Last post from Puerto Penasco

Tomorrow, Fraser and I are leaving our lovely little R&D center here just as this town starts to come alive again. It's spring break so in the past 2 weeks we've seen more tourists and revelers than we have in the past 4 months!  The days are longer, the air is warm and the mood PP, a very tourism reliant town, is on the rise. 

Last week we donated the Phaeton to the local Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Puerto Peñasco. They have an industrial design program and the professor in charge, Rodrigo, is very excited about the opportunity for students to apply their skills to a real world project with social and environmental benefits. The institute sent a truck and some guys to pick the machine up and then we set up the machine together and I ran a little workshop on how to care for the machine, establish a tight focal point, and make new mirror modules. We're going to be in touch and I'll act as a sort of advisor to any students who take an interest. A few already have. While we were setting up the array quite a few students passed by to gawk at the pot of boiling water and the flaming stick. We sure are glad to see the array going to a good cause!




While we'll be sorry to leave, we have a lot to look forward to. We're taking the scenic route home, and by that I mean we'll be driving up the West Coast to Vancouver where we'll spend a few days and then across Canada, visiting relatives along the way! I'll get to see the town where my grandad grew up, and I'll finally meet a lot of family that I haven't yet had the pleasure of getting to know. We're going to take around 3 weeks to drive back and then we're going to build another Phaeton, this one for demonstrations, and then start hitting up international aid, international development and various philanthropic orgs to mount a project.  


I'll update mid trip with pics of our journey! 

The Road to Bamako

Our convoy left Nouakchott in a less than spectacular fashion. Since the condition of our van was in doubt it was decided we'd leave first, so if we broke down the others would find us and be able to help. We didn’t count on the normally super-navigatory skills of Pierre to fail. We took around an hour to find the road out of Nouakchott. We had agreed that if we didn't meet up on the road before the next town, we'd hang out there until we met up. When we arrived at the meeting point we parked, played a couple games of foosball with the kids and waited. No one really had any clue as to when the biotruck troop was moving out (they picked up about 5 hitchhikers at the hostel, so the chaos was somewhat understandable) but we assumed they’d leave after the second van. When they turned up and we still hadn’t seen the second van we started to sense something was amiss. Regardless of when and where we agreed to meet, we couldn’t let our safety net pass us by, so we joined up with the biotroop. After a quick top up,

we continued together until nightfall, where we lit up a traditional biofuel bonfire (don’t worry, the Biotruck expedition is fully carbon footprinted and carbon neutralized).

We camped out in the Savannah, not fully realizing the reason that lions have such thick pads on their feet. Ben, a travelling storyteller, juggler and artist soon found out:

pretty much everything in the Savannah is vicious. Essentially everyone was covered in burs the likes of which I’d never seen.

Since French phones don’t really work in Mali, we were unable to communicate with the other van, but we concluded that they had passed us by while we were turning around and around in Nouakchott, had not seen us and had concluded that we had continued the journey. With the biotroop safely bringing up the rear, we decided to speed ahead to see if we could catch our friends, since we had scheduled to stop at Nioro du Sahel to meet a French couple, Gerard and Mariane, who support an association of women farmer/gardeners by teaching the principles of eco-agriculture.

Our assumption was right; the other van had been speeding trying to catch us, thinking that we were ahead of them. Regardless, it means that we made good time getting to Nioro, after which we drove a couple hours on rough paths to get to Tourougoumbe where Gerard and Mariane do their thing.

Always vigilant for opportunities to improve efficiency and diffuse Solar Fire, I was somewhat taken aback when I saw:

*mental note: wood not particularly scarce here* This guy must be getting no more than 15% efficiency out of his rig. Regardless, I asked around to find the bakery to see if I could learn a thing or two about his business. I found him

in a kitchen so amazingly smoky that after no more than 2 minutes, tears were freely running down my face. He laughed and told me, between hacking coughing fits, that you get used to it. After we stepped outside for some fresh air, I asked him some questions about the quantity of wood he uses weekly, how much bread he bakes with it, and so on. He doesn’t exactly take rigorous notes, but tried to be as helpful as we could be. The most solid fact I got was that the bakery works at maximum capacity only one day per week: market day. He showed me the bundle of wood that he bought to fuel the oven for market day alone, and told me that it cost 2500 Francs CFA (1€=650 CFA). Satisfied, I left him to his work.

Gerard and Mariane invited us to take a tour of the gardens, where the women grow spices, tomatoes, potatoes, and a number of medicinal plants. Amounting to around 2 hectares, the women practice composting, natural pest barriers, crop rotation, evaporation reduction techniques and other aspects of eco-agriculture. The association had, in the past, been the recipient of some grants, the benefits of which can be seen in this photo:

Note the aqueduct. Also note the woman carrying a bucket alongside it. The women painstakingly haul buckets of water up 10 meters from the well, and they’re not about to let it evaporate while sitting in the aqueduct, which it would take her all day to fill to an effective level. The aqueduct now just gets in the way. I found it a poignant illustration of the importance of involving aid recipients in the decision making process, so as to minimize the risk of misspending.

After being treated to a night of African dance and drums, we set out at dawn for Bamako, where the intensity and awesomeness of the happenings still escapes my capacity to transcribe it (not for long).

Travelling companions

Allow me to introduce my friends, colleagues and traveling companions:

First up is Pierre, a Frenchman from Auvergne who runs his own solar waterheater and solar panel installation company. Pierre has made the trip before and has traveled a number of times to Morocco, Mali and elsewhere in West Africa.

We'll be rolling in Pierre's Renault Tracker 4x4:
It's a beast of a machine. Notice the solar panel on the roofrack, which has been modified into a pop tent.

Introducing Pierre's daughter, Lucie:and Roxanne, Lucie's friend:
We'll be traveling together until at least Bamako, Mali, where I'll gather information about the feasibility of implementing Solar Fire technologies, and based on my findings I will or will not then promote Solar Fire (call me presumptuous, but I have a feeling there'll be enough interest to warrant my sticking around).

The plan is to meet the rest of the crew at Nouakchott, Mauritania around the 14th of December before making the last push across the desert into Mali and Bamako.

Soon enough I'll post some pictures of the sights we've seen along the way... there have been some spectacular ones.

Peace and light