It is not as crazy as it sounds; Senegal PCVs have ridden the route and stayed with me in Kenieba, including my friend from high school last January. The road is in perfect condition, recently paved and little to no traffic on the whole route. I counted a total of 20 cars or trucks that passed me the entire day. I had plenty of fallbacks in case I ran into bike trouble or was too tired to keep going; there are Peace Corps volunteers working in Saraya, a town two-thirds of the way to Kedougou. I also brought a ton of Power Bars and granola bars that my parents and grandparents sent over in care packages, and I took two Nalgene bottles and a couple half liter bottles with me, and had Gatorade drink packets to mix in with the water. So I was well prepared for the ride!
I got up before sunrise, strapped my backpack on the back of my bike, locked up the house and and began my ride to the border at 6:45 AM. The road is not paved yet on the Mali side but it's graded and well-maintained, and easy to bike on. The toughest part was shielding my face from the dust cloud that would appear after pickup trucks carrying construction workers would pass. The bridge workers head out to the construction site each morning. The bridge is not finished and the water level is too high right now to wade across (since rainy season just ended), so I had pay $3 to cross the river in a dugout canoe. I held on tight to my bike to make sure it wouldn't fall into the river!
Once I reached Senegal, it was easy riding. The road is in perfect shape, a two lane road with packed gravel shoulders all the way from the border to Kedougou. There are milestones at every kilometer for the 112 km from the border to Kedougou, so I knew how much farther I had to go every kilometer of the trip.
It was fun to greet people in Malinké as I rode by. Some were harvesting their peanut crops, others were walking to or from school, and others just relaxing under a tree. There were a few Senegalese on their bikes who rode alongside me for a few minutes and we chatted a bit as we went along. I arrived at Saraya at 10:45 AM, way before I thought I would. I refilled my water bottles, had bananas and Biskrem cookies for brunch, and decided to continue riding while the air was still cool. Well, it was only like that for a little while longer, and it started to get really hot in the middle of the day. I took lots of breaks to escape the sun (and give my butt a break!) whenever I saw a big shady tree to stop under. I put 60+ sunscreen on before I left Kenieba and reapplied at my lunch stop, but I still got pretty burned under the African sun!
After a few big hills right at the end, I arrived in Kedougou just before 3 PM. It has been fun to hang out with the Peace Corps volunteers here for the past few days and compare stories about life in Mali vs. Senegal. The house is not actually a house but a cluster of huts: two sleeping huts, a kitchen hut, library hut, and a big hangar to relax under. They also just got a really cute puppy who's been fun to play with.
The new house puppy in Kedougou
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