A direct trip when the roads are good can take 14 hours to travel 500 miles. The rainy season starts in May and ends in September. This short season only allows for one crop cycle. Rainstorms usually last no longer than an hour and are very violent. These storm clouds to the right are building into a big storm.
Flash floods are common and ravines usually dry, turn into turgid and turbulent rivers.
The rainy season only allows for one crop cycle. As October rolls around and the Dry season starts, the temperatures drop from the high 90's down to the mid 80's. Even more dramatic is the dusty wind off of the Sahara called the Harmattan. It coats everything not moving too quickly with a thin layer of white dust. On particularly bad days visibility is reduced to 100 meters and the usually unforgiving Sun is simply a whitish haze in the sky.