Deliverance

(To the background music of a guy playing a banjo)



It's 7.30pm on the 9th of February. The border is closed (which doesn't stop half the population crossing it anyway on foot, bikes and scooters), I haven't showered in 3 days, and 3ply toilet paper is nice, but I'm not a bear. In short, I'm a slightly annoyed individual at this point in time.

But, wait!

The boss cop leaves, but not before casting a killer look at us. Then two cops we haven't seen before appear out of the darkness and demand our passports.

Okay, that's it. We're going to jail.

They reappear in 10 minutes, passports stamped and open the barrier.

Uhhh... Wait, what?

"Just go, fast, so no one see you."

They didn't have to tell us twice.

The Gendarmerie checkpoint is already closed, but they stamp us and let us through anyway, and tell us to just explain to the Senegalese that we were delayed.

Which would be OK, if there was still anyone there, except a very, VERY armed bunch of folks that tell us to go back, it's not safe, and why are we driving through a mine field at night.

Right, new problem. We can't go into Senegal, we are NOT NOT NOT EVER going back into Guinea Bissau, and we can't camp because being reunited with our ancestors courtesy of a land mine is not particularly high on the to-do list for the evening.

But we can't stay on the Senegalese side because we're not even allowed to keep the lights of the car on.

We go back to the Bissauian Gendarmerie checkpoint (fortunately out of sight of the cops) and ask them in broke french-spanish-portugese if we might possibly be allowed to spend the night next to the post.

Oh, no, no! Here, drive in to the back yard, it's safer and off the road! (This all being explained with waving arms as we didn't have any overlaps in our language knowledge).
Wait, what? You're... Nice?

About 15 minutes after we park in the yard between the border post and the house the 3 gendarmes live in, and just as we're contemplating dinner, they come and ask us to join THEM for dinner.

Uhhh... Did we cross the twilight zone boundary as well? Who are these people!?

Dinner consists of the main course (fish stew with Baguettes) provided by the Gendarmes and Coke and cookies provided by us. They share their baguettes (they had 3) and their spoons (likewise, exactly 3) with us - and we're overwhelmed. They're the nicest bunch of people we met so far. We give them a few of the good flashlights, so they don't need to always share the one they have - and we crawl into the car to spend the night. You can hear the carnival in the distance, and people (and god knows what else) crossing the border in the background.

It is now 11pm. We've been at the border for 11 hours.