A jumpy start
The start of the stage was given at 8h05 to 66 riders. Fourteen attackers shake the pack in the first kilometres, but they are soon brought back into line. Six others take over from them, with no greater success. The Moroccan team controls the race, which allows Lionel Syne to win the first two intermediary sprints, ahead of Christof Marien, and to keep his pink jersey.


The yellow jersey group force the pace
It is after the second hot point that Bouba, Nossi and Milesi launch the successful breakaway, soon backed up by Legtenberg, Sawadogo, Sartori and Mederel. But at the back the Moroccan team get into gear : their acceleration is fatal to numerous riders and the pack is split in two. The yellow jersey group, twenty or so riders, join the runaways, forced to ride with Abdelati Saadoune’s team mates.

A second victory for Sawadogo - Saadoune keeps the yellow jersey
In the sprint, the Burkina Faso rider, Hamidou Sawadogo, wins his second consecutive stage, ahead of the Dutch rider, De Haan, and the Spanish rider, Aitor Galdos : the Café Baqué rider takes the green jersey from Lionel Syne. Saadoune remains in a good position for winning this 16th Tour du Faso on Sunday ; but beware, his rivals haven’t had their last word…

Urban wanderings aboard a Burkina Faso "taxi"…

In Africa, the concept of a "bush taxi" is banal : it refers to those vehicles that transport at times more than ten people from one village to another and, abolishing distances, render the bush less hostile to villagers on the move. For city dwellers, notably the inhabitants of the capital of Burkina Faso, these should be referred to as "adrenaline rush" taxis, traffic in Ouaga is so awesome to a tourist used to the strict rules of the Western world's Highway Code. Imagine vast avenues invaded by hordes of bikes, mopeds, pedestrians and… cars ; imagine traffic lights more a guide than a command ; imagine the incessant blaring of car horns in the infernal heat ; imagine dilapidated cars, saved from the scrap heap through their owners sheer necessity for transportation, imagine the Theory of Moving Chaos applied to traffic.

Yesterday, our rest day provided us with the occasion to pass several hours aboard a taxi in Burkina Faso. We set off early, as people's lives here are regulated by the sun, even if they prefer to party when it has set… We were not disappointed by our ride. A camera would better capture the particular atmosphere that reigns in the streets of Ouagadougou, inhabited by a soft serenity that makes up for the ineffable frenzy. The pavements are a permanent source of amazement, a hymn to the ingenuity of the Burkina Faso people : we pass Renault 18 cars filled to burst, buses to which crowds of people are hanging, gaily coloured stalls, leather shoe shops that make us wonder how the shoes keep their shine amid the dust, sellers of mattresses who persist in piling up new models on the already more than 3 metre high pile, sellers of cigarettes who flick the cigarettes out of the packet in Clint Eastwood style, open air CD shops specialised in African music and ... Johnny Hallyday. Our first client is a mechanic on his way to work, but he is quickly joined in the back by a white woman and her baby ; such are the rules here : the client can never refuse to share the taxi, to such an extent that we are soon six in the car. I am told that it's common to have four or five people in the back, two in front, plus the driver, that makes eight passengers.

"You understand, at 200 CFA francs a ride (.35 euros), the fixed price set by our union, it's the only way to survive. Otherwise, the petrol would be more expensive than the ride", Abou Nana, my host driver, explains to me. The woman with the child confirms this : "Here, it's common. You have to get used to it and, above all, forget your previous references points. Look at these mopeds, they all splutter thick black smoke, because they overload the engines with oil. It's believed that there is something wrong with a moped that doesn't give off thick black smoke." The young woman is the wife of the Professor of Mathematics at the French Secondary School in Ouaga. She tells us that she loves the carefree life that she lives here and that, in spite of the heat, - 45°C in April-, she would leave this country for nothing in the world. We pass in front of the Zaka, a chic restaurant where we discovered aloko, a dish based on bananas prepared like chips.

Briskly, Abou, somnolent until now, comes to life and parks the taxi at the side of the road ; he has recognised his policeman friend and, although a client waves him down, behaves as though nothing besides this friendship matters to him. "It's my childhood friend and he's now a motorbike rider in the national police, he tells me, proudly showing me his friend's blue BMW. If I have a problem with the police, I call him. And as we're not allowed to carry more than three people, that happens a lot…" The man in question explains to me that Abou, chauffeur for the Tour du Faso where he has become the friend of those in charge of the Tour de France, is nicknamed "the Frenchman", notably since the repainting in red, white and blue of his radiator grill and hub caps. The policeman salutes us and we set off again on our city wanderings.

The next client, an American dressed in a suit and tie, wants to get to Ouaga 2000, the chic area of the capital. Here, the price of the journey is exceptionally high (400 francs CFA), which is authorised for out of the ordinary journeys. We run alongside the Burkina Faso National Bank, a huge building that looks like a safe. Our passenger is a consultant on an assignment in Africa. On the way, we pick up a new customer, who gets in proclaiming : "you've got a nice taxi, clean and well looked after. I like clean people !" We depose our two lodgers and, taking the time to loiter in the smart streets of Ouaga 2000, I'm impudent enough to ask, "Nana, why don't you change the colour of your taxi? This apple green, it's really not great !" His reply : all taxis have to be this colour ! "That's how they recognise those who have paid their licence from those who are working illegally". All around me, as far as the eye can see, there are dozens of apple green vehicles, and I see that there are probably as many "adrenaline rush" taxis in Ouaga as there are yellow taxis in New-York…