In July 2013, we left Greece to start a
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three-year adventure around the African continent. The first 10 months I rode with Christina Pefani on two 20-yearold Honda XR 250s that we’d rebuilt and upgraded ourselves. Then, I completed the expedition solo— totaling 39 countries and over 60,000 miles—more than twice the earth’s circumference at the equator!
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here are three countries in Africa that use the word “Guinea” in their names: Guinea (former French Guinea); Guinea-Bissau (former Portuguese Guinea); and Equatorial Guinea (former Spanish Guinea). None of these countries should be confused with New Guinea, perhaps the best known “Guinea,” an island in the Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Guinea-Bissau is a tiny little country in West Africa very few people have heard of. At one time, it was a Portuguese colony whose struggle for freedom was one of the bloodiest in the history of the continent. It finally gained its independence in 1974. Unfortunately, local leaders have not proven any better than the old foreign regimes. It remains the least developed of the Guineas I’ve visited.
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Making our way through the tropical dry forests of Guinea.
by Elias Vrohidis
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Sometimes the grass on the trails was taller than us and we had to make our way through it.
After being hosted in Guinea-Bissau by a local teacher, it was time to hit the road and head for the neighboring Guinea. We intended to try a route through the jungle which looked really interesting on the map. Heading south of Gabú on a dirt road, we crossed small settlements with round, thatched grass mud huts. Somewhere before Ché-Ché, we found a nice spot to wild camp next to a small river. After cooling down in its water, Christina made us a meal on our little petrol stove. It was Christmas, so she made a festive dinner of—beans! A soldier who checked our passports in a village insisted that we couldn’t cross to Guinea on the trails. I took out our map and patiently attempted to explain our intended route. Although I don’t know whether he was finally convinced—the language barrier was always a problem—he let us go. After Ché-Ché, the dirt road gave way to jungle trails. We had to cross some quite deep rivers where the water was just below the air intakes of our motorcycles. Usually, when the rivers were deeper, there were small, wooden bridges. In some areas, the overgrown grass was taller than us. And if it wasn’t for the amazingly detailed GPS maps, we wouldn’t have been able to find our way!
African Jungle We had to cross many rivers and some of them were quite deep.
Our motorcycles were loaded one by one onto the pirogue and had to be paddled to the other side of the river.
The terrain became mountainous as we entered the legendary Fouta Djalon area. 70
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In the last village of Guinea-Bissau there was a police station where we got exit stamps for our passports. We crossed into Guinea but there was no indication that we were in another country. Everyone we met on the trails told us we could get the entry passport stamps at the police station in Kissomaya—a village 20 miles away! It took us a while to reach it and along the route we came to a big river where the only way to cross was in a pirogue, a long canoe carved from a tree trunk. After a little haggling, locals helped load the motorbikes on the canoe, which was just wide enough for a single bike, and only one at a time. I prayed it wouldn’t capsize, as there would be no way to save the bike. Women were washing their clothes and their children in the river while our boatman paddled away. We wild camped in the bush but when I woke up, I noticed that the rear tire on Christina’s motorcycle had a puncture. I had a mild headache but had to do the job. While I was slowly replacing the tube a local, passing by, stopped to help. Afterward, when I offered him the
punctured tube, he thanked me again and again. We then shared our breakfast with him, and he smiled like he was in paradise! As we found out later, Guineans, after the Sudanese, are the second friendliest nation in Africa, a factor that made Guinea our favorite country in West Africa, if not the whole continent. The second day there, we finally reached the town of Boké. We had to exchange money and discovered that the largest banknote was 10,000 Guinean francs, worth just a bit more than a dollar. They offered us a nylon bag to put the money in! Our off-road adventure in Guinea had a long way to go. We planned to spend three more days riding through the tropical dry forests before reaching Labé. Rough trails and river crossings were again ahead of us. Every time we saw a steep downhill trail, we knew another river crossing was awaiting us at the bottom. Those days our boots were constantly full of water and, as they were waterproof, like buckets they retained the water. On top of that, Christina’s bike was having mechanical
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er the “As we found out later, Guineans, aft liest Sudanese, are the second friend nation in Africa, a factor that made Africa, Guinea our favorite country in West if not the whole continent.”
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issues. Over the previous month, the engine kept stalling, and I was struggling to find the reason. I had cleaned the carburetor, replaced the spark plug and fuel filter, and had even exchanged the ignition coil and the CDI between the two bikes. That’s a huge advantage when you are in the middle of nowhere with two identical motorcycles. You can exchange parts in order to discover exactly what’s wrong. However, none of those parts proved faulty. Christina’s engine kept stalling in the middle of deep river crossings and we were constantly struggling to get it out. At one point, I noticed that it ran fine in neutral but at the moment I put it in gear, it stalled. That was all I needed to know—the problem was the side stand’s bloody safety sensor! So I used a small piece of wire to short-circuit the sensor and that solved it. When we hit the road again, I made the mistake of leaving my helmet visor open and a bee hit me below my eye! The pain didn’t last long but the swelling continued for several
days. But even with a half-closed eye, I continued to take in the gorgeous beauty of the Guinean countryside. The terrain became mountainous as we entered the legendary Fouta Djalon area. Reaching an altitude of 4,000 feet, we rode amid thick, evergreen vegetation and next to a river which the sun couldn’t reach. We sometimes washed in the rivers and I found that putting on a soaked T-shirt kept me cool in the scorching heat. By the time we finally made it to Labé, six days after we had left Bissau, we were completely covered in red African dust. After all, this was an unforgettable off-road ride through the savannah and the tropical dry forests! Elias Vrohidis was born in Greece in 1984. Although he studied informatics and telecommunications he works as a skipper on sailboats around the beautiful islands of Greece. When he was 23, he traveled for the first time on his Honda XR 250 to 14 Asian countries in 27 months. In 2013, he hit the road again, this time on an epic three-year 60,000-mile adventure through 39 countries around Africa. MadNomad.gr
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Going to the border of Guinea there were handmade wooden bridges over some rivers.