Trip in central Liberia

Gbarnga (pronounced: banga) is a small city north-east of Monrovia. 3 hours drives… if you know how to avoid Red Light (the biggest market of Liberia), if you do not have any problems finding gasoline, if the pee stops are not to frequent, if your car do not make weird sounds, if you haven't forgotten your passports at home, if they let you pass the check points without controlling all your papers ! …

Arriving almost without trouble in Gbarnga, we have the delight to meet again a Swiss-German family (Peter and Gisela) who welcome us for the second time in their great environment. Their garden is beautiful and our boys enjoy their puppies! Their house is equipped with solar panels and we have the pleasure to have a shower with hot water at the end of the day.

To go out of Monrovia is an adventure in itself. The small towns with the mud houses and the roof made of palm branches, the woman with the pestle, the kids cooling down in buckets of water, the women and kids washing clothes in the river, the smoke of coal used to cook food, the old man sitting observing, men/women and kids carrying kilos of woods on their heads (but how can they manage that ?), …

But also? Finally the pleasure to drive on real African tracks. (look at the video on our website!). And the pleasure to visit beautiful waterfall (Kpatawe Waterfall)!

And the way back… Nicolas: "We really have to tank up". Total station - no gas. NP station - no gas. "Do not buy gas on the street, often it's not too clean!".

Melvina "So, we don't have the choice, we have to buy gas from the street! We just take a gallon and we tank up in Monrovia." No choice. We stop. Melvina goes out of the car: "Fuel ?" "Yes" "One gallon !". And let's go, we set out again. Driving past another gasoline stand. "Oh, the gas that gave me the guy was really dark compare to this one!" Nicoas breaks hard. "Wait, what did you ask? Fuel or Gas?". "Hmm, … fuel why?" Oops, it was diesel. OK, looking on the web it does not seems too bad, we call Peter… Finally we conclude that we have to dilute it rapidly. So we add another 6 gallons at the next stand … of gasoline this time! We arrive in Monrovia safely… the car has only coughed a few times!

We send you a bit of heat for this particular Advent time. Best wishes to all,

Melvina, Nicolas, Théotime, Siméon and Gabriel