants roaming with long tusks. Place-names can throw your expectations off sometimes.

And it was with certain exceptions that I cycled up to the “waterfall of Man” today. Upon arrival, there was a concrete wall with a little abandoned ticket booth. In ball-point pen, on the wall, someone had scratched “500 entry; 1000 for internationals”. A bunch of teenage boys were sitting on the road and told me I needed to pay them 1000 for the entry, and another 1000 for them to watch my bike.

I obliged. Next, one of the kids followed me and said he would be my “guide.” I was able to escape his clutches by telling him I didn’t understand French, which is mostly true.

Once past the wall, it was like entering a war zone. It appeared as if this had been a relaxing place for tourists many years ago, but now it was crumbling concrete paths and downed trees. I even had to climb over a few power lines that had fallen and were half-suspended on broken branches across the path. After navigating the rubble, I came to a caved-in restaurant and signs indicating that there had been toilet facilities at one point.

It was pretty obvious that those boys were just profiteering from an abandoned site. That became even more clear when I returned to the entrance. A group of 25 men from Guinea (I assume, based on their t-shirts) were having a loud argument with the teens in French. They didn’t want to pay to enter. If I spoke French better, I would have told them not to pay, but I just got out of there. I had been planning on continuing to the top of Mount Tonkpi, which is 4,000’ (even planned on sleeping up there at one point)… but with the haze from the fires everywhere, there didn’t seem to be much point.

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