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I woke up early on Saturday morning in Tambacounda in the east of Senegal. It was still dark and the guesthouse, Chez Dessert, where I was staying was quiet and still. I had to be in Bamako on Sunday evening where I had arranged to meet my friend Joanna who was flying directly into Mali from London. It gave me about 36 hours to make this journey by road and rail. Matevz and Vesna, the couple of students from Slovenia who I met and travelled with from Basse Santa Su in The Gambia, had decided to stay an extra day in Tambacounda before they too would embark on the same journey. I walked through Tambacounda as the sun began to rise and the town slowly woke up; small piles of rubbish were burning in the street, their smoke drifting lazily in the morning air. I walked as far as the local taxi garage, about five blocks down a dirt side road from the guesthouse. The previous day I had tried to find the garage for transport to Kidira, the Senegalese border town, but had failed. I decided to find this local garage instead and from there, take a taxi across town; after all it was a long walk from the guesthouse, over two kilometres.
The taxi crossed the town in only a few minutes, there was still very little traffic around, and dropped me off on the road where I had searched yesterday in vain for the Kidira garage. The garage was down an alleyway, set off from the road behind the buildings. I had stood at this very same spot yesterday but had failed to see the garage. I found it hard to believe that I hadn't been able to find this place yesterday, despite standing almost at the entrance of this alleyway. I blamed the heat for yesterdays failings and walked down the alley and into the early morning chaos of the garage.
The place was heaving with people and vehicles. I quickly found a minibus making the trip to Kidira and bought a ticket and waited. Onions appeared to be the main cargo the minibus would be carrying this morning, apart from passengers. Sack loads of onions were loaded and tied down onto the roof with the passenger's luggage on top. It made me wonder as to the strength of the minibuses roof. This often happens while travelling in Africa; you see a vehicle and think I'm sure the designers never intended it to be used this way. In my case today I'm sure when the vehicle was tested they never loaded a ton or so of onions on to the roof to see how the vehicles road handling was affected. By the time all the cargo and luggage was securely tied to the roof the minibus had almost doubled in height.
It was a tight squeeze in the minibus for the 175km journey to Kidira. Once we had passed the police checkpoint on the edge of town we cruised down a good, tarred road running parallel to the railway line. The savannah landscape of well-dispersed trees and shrubs became monotonous after a while; herds of cattle roamed around this landscape grazing on the grass. The road was almost straight most of the way. We stopped at small villages of round mud huts to drop off some of the passengers, which at last gave the rest of us some room to stretch out. I finally dozed off in the heat for an hour or so and woke up as we were nearing Kidira.
The driver stopped at the police station on the outskirts of Kidira and waited for me while I had an exit stamp stamped into my passport. I was the only passenger on the minibus heading for the border. I climbed back into the minibus, which I think was continuing its journey north to Bakel, and was dropped off near the centre of town. I had now officially left Senegal but was still wandering around Kidira looking for the border. A local taxi driver found me and instinctively knew where I wanted to go and offered me his services. I climbed in and drove through town stopping on the way to pick up another passenger, call at his house to drop something off for his wife and buy a litre of petrol from a street vendor selling petrol in old wine bottles. Finally we left town the way I had come earlier and took a left turn and drove over a bridge across the River Falene and into Mali on the far banks.
It was five minutes past midday as the taxi pulled into a dusty square in Diboli, the Malian border town on the banks of the river. The driver dropped me off and drove back across the bridge to Senegal and the other passenger disappeared down a side street. I was left standing in the square on my own. My first priority was to find a border post or a police station to sort out my immigration papers. I thought there would be a border post by the bridge, but there was nothing and the local people cycled and walked freely across the bridge from one country to the other. I walked through the town looking for a police station. I immediately could see that I was in a far poorer country than Senegal. There was not much traffic moving on the roads, which were all dirt and the cars parked along the streets looked in a very bad state of repair. I found a main street and proceeded to ask some of the local people if they knew where I could get my passport stamped. I resorted to sign language, as my French is not so good, and showed them my passport while stamping it with my fist. A boy, probably in his late teens saw me and helped me out. He could speak English and showed me the way through town to the railway line where the border guards were sitting under a shady canopy waiting for the bi-weekly train to arrive from Senegal that night.
As I sat in the guard's office filling in the necessary paperwork I thought I was making good progress today. It was only about half-past midday and I had already covered 175km; it was only about another 100km to Kayes where I planned to pick up either the local or international train to Bamako. I began to think that maybe I could get further than Kayes today. I knew the roads were not supposed to be very good onwards from Kayes; I had heard conflicting reports about the road conditions in this part of Mali but guessed that I could be in Kayes by the middle of the afternoon and then decide what to do from there.
