a nice relaxing weekend away, part 1

How to not complain but tell a true story that could sound pretty whiney?  Not sure, so I ‘m just going to go for it.  That’s my disclaimer, nobody’s forcing you to read.   I want to be  a positive person, but sometimes the negative truth smacks ya in the face and some venting might help…  (or at least it’ll amuse my mom who I know reads my blog.)


This was our room at Teriya Bugu.

I think that spending a nice weekend together, aw­­­ay from our everyday life, is a good idea for me and Jean-Patrick to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Pretty much I would be game for any place that has a clean room to stay in and would give me a weekend off from cooking and washing dishes.  Add a pool to swim in and I’m one happy gal.  It’s actually not that easy to find a place like that around here, especially within our budget! 
Last year, for our first anniversary, we did a trip to “Teriya Bugu”-  a really cool resort place that I had heard great things about.  I had been told that Teriya Bugu (which means something like “friendship village” in Bambara) is about a 2 ½ hour trip from where we live.  But that would be 2 ½ hours by private car.  It is not possible to get there by bus as it is not in a major town or between towns.   Our means of transportation is our motorcycle (henceforth referred to as a “moto”).  I thought “oh, a 2 ½ hour trip on the moto, that might be fun.”  Well, it wasn’t fun.  It took us 4 hours on the moto, 1 hour of which was weaving around puddles and holes on a bumpy unpaved road.  In town we don’t really go faster than 30mph, and almost nobody (me included) ever wears a helmet in town.  This was my first trip out of town on the moto, and JP found a helmet to borrow for me to wear.  (he has his own helmet as he does out of town trips more often)  The helmet was too big and very heavy.  It was in the 80’s and humid, but I had to wear a long-sleeved shirt so as to not get sunburned.  I also wore jeans and sneakers (different from the usual skirt and sandals I wear on the moto in town!) and I had a big stuffed backpack on my back.  For 4 hours.  A big heavy backpack on my back for 4 hours while sitting on the metal bars that extend beyond the seat of the moto.   Our moto has no sissy bar.  You have to be alert and sort of try to lean forward because, 1. You don’t want to fall off the back, and 2. There is a big heavy backpack pulling you back as your bottom side goes from pain to numb with metal bars digging into it for 4 slowly passing hours.  By the time we got there I was pretty sore and tired out to say the least.
We had a good time at the resort.  The room was nice and we enjoyed the pool and the food.  I would recommend a visit to Teriya Bugu to anyone who can go in a car. 
When the moment came to get back on the moto to make the trip home (the trip I knew would be 4 very uncomfortable hours followed by lingering backache and butt pain) I gritted my teeth and said “ok, I can do this, it’s just 4 hours”.  Somehow those 4 hours that seemed never-ending ended, and we got home.  It was a unanimous decision in the end that we will not ever again do another trip like that on the moto.