West Africa – Splattered Brains

I am not sure that this blog fits properly into the week’s photo challenge since the description of the challenge also includes the concept of experiencing something surprising on the road. I suppose that seeing things for the first time in far-away places that you are very not familiar with very often presents you with the unexpected and includes the element of surprise. So, hopefully, these pictures are not too far off the mark in addressing the theme in spite of my hesitation….

This is a nostalgic trip down memory lane with reminders of a visit that we made to West Africa many years ago. During the course of that trip we made a road trip from Dalaba, Guinea, to St. Louis , Senegal, and back, with a stop along the way in Dakar. Everything we experienced was new to us!

Even though the roads that we initially traveled on during this trip were paved, the travel experience was more suited for the adventurous because of the state of these roads and the nature of the driving. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Coming out of Labe in Guinea and on our way to Tambacounda in Senegal we found ourselves on a dirt road that stretched into the distance. In fact the dirt road runs for over a hundred miles. The fact that a main road connecting two countries was actually a dirt surface was astounding! But life is tough for the people of Guinea even today. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA We finally got on to a paved road closer to the border with Senegal. (The construction of this road was funded by the Chinese government.)The highways in Senegal were for the most part in good shape.This thunderstorm in the distance looked quite ominous.They had some good local roads. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA We encountered some older forms of traveland some strange advertising.Vehicles were overcrowded with people taking up every inch of space both inside and outside the vehicle.The extent to which the vehicles were overloaded was amazing.We encountered crowded roads in the cities and towns. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA We finally headed back to Guineaand back to the dirt roads leading to Labe.People live simple and very often happy lives in places like this in spite of the absence of modern development. They tackle problems on a day to day basis and let the future take care of itself.

I had to dig back in time to find a couple of themes that could perhaps be suitable for this challenge. It is possible that they may be missing the mark regarding the objective of the challenge.

The C&O canal has had a history of problems dealing with the forces of nature even in its heyday. The park that remains today where this canal once operated is particularly vulnerable even to this day, especially since there is little money available to the National Park Service (NPS) to maintain its 184.5 mile stretch along the Potomac river. The aqueducts have suffered damage regularly, and the ones that are still standing are there primarily due to the efforts of volunteer organizations working with the NPS to preserve some of these historic structures.

In 2010 there was a massive snowstorm that hit the Washington DC area and the east coast of the United States called Snowmageddon! Over the next few weeks the melting snow in the mountains caused massive flooding in the Potomac river and a disaster in the C&O canal park. Here are a few pictures showing some of the problems caused by the weather. I am happy to observe that the particular oops! seen below have been addressed over a period of time since that time.

In 2012 we visited West Africa and the country of the Republic of Guinea. We did a lot of traveling while we were there. It was an adventure of sorts considering the conditions of the roads and the vehicles in use. In fact the highway that we took from Guinea to Senegal was essentially a dirt track winding through the mountains. The vehicles on the road were in many cases several decades old, kept running by the ingenuity of the locals. There was really no public transportation available, which led to amazing scenes of people and material stacked in and on decrepit vehicles traveling on the bad roads. In any case, the circumstances were ideal for us to witness many oops! moments. Thankfully we were ourselves not involved in any serious incidents.