Day 9, November 3: Ouagadougou to Kara

We pulled out at 6 a.m. and made good time back. We stopped and got cokes again in Tenkodogo but this time had to adjust my chain out a notch. The bike was still consuming a little oil, but I was glad to be almost home. By this time sores that had began to appear on my leg/butt on day three were almost unbearable. They had turned into blood blisters by day 5, which I popped and were now unbearably painful, 3", open sores. I struggled to shift my body off them but we made it in one piece to the border by 11 a.m. The Burkina guys laughed that we'd made it back and I reassured them there weren't any bandits like they'd warned us of going in. None of them had ever even been as North as Ouagadougou but they'd been sure of the banditry because of the television. At this point I began to need stops at about every 50 miles because of the pain. We stopped 50 miles south of Daapong and I pretended to need to pee so I didn't look like a wuss. Two guys came up to look at my bike while I was peeing and I came up staring at them. JJ said I had this dazed look on my face and he thought I was angry (really my butt just hurt incrediby) so I began to pretend not to speak french and mimicked my butt agony out to them. They got a good laugh and so did I! We made it as far as Kante but when I pulled off my helmet my face was white and covered in sweat. It'd turned to agony. I took a 10 minute breather and decided to take off my backpack and strap it to my bag on the bike. That helped enormously (not sure why) and we made it no stops the remaining 60k to the house. Oh, I almost got taken out by some guy in Kara who made a no-look, across the lane, left turn. I thought about how ironic it'd been to be taken out after 2,000 miles in my hometown. Seeing Grace at the gate was amazing and my dog Penny nearly killed herself with excitement. Grace had cleaned and organized the entire house, done yard work, and really worked hard while I was gone. Seeing her was good enough, but how great the place looked really made coming home a wonderful thing. JJ came over that evening and we swapped pictures and had coffee and that was it. The trip was over. I had the runs that entire night and had to drain what were now cysts on my backside but my trip of a lifetime had been completed, in amazing style, and I was a better man for it.