Well, I've wanted to go to Ouagadougou since I was a child and I saw the name of the capital of the former Upper Volta on the globe my parents used to have as the centerpiece of a coffee table.

And now I've been there. I have very mixed feelings about it. It has a certain charm, in the old French colonial way such places have charm. But it's mainly a big ugly city. The government has decided to simply tear much of it down and there are large districts of nothing but red dirt.

The touts are aggressive and unrelenting. Worse than northern India, if you can imagine such a thing. And at the shops, the bargaining begins at about 600 percent of the value of the trinkets. I bought a nice little painting of Ouaga street life painted on some tin. The guy started at 65 USD! I got it for 7 USS. I never moved from my initial offer. They're just nuts. I suppose it must work some times. But, anyway, it's not a bad place. It has its charms.