They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things - I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life's ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There's so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something. - Lisa Ann Sandell

11 January 2020, Buba
Apart Hotel Françon 10,000XOF (R244)

We had planned to move on today, but… When the alarm went off, I pressed the ten-minute snooze button, then again ten minutes later, and again... Then acknowledged I was physically drained and had no trouble whatsoever persuading Charl to have a rest day, and back to sleep we went.
Buba is sited on an amazing river. “The Rio Grande de Buba … is an estuary of West Africa that is entirely contained within Guinea-Bissau, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 54 kilometres (34 mi) in total length and is 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) wide at its mouth. It is an environment unique in West Africa, which has no other example of an arm of the sea extending so far inland, with a downstream depth of around 30 metres (98 ft), and its fauna is extremely rich and diversified.” (Wikipedia)
We took a share taxi to the “marché” (market) in search of SIM cards, but when the driver dropped us a little beyond the market and in sight of the river, we decided instead first to walk down to the water’s edge. There we saw a signboard advertising tours of the estuary and nearby Parque Natural das Lagoas de Cufada, boasting birds and manatees and more.
We saw also a sign to the Pousada Bela Vista hotel, and Charl immediately thought “ah, breakfast”. So we took a stroll along dusty roads to find that the hotel’s pretty flower-potted balcony overlooks a long stretch of river, and that they were willing to make us breakfast even though the restaurant was not officially open just then. We were served with an omelette and a wedge of cheese and fresh baguettes with butter and home-made quince jam. And ate with pleasure while watching the women of Buba sitting near the river, waiting… In time a boat arrived and they all purchased fish from the fisherman and strolled away home.
Later, in the market, we bought peanuts and at the Orange store, SIMs and from the bike shop, a new tube. Then taxied home to our hotel near the rotunda at the entrance to Buba. We spent the late-morning and afternoon sitting in the shade, where the hotel owner’s daughter, visiting from Bissau, took a liking to us and fed us. First, an unusually-flavoured fish dish, then a different fish in a spicy soup, served with rice and what we later found to be hibiscus leaves, an unappealing green goo, though entirely inedible!
We dined later on bread and barbecued meat and went to bed well-fed and well-rested.
A frustration… For every photo we take, we miss five wonderful shots; vignettes of extraordinary beauty, not captured because people don’t like to have their photos taken and we are reluctant to intrude on their private lives. Women are exotic birds of paradise in bright plumage, orange and green and purple and pink. Sitting shelling peanuts, chatting to friends, minding children, resting in the shade of magnificent trees. Colour, composition and activity the stuff of National Geographic shots, but gone in a blink… I saw a boy, for example, transporting oranges on his bicycle. He did not have a bag for them, so had pulled the front of his T-shirt up, clasping the lower edge of it between strong white teeth, and filled the fabric to bulging with the round fruit.
Something else I have forgotten to mention. Throughout central and west Africa, people use patterned coloured plastic teapots, usually striped, to hold water for drinking or washing, we assume different pots for different functions, as the teapots are carried into the bush or to pit toilets for more intimate ablutions. Both pretty and functional.