The boy who showed me the way to the border guards by the railway line had also just arrived in Diboli from Senegal and was waiting for the international train, which was due to pass through the town in the early hours of the following morning. He offered to let me stay at his cousin's house in town to wait as well for the train. I declined and explained that I wanted to get to Kayes this afternoon and from there, either pick up a train or continue my journey to Bamako by road. He then asked me if I would pay his CFA1000 immigration fee for him; he would pay me back when he met me on the train at Kayes. I tried to explain that the international train was a long train with many passengers on board; how would he find me to pay me back? He replied saying that he would be in the dining car and I could find him there. I refused and told him that if I couldn't find him he would feel terribly guilty at not being able to repay me. We left the conversation there and walked back to the square where I was dropped off earlier.
This square also served as the local taxi park. Parked here were a small collection of vehicles, which had seen far better days. Under a straw canopy, lying in a hammock behind an old dusty desk, the man in charge of the taxi park dozed in the heat. Spread around him under the shade were some makeshift beds covered in foam where other passengers also lay, sleeping while they waited for a taxi to depart. I asked the man in the hammock if any taxis were leaving this afternoon for Kayes. He said yes and took my money and dropped it into a drawer in the desk. I went and sat down to wait and watched life go by. Not much life was going by, every now and then a car or truck would go past leaving us in a choking cloud of dust; this was definitely a quiet town. In the slight breeze, which was not enough to take the heat out of the day, very fine ash drifted gently down onto the town.
The boy from earlier found me again and sat down to ask me where I was planning to go in Mali. I gave him the usual spiel, Bamako, Segou, Djenne, Mopti and Dogon Country. So of course he had another cousin in Mopti who was a guide, a very good guide; he gave me his cousins address in Mopti and I promised to look him up when I needed a guide for Dogon. I had been in the country for just over an hour, I was on the opposite side from Mopti (the tourist capital of Mali) and I already had details of a guide to take me to Dogon Country. I felt I must have broken some kind of record.
The hours passed and still I waited. Another man turned up, he was from Cameroon and was travelling with a friend from Nigeria. He had a small stereo and was playing a Bob Marley tape, which helped to ease the boredom of waiting. Finally at three o'clock a battered old covered Peugeot pick up truck pulled up and we loaded our luggage onto the roof and I climbed into the back and sat on the wooden bench. There were nineteen passengers plus the driver and his mate, seventeen in the back and the guys from Cameroon and Nigeria in the front. Immediately, as we drove out of town along the dirt road, I knew that this would not be the most comfortable journey of this trip. I was just glad to be moving again after waiting in Diboli for three hours and now just planned to get to Kayes by the end of the day. It couldn't take that long, Kayes was only about 100km down the road.
It wasn't long after leaving Diboli that we stopped at the police roadblock. There were no trees or shade and the driver parked the pickup truck under the baking sun while the police checked all our paperwork. It took a while; I was beginning to learn that things in Mali take a lot longer; but at least we still had Bob Marley for company playing on the little stereo. Finally the last piece of paperwork was checked and we all squeezed back into the truck and left for Kayes. The road was very rough and badly potholed, we were not making fast progress through this landscape of dry grass and baobab trees. Soon a rhythmic thumping noise came from the back of the truck; we had picked up a puncture. We banged on the roof of the cab to stop the driver, who didn't; we shouted and banged on the cab until he finally realised what had happened. By then it was too late, the truck was bouncing down the road on only three tyres.
We climbed out of the van and stood in a group staring at our misfortune. I went for a walk along the road. The source of the fine ash, which was drifting over Diboli, was now apparent; grass fires were burning all around us. The landscape sounded as though it had come alive as the dry grass crackled in the flames sending up plumes of ash into the hot, still air. The driver and his mate, whose role was one of general mechanic and ticket collector, managed to change the wheel fairly quickly, but then discovered our next problem; the spare tyre was fairly flat too. As we all climbed in the back the driver shook his head as the weight flattened the tyre. We all disembarked again and the driver decided to change the spare tyre with one from the front of the truck, as there was far less weight at the front of the vehicle. Meanwhile I walked into the grass and sat down in the shade of a large baobab tree. The guy from Cameroon came and joined me with Puff Daddy on the stereo for company.
Once we had finished swapping the wheels around we turned back to Diboli to go and pick up some new wheels. While the driver went off in search of a couple of wheels I went off in search of some liquid refreshment. I was becoming concerned that I may not have enough water with me for this trip, especially if we broke down again in the middle of the bush. Unfortunately there was no-where in town selling bottled water, so I refreshed myself with a cold coca-cola instead. At four o'clock we again left town on our adventure to Kayes.
This attempt to Kayes seemed to be going far better as we soon passed the spot where we had picked up our puncture earlier. The dust thrown up by the truck was choking and was being sucked into the back of the truck under the canvas canopy. The dust stuck to the sweat on my face and arms turning my skin the same reddish brown colour as the road. About every forty minutes we stopped to check the engine, to top up the water and the oil and also allow us to stretch our legs. It was very cramped in the back of the truck and once I sat down I couldn't move again until we stopped. The base of my spine was taking a pounding on the hard wooden bench as we bounced along the rough road; the branches of shrubs whipped my back as we made detours to avoid the potholes.
