The trip up was uneventful (smooth and travel can never be used in the same sentence here) and we made it up to Basse around 4pm (6 hours of driving time). We spent the evening and the next day hanging out and exploring Basse with friends in the area. It was great to see them! Conveniently, we were able to stay at the Peace Corps Basse transit house, which eliminated some of the stress of finding a volunteer to house an extra two people for three nights. The Basse region is primarily Fula, so Mandinka is not nearly as widely spoken as in our area. It really made us appreciate our ability to communicate (albeit on a basic level) in Mandinka areas.
Friday we decided to borrow bikes from the Basse house and head out to visit another friend (a fellow Wisconsonite!) in a small village maybe 20-30 kilometers from Basse. Her village is on the northern bank of the river so we needed to cross the river to get there, something we had not yet done. It was supposedly a relatively straight shot for the first half so our plan was to meet our friend halfway before it got really complicated. After getting detailed directions from several people we headed out and unfortunately got lost before even leaving Basse. After being rescued by a more seasoned volunteer, we got back on track and successfully crossed the river with our bicycles in a small metal boat. The rest of the ride was relatively simple and we successfully met up with our friend at our predetermined meeting point. As she led us down winding and ever-forking roads, weaving through villages, we quickly understood why we did not attempt the second half of the ride on our own! Once we got to her village we spent a pleasant day walking around her village and meeting her friends and family, before heading back towards Basse on our own, armed with detailed directions and our cell phones, of course. Amazingly, and mostly thanks to excellent directions, we were somehow able to retrace our path and made in back to Basse well before dark.
Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to the car park to catch a geli back to Soma. As we walked through market to get to the car park, we noticed that the market seemed very empty, but we chalked it up to the early hour. Upon reaching the car park, we were happy to find a geli that was already partially filled, and didn't expect to have to wait more than an hour or so before leaving. After an hour plus of waiting, however, we were informed that it was "setsitol" (see Jacob's post on "setsitol"), so no cars would be leaving before 1pm. Great. So after several more hours of waiting (during which we observed no signs of anyone cleaning the trash-littered area around the car park), our geli finally rolled out of the car park around 1, as promised. `Despite the fact that the geli was supposed to be going directly to Soma, we stopped in a village about a third of the way there and squeezed the people from our no half-empty geli into another half-empty geli going to Soma. Unfortunately this new geli was in much worse condition than the previous one and needed people to get out and push to start it. Never a good sign. Not unexpectedly, after only an hour or so, the geli broke down. After an hour or so of waiting, a third geli going to Soma came by and thankfully was able to squeeze us all in. The one blessing in all of this was the drivers of the various gelis all worked out the fares among themselves, so we didn't end up having to pay any more than we should have. We finally made it back to our house around 9pm, a solid 13 hours after leaving the Basse transit house (~200 kilometers away). Whew!
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