Killing time in Zig

There isn't too much to do in Zig without getting in a vehicle and exploring the surrounding area which is meant to be beautiful. Being a tightfisted pair, we wandered on foot around town prefering to save money that we might need later on during the trip.

Late afternoon we went off in a different direction towards the church and came across some pigs with their young foraging in the grass beside the road. Gianni noticed them first and as I had the camera out already and took a photo or two ... BAD MOVE.

Suddenly someone came up to us and started yelling at me that he was the pig's owner and demanded 2,000CFA for the photos. I looked at him and asked if he was really the owner, he insisted and wanted the money. I suggested that all 3 of us go to the gendarmerie and discuss it there. He wandered off still protesting that he was entitled to money ... we continued walking chuckling to ourselves ... but the story didn't end there!





Being a Sunday there was a lot of the centre of town shut but we bumped into Antoni, Scicilian working as an architect in Switzerland that Gianni had travelled with from Mauritania to St. Louis a few weeks earlier. Antoni was with 3 others, an Aussie, Korean & Parisien. They knew an excellent restaurant on the other side of town that they'd been to the night before so we all walked over to have the most amazing meal with a waitress that definately hadn't been to 'smile school' who managed to drop a plate of fish ends in my lap!!!



Jacques, the Parisien, was telling us about the drama that had happened 4 days earlier. He was concerned for our safety as we were due to cross to Guinea Bissau the following day once we'd got our visas in the morning. Apparently a German priest's car was ambushed on the road near the border (known for problems) and everything was stolen, to the point that the priest had to strip and walked back to Zig in his underpants; funny, but not so funny!

We left the restaurant and headed back to our hotels, to discover the 4 of them were staying in the place opposite CasaAfrique. They had an early start to get to Tambacounda, we had to be at the Consulate for 9am or so, we weren't sure of the opening times ...