We were making very slow progress along this road and as the sun set we were still some way from Kayes. As the sun disappeared below the horizon behind us we stopped at the side of the road in the middle of the bush. It was time to pray. The women prayed on one side of the road, the men on the other side. The guys from Cameroon and Nigeria were Christians and sat on a bank by the side of the road and waited. I walked up and down the road trying to get some life back into my legs and watched everyone else praying to the sound of 2 Pac from the Cameroonians stereo. They were the only two people on this journey who had managed to stay reasonable clean; they had been sitting in the cab in the front; the rest of us were caked in dust. Still the guy from Cameroon now had a plastic bag tied to his head to keep the dust out of his hair, he looked quite comical. While we were stopped no other vehicles passed by us along the road; the traffic was very light.
We continued our journey in the dark; the headlights of the truck struggled to show us the way. We stopped at a small village to check the engine, again. In the dark some villagers appeared selling some basic foodstuffs; I found a lady selling bananas while the driver bought some firewood and tied this to the roof of the truck. We had been travelling now for almost three hours and were still some distance from Kayes. All the passengers got to know each other over the hours, a good comradeship built up amongst us. I found myself hanging out with the guys from Cameroon and Nigeria and also another guy from Senegal. We were all making the same trip to Bamako and planned to catch the train in Kayes the following day.
It was eight o'clock when we stopped again. I remember looking at my watch and the feeling of disappointment that it was getting late and here we were in the middle of nowhere, the landscape around us illuminated by the silvery light from the moon. The long grass by the side of the road rustled gently in the warm night breeze; in the distance the horizon glowed orange from a grass fire. My disappointment soon turned into a rather more grave concern. We hadn't stopped to check the engine; we had stopped because the engine had died on us. The driver and his mate stared under the bonnet at the engine with a small torch and shook their heads. The news was not good; this truck would be going no further tonight. There was nothing we could do, the guy from Cameroon went to the cab of the truck and got his stereo, which had been silent for the first time on this trip, and put on the Bob Marley tape. It lifted our spirits as we all stood around in the dark kicking stones and wondering when or how we would be getting to Kayes.
Ten minutes later we saw some headlights approaching down the road we had just come. An excited buzz grew amongst us; maybe we could hitch a ride out of this situation. When the van pulled up alongside us and everyone began talking at once I looked in the back of the van and my eyes almost popped out. The van was completely empty, not a single sack of rice or a passenger in sight. I must explain that in Africa it is very unusual to see an empty vehicle travelling along the road; either the vehicle is loaded up with so much cargo that the suspension springs almost break or they are crammed full of people like a mobile can of sardines. After much discussion it was agreed that for CFA300 each we could ride in the van the rest of the way to Kayes. We unloaded our luggage from the roof of our now redundant bush taxi and threw it into the back of the van and clambered in after it.
The van was no more comfortable than the truck; there was less room as we now had our luggage inside instead of on the roof. None of us could believe our luck at managing to hitch a ride so quickly; we thought we would be stuck there for the night. We continued at the same speed and eventually reached a police roadblock outside Kayes. My supply of water had now run out but at least we were nearly back in civilisation. We waited a long time at the roadblock; a convoy of trucks were passing the opposite way throwing up clouds of dust. The only light came from some fires burning beside the road and a few oil lamps. There seemed to be a lot of activity but it was difficult to see exactly what in the gloom and the dust. The police were intent on checking all our yellow fever certificates and after forty-five minutes they finally rolled the oil drums off the road and let us past. Only after about five minutes from passing the roadblock the engine of the van spluttered, coughed and then died.
We had run out of petrol. In the distance we could just see the lights of a gas station, so we got out and slowly pushed the van in silence along the road. Most of us could not believe the run of bad luck we were having on this trip of only 100km. As we pushed the van onto the forecourt I had hallucinations of the 'stop and shop' kiosks found at filling stations back home selling a wide range of cold drinks, sandwiches, crisps and chocolate. I made a dash for the small building on the forecourt. I didn't find the rows of glass fronted fridges filled with every soft drink you could imagine, or the shelves stacked with chocolate and crisps, or those chilled cabinets full of fresh sandwiches and pies. What I did find was a man sitting on a chair with an icebox on the floor with a few bottles of warm coca-cola and 7-up. That was good enough for me; as long as it was wet I would drink it.
Once we had refuelled someone noticed we also had a puncture; so while the driver changed the wheel I went back to indulge myself in another warm bottle of coke. Finally we were ready for the last leg of our journey into Kayes. After twenty minutes pushing the van up and down the road we finally managed to jump-start it the engine exploding back into life in choking cloud of black smoke.
The van dropped us in the centre of Kayes. It was difficult to see exactly where we were as there was no street lighting and all I could see was the confusion of traffic moving up and down the road, headlights peering through the dust. The four of us, the guys from Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal and myself jumped into a taxi to the railway station on the far side of town. The taxi dropped us outside the station building; it was now 23.00, it had taken me nine hours to cover the 100km from the border with Senegal. The other guys decided to sleep in the street outside the station that night. I made a split decision and decided to stick with them and sleep rough outside the station. A man unrolled a sheet of plastic for us to lie on and we joined about 150 other people camped out for the night waiting for the train, which was supposed to arrive at 07.00 the next morning. Around the taxi park, which was now my bed for the night, were numerous small stalls; they provided the only light we had from their kerosene lamps. The guys from Cameroon and Nigeria seemed to know what they were doing and soon found a shower room in the station. We took it in turns for one of us to look after our luggage while the others went to clean off the dirt and grime of the day's journey or to find something to eat and drink.
My first priority was to find some water before taking a shower. We were all exhausted and I lay down on our small patch of tarmac to sleep for the night. As I lay there my nose began to run and I felt as though I had a heavy cold; these were the symptoms of my long journey through the bush as my lungs tried to empty themselves of all the dust I had breathed in.
I woke at five the following morning at the call to prayer. It hadn't been the most comfortable of nights sleep, I now felt cold in the still of the early morning air. All around me bodies lay sleeping in the still semi-darkness of dawn; I stepped carefully around them as I made my way to the road. I walked down along the road following the railway line. Beside the road the luggage carts were parked, waiting for the train to arrive. When I looked closer I saw that in each cart a boy was sleeping under a sheet or blanket. I found the only toilets in the station, which were closed and locked up; I made use of a railway siding instead and then returned to my plastic sheet in the taxi park.
At 07.00 there was no sign of the train. By now everyone was awake and either sitting in small groups around the taxi park or were standing around the stalls eating breakfast. At 09.00 we received news that the train would not be here until midday. The ticket office was closed; I asked my friends when it would open so we could buy our tickets to Bamako. Apparently the office would only open when they heard the train approaching. This was the kind of logic that makes travelling in Africa either hell or good fun, depending on your frame of mind. It was becoming too hot sitting on the tarmac of the taxi park under the baking sun, which even at 10.00 in the morning was intense. The crowd that had spent the night sleeping slowly drifted off across a patch of wasteland behind the stalls and made camp under some large shady trees. I dozed here for the rest of the morning; even in the shade I could not stop sweating in the heat. At midday there was still no sign of the train.
Finally at just before 14.00 my friends woke me up. The train was approaching; the ticket office would open in a few minutes. I don't know how my friends arranged this but we managed to buy the first tickets as the office opened. It turned out we had bribed one of the station staff to make sure we were first in the queue. We each paid him a small amount of money, which was worth every franc, as there was now a chaotic crowd of people clambering to buy tickets as the train finally arrived at the station. An extra carriage was coupled to the back of the train for all the passengers at Kayes. I can't describe the heat inside the carriage as we waited to depart. Sitting in my seat my clothes were becoming quickly soaked in sweat; I had to stand up to allow the sweat to drip off me. After yesterdays experience of running out of water I went off to the stalls to buy another bottle to hopefully see me through this final leg of my journey to Bamako.
Eventually the train slowly pulled out of the station and we were on our way again to Bamako after waiting over fifteen hours in Kayes. It felt like I had known my friends I had travelled with from Diboli for a very long time; other faces in the carriage were now familiar after spending the night and half the day camped out with them; our carriage felt like one large family. As we rattled down the tracks through the savannah landscape the hot breeze coming through the open windows was just enough to cool us slightly. My friends went off to the restaurant car for a few beers; in return for their help over the last day or so I offered to stay in the carriage to keep an eye on our luggage. At the small stations we stopped at along the way the train was surrounded by villagers selling every kind of foodstuff you could imagine; fruit, nuts, bread, fish, kebabs, yams, eggs, tea, water. Looking out of the window of the train all I could see were the various trays of food passing by on a human conveyor belt.
When night fell we found ourselves in the only carriage without lighting. I found this to be a bonus as it was easy to fall asleep to the rhythmic sound of the train rolling along the track. In between periods of sleep I would stand by the window, the warm night breeze blowing in my face wondering if Joanna had arrived in Bamako and whether she would realise that when travelling in Mali, arriving half a day late was quite acceptable.
At 04.00 on Monday morning the train finally twisted its way into Bamako and disgorged the hundreds of passengers on to the platform. In the tumultuous crowd I stuck close to my friends as we tried to find an exit and a taxi to take us into the city. Outside the perimeter fence surrounding the station the city was quiet and still, a stark contrast to the chaos of people unloading their luggage from the train. We shared a taxi and drove through the sleeping city to the Hotel Lac Debo; this is the hotel I had arranged to meet Joanna in. My friends paid my taxi fare and we said good-bye; at last I had reached my destination after nearly 48 hours since leaving Tambacounda early on Saturday morning. It was just after five when I knocked on the door of Joanna's room.
I sat down; I was exhausted, covered in dirt and dust, my throat was raw from all the dust I had breathed in over the last two days and my nose was still running. I showered and went to bed and slept well into the morning. I was only about twelve hours late, not bad I thought, considering the journey I had just endured.
Bamako, the capital of Mali, is very much an African city. It doesn't have that European feel, which other cities sometimes have in African countries I had visited, a legacy from the colonial times. The city straddles the River Niger with the centre being on the northern banks. It is full of activity, large colourful markets selling everything you could imagine; and a few things you wouldn't imagine. Even along the streets, vendors set up their small stalls to do a days business. I spent my first day in the city relaxing; I needed to recover from my journey from Senegal. Most of the afternoon we spent in the air-conditioned luxury of the Grand Hotel, the smartest hotel in town just north of the railway station, making use of their Internet facilities.
The Hotel Lac Debo was not good value for money at CFA18,000 a night for a double room; on our first day there the water was cut off so we had to use a bucket from the hall. So on our second day in the city we went off in search of some cheaper lodgings preferably with running water. We ended up a couple of blocks down the road at the old Lebanese Mission. First impressions were good; there was a large courtyard area, if somewhat overgrown with weeds and shrubs, which made a nice area to relax in away from the bustle of the city. The room was basic, but that is what we were expecting. Over lunch at the Restaurant de la Paix, a cheerful, cheap eating-house near to where we were staying, I spotted Matevz walking down the road. I had last seen Matevz and Vesna in Tambacounda, Senegal before embarking on my long trip to Bamako. They were going to follow me the next day along the same route. I ran down the road after him. It turned out that they were staying at the Hotel de la Paix, above the restaurant. After catching up on our adventures since Tambacounda we arranged to meet up again later that evening.
A few hours later back at the Lebanese Mission Matevz and Vesna turned up with all their gear; they were having accommodation problems at the Hotel de la Paix and decided to move out. There was a good group of travellers staying here now. There were an English couple staying that night, Mark and Bridget, who were driving their Landrover from London to Cape Town. Bridget was due to fly back to London the next day and Mark was going to continue on to Burkina Faso. They gave us what probably turned out to be the best tip I would receive on this whole trip; they recommended a guesthouse in Sevare, a place called Macs Refuge. It was not listed in any guidebooks but they highly recommended the place, especially Macs home cooking. Later that evening an overland truck group arrived and pitched their tents in the courtyard. There always seems to be that sense of rivalry between independent travellers and overland truckers; that evening was no different as the overlanders made a good attempt at drinking all the beer from the small bar.
There is not that much to do in the city to warrant a stay of more than a few days; it is more a city to experience than to see. We did walk up to the National Museum one afternoon once the heat of the day had subsided but found the place closed. The staff were on strike over conditions and pay and manned a picket at the entrance. While strolling around the city I bumped into my travelling companions from my trip from Senegal; they were also staying at the Hotel de la Paix. It felt good to have been in the city for only a couple of days but already have met people in the street who I knew. After a couple of days the pollution in the city became a problem; it was a mixture of the traffic fumes, the dust from the roads as only the major streets were tarred and the smoke from cooking fires in the evening. I found the evenings worst once all the fires were lit. You could see the smoke hanging over the city like a choking blanket and it became quite unbearable. It was not long before we all began to develop sore throats and running noses, all brought on by the dirt in the air.
The city was not the cleanest or most hygienic. Open sewers ran along most streets carrying thick black water and rubbish with them in the general direction of the river. Men would quite openly stop in the streets and urinate into the sewers or up against a wall. Every street you walked down there would be someone urinating. You could say the atmosphere of the city was quite intoxicating.
Joanna, Vesna, Matevz and myself agreed to travel together as we were all headed in the same direction towards Sevare and Dogon Country. After three days in Bamako we took a taxi across the River Niger to the bus station on the south side of the city. We planned to break our journey to Sevare in Segou about 230km east along the River Niger. The bus from Bamako was a vast improvement to the road transport I had expierenced on my way from Senegal; the bus was quite modern and comfortable (although it was missing it's obligatory wheel nut). I felt a sense of relief at leaving Bamako, the pollution was really getting to me and it was great to once again be travelling through the vast empty spaces of the savannah. About half way through the journey we heard a large bang and the bus lurched to one side. I presumed we had picked up a puncture. The driver slowly brought the bus to a stop to investigate what had happened. After walking around the bus he climbed back on and drove slowly on with the bus leaning to one side. When we reached the next town we stopped for a while to assess what had happened. This gave us a welcome chance to get off the hot bus and stretch our legs and snack on some watermelon, which was being sold at stalls all along the road. We hadn't got a puncture, all the tyres looked fine to me; well some were bald, but they had air in them which was good enough for this part of the world. It appeared that the suspension had broken causing the bus to now lean to one side. There was nothing we could do to fix it so we continued the rest of the journey to Segou limping along at about half the speed we were doing earlier.
Finally late in the afternoon we arrived in Segou. At the bus station there were the usual collection of touts and hustlers that you come to expect. We committed a fatal error when taking a taxi to a hotel on the edge of town. We let one of these guys climb into the front of the car. I didn't want to be rude and chuck him out as sharing taxis is a common thing to do in most parts of the world; so we drove on to our intended hotel. On the way this tout started is spiel telling us that we should stay at the Hotel de France. We did our best to ignore him. The first hotel we arrived at, the Motel Savanne had obviously been upgraded since our guidebooks had been written and was now way over our budget. We took the taxi to the nearby Centre d'Accueil where our tout insisted it was impossible to stay. Of course our tout was wrong and we found a room for a fraction of the price of the Savanne. We hoped this would be the last we would see of our tout and that he would return to the bus station in the hope of picking up some other business there.
That evening I walked into town to buy a watermelon. It was a pleasant walk along the tree lined main street, Route de Bamako. Not long after leaving our hotel I heard someone shouting; I turned around and saw the tout running after me. He made his excuse saying that he too was on his way back into town, so we walked along making some uneasy small talk. I would have preferred to have walked alone in peace, but in Mali that dream seemed rather distant. Eventually we reached a fruit stall and I purchased my melon and the tout continued on into town. At last I could walk back in peace, but not for long. When people saw me carrying my melon they would shout and send their children after me to offer to carry it for me; even old men stopped me and offered to carry it for me. I refused their offers; I knew I had all ready paid a tourist price for the fruit and I really did not want to get involved in haggling over a fee for carrying a melon. All I wanted was a peaceful evening walk and after all the exercise would do me good.
The next morning we went off to explore the town. Our tout from the previous evening was already waiting for us at the gates of the hotel. Immediately at seeing him again I knew we were going to have problems today. We did our best to ignore him, but he followed us. We stopped and asked him why he was following us. He replied saying that it was forbidden for foreigners to walk around the town unaccompanied. We laughed and told him to get lost but he continued to follow us. As we took some photos he then informed us that it was also forbidden to photograph anything in the town. Eventually we couldn't take him anymore and when we saw a policeman down a side street we stopped and threatened to go and have a word with the police unless he left us alone. Of course he thought we were bluffing and he didn't move. Joanna could speak fluent French so it wasn't difficult to explain to the police that we wanted this tout to leave us in peace. The policeman called the tout over and had a few words with him and then sent him on his way. At last we were on our own and a rather embarrassed tout sauntered off down the road.
We walked along the riverbank into town. Along the bank groups of women were doing their laundry in the river, other people were bathing and children were just playing about in the water as children anywhere in the world do. Out on the river small boats were fishing while others ferried passengers to villages on the far bank. We spent the day wandering along the wide tree-lined avenues, the town still had the feel of an old French colonial town. During the colonial times this town was an important administrative centre and also the headquarters of the Office du Niger irrigation scheme. After stopping for lunch and a cold drink at the Esplanade Hotel on the waterfront we booked our bus tickets to Sevare for the next morning and returned to our hotel.
When I woke the following morning I was not feeling well. Something I had eaten the day before was not agreeing with me. It was not bad enough to stop me from travelling so we took a taxi down to the bus station where the others grabbed some breakfast at a street stall. The bus journey to Sevare was a long and hot one. By the time we arrived in the late afternoon both Joanna and myself felt exhausted and decidedly ill. Metvez and Vesna were still feeling okay so we soon concluded that it was the fish we ate yesterday lunchtime at the Esplanade Hotel that was the cause of our illness. (Metvez and Vesna decided to just have a plate of chips for lunch - a wise move in hindsight).
As the bus pulled up in Sevare at the turn off to Mopti, touts and hustlers chased the bus until it stopped. As we stepped off the bus the touts surrounded us. They were overwhelming and definitely not what I wanted to deal with in the state I was in. We had to fight to get through the crowds around the bus to find a taxi to take us to Macs Refuge, the guesthouse recommended to us while we were in Bamako. It was like if a flock of vultures had descended onto the bus; we were shouted at, screamed at, tugged, pulled and shoved in all directions as we looked for a taxi. When we found a taxi, only across the street, it felt like we had been battling for hours. After our experience in Segou of a tout jumping into our taxi we were determined to keep everyone else out of the car. It was not easy; the touts tried to open the doors and we desperately held them shut. One managed to get in the front of the car and we shouted at him to get out and eventually pushed him out of the car. It was a scene of madness; the touts surrounded the car shouting at us while we sat patiently shouting back at them. According to the touts Macs Refuge was fully booked, it was closed, it had burnt down; our only choice would be to stay at the hotel they were touting for. Our next problem was that our driver did not know where Macs Refuge was. It was then that someone, a respectable man in his mid thirties, well dressed, riding a moped pulled up alongside our taxi and asked us if everything was okay. He knew where Macs Refuge was and told the taxi driver to follow him. We left the touts behind, probably wondering why they had not been able to get any business from us, and drove to the far side of town where we found Macs Refuge along a dusty side street, literally the last street in town. We thanked the man on the moped and gave him a small gift for coming to our rescue; he disappeared back down the road and we never saw him again.
Mac greeted us at the gate and showed us to some rooms. After a long, hot, exhausting journey and the ordeal of dealing with the touts on our arrival in Sevare we could at last relax and unwind in the peaceful surroundings of Macs Refuge. After dropping my bag in the room I went and collapsed in a hammock out in the compound and lay there until the sun had set and dinner was served. There were three other travellers staying at the guesthouse that night, two Americans, Teresa and Tara and a woman from Denmark whose name escapes me now. The seven of us together with Mac and his kitchen help, and a few other dining guests who had arrived that evening, sat around a large dining table to feast. Laid out across the table were bowls of food, it was curry night and we could help ourselves to as much as we wanted. Unfortunately by now I had lost my appetite and could only manage a few mouthfuls of food before retiring to my bed, where I would stay for the next couple of days suffering from a high temperature and diarrhoea.
Mac was born in the Dogon region of Mali in the 1940's, the son of a couple of American missionaries who had come to West Africa during the 1920's. He could speak the local Dogon language as well as French fluently and had gone to school here. After spending some time back in America he had returned to Mali and finally settled down and opened this guesthouse. The buildings were in a walled compound made of local materials, mud and brick. During our stay he was constructing another building and each morning a band of workers would arrive and work through the heat of the day. I asked Mac how easy it was to find a plumber in Mali. He said it wasn't a problem, everyone you ask is a plumber; the problem comes in finding a good one who knows what he is doing.
On our second morning the other travellers staying at the guesthouse left to go hiking in Dogon country, we said goodbye to Metvez and Vesna. Joanna and myself were the only two guests staying that night. Mac looked after us and nursed us back to health so that after four nights we were both fit enough to head out to Dogon country ourselves. Joanna had only two weeks in the country and we had now lost quite some time. Looking back on it we couldn't have fallen ill in a better place, it was almost like being at home at Macs, which was just what we needed; there is nothing worse than being ill in some cheap run down hotel where you have to fend for yourselves.
Mac knew a lot of people in the area and gave us the name of an English-speaking guide in the Dogon village of Sanga and also arranged a four-wheel drive vehicle and driver to get us there. After loosing four days being ill we decided to throw some money at our transport options and take a vehicle straight to the heart of Dogon country.
The Dogon people live along the Bandiagara Escarpment about 100km east of Sevare. The escarpment stretches for almost 150km from Bankass in the south to Douentza in the north and is several hundred metres high in places. At the top of the cliff is a large rocky plateau and at the bottom sand dunes, covered in sparse vegetation, which stretch all the way to Burkina Faso. The Dogon originally migrated to the escarpment in around 1300 AD and at first built their villages on the cliff face before moving to the base of the cliff and the high rocky plateau. The original inhabitants of this area, the Tellem, built their houses in the most inaccessible places on the cliff face. Their dwellings can still be seen today and one wonders how these people managed to reach their buildings; the Dogon people believe that the Tellem could fly.
Our trip from Sevare started in the usual Malian way, arguing about the fare, which we thought we had already agreed on. Eventually, after stopping for fuel and picking up a spare tyre we headed off down the dirt road to Bandiagara. At the time the road was being upgraded and will eventually be tarred providing far easier access to the Bandiagara Escarpment. This will bring great benefits to the local people living in this area who have to travel this rough road to Sevare and Mopti to buy and sell at the markets. It could though, be a double-edged sword and be the catalyst that brings mass tourism and the associated problems of this industry to a sensitive, fragile and unique culture.
When we reached the small dusty town of Bandiagara we pulled up in the large empty taxi park. For some reason the driver wanted to transfer us to another vehicle. It turned out to be a good idea; we hadn't got on that well with the driver especially after the customary argument about payment before setting off from Sevare. Our new driver was a much friendlier person and chatted with us as we wound our way along the small track to Sanga, stopping at places to take photos of the stunning scenery. As we neared Sanga the Sahel landscape of sandy soil punctuated by Baobab trees turned to solid rock. Gullies in the rock had been dammed creating reservoirs with small terraces clinging to the rock sides that were being planted with onions.
Sanga is about half way along the escarpment on the high rocky plateau and is one of the largest Dogon villages in the area. It is a useful village to use as a base if time is limited. After our recent illness we had lost four days travelling and were not really fit enough to do any long distance hiking. There were two accommodation options in the village, the expensive Campement-Hotel Guinna or the cheap Hotel Femme Dogon; we chose the latter. After lunch, I had regained my appetite with a vengeance and indulged myself in a large plate of rice and sauce; we made contact with an English-speaking guide recommended to us by Mac. Mac had told us to ask for this guide in the village. It turned out that he was in Burkina Faso attending a cousins wedding but his brother Kene was at home. Kene met us late that afternoon at the hotel and we arranged with him our details for a hike the next day down the escarpment to visit a couple of villages before returning to Sanga by evening.
Once we had agreed the details and price and a start time of 07.00 Kene showed us around the village of Sanga introducing us to various people and the village elders. The buildings of Sanga were all one-storey constructions built of mud with flat roofs. The granaries had distinctive conical straw roofs and were perched on stones off the ground to help keep vermin out. We stopped at his family's house and walked through the door into a compact courtyard surrounded by buildings. His son was asleep on the ground, chickens were scratching around the yard and his mother was attending a large pot over a charcoal fire, the smoke hanging in the still evening air. His mother was in a bad mood. Even when we left and walked out of the door down the alley his mother was still shouting at him. Just up the alleyway we stopped at the house of the village chief and went in to introduce ourselves. The chief was sitting in the yard surrounded by children playing and women cooking. He was very old and almost blind. He asked us where we were from and welcomed us to his village. The sun had set now so we made our way back to the hotel before it got too dark. There was no electricity in the village and the hotel was lit with oil lamps.
At seven the next morning Kene met us outside the hotel and we began our hike to the edge of the escarpment and down to the villages below. The top of the escarpment was very barren with large sheets of bare rock. A small valley led to the edge of the cliff. In this valley terraces had been built on the rock, earth having been carried up from the base of the cliff. A dam had been built as well creating a small reservoir used to irrigate the fields. We descended the cliff face scrambling down large boulders and past dried up waterfalls along a well-trodden path. Where the path became too steep wooden ladders had been lashed to the rocks. As we neared the village at the bottom of the cliff we met women coming the other way carrying buckets going to fetch water from the reservoirs.
The Dogon people are renowned for their hard work and have traditionally been farmers. Work is a key feature of Dogon life; lazy people soon loose respect and then find it hard to find a marriage partner. The Dogon proudly say that there are no thieves in their villages because everyone is too busy at work. Our visit coincided with the busiest time of the year for the Dogon, harvest time. Fields of millet were being harvested below the escarpment and the onion crop was being planted in the small terraces on the high rocky plateau and in small fields surrounding the villages.
We walked into the village of Banani at the bottom of the cliff. The place seemed deserted; everyone was out working in the fields. We walked down through the village stopping at the toguna in the heart of the village. The toguna is a shelter used by the village elders to hold meetings to discuss the affairs of the village, to make arrangements for festivals and funerals and anything else that involves the whole village. The toguna is a very distinctive building. The roof is very low and the men can only sit inside, it is not tall enough to stand in; this is to prevent discussions turning into arguments or fights. The roof is made of eight layers of dried millet stalks supported by wooden posts, which are often carved representing the eight Dogon ancestors, the crocodile, frog, hyena, lizard, rabbit, scorpion, snake and tortoise. Women are not permitted to enter the toguna and when the men are not discussing village affairs they use the place to relax, smoke, tell jokes or simply lounge.
We left Banani and walked along the sandy track that links the villages below the escarpment. Teams of young boys were walking the other way carrying the millet harvest back to the village. The rhythmic beat of women pounding millet in the fields echoed against the cliff face. Just after 11.00 we reached the village of Ibi. The heat from the sun was now intense and we took shelter at a rest house in the village. We relaxed on the roof of the building with a shady canopy made of millet stalks protecting us from the sun. Cold drinks were available and for lunch we were served chicken in an onion sauce and a large bowl of millet, all produced locally from the fields we had been walking through.
Kene had a group of, what looked like, businessmen to guide around the surrounding villages and left us in the care of a friend of his. Once the heat of the day had subsided at about 15.00 we began our hike back up the escarpment to Sanga. We took a different route up the escarpment following a narrow path, which followed a natural fault in the rock. Steps had been built along this fault, which led back up to the rocky plateau. As we ascended the escarpment the noise from the village below us drifted up; the sound of children playing and shouting excitedly to the background beat of millet being pounded.
By early evening we had returned to the Hotel Femme Dogon in Sanga and spent another night. The following morning we decided to make an early start to travel to Djenne, a town on an island in the River Bani, a large tributary to the River Niger. Djenne is about 160km southwest from Sevare on the road back towards Segou. To get there this morning we would have to find transport from Sanga to Bandiagara and from there to Sevare and finally on to Djenne. We thought that the first leg of our trip to Bandiagara would be the most difficult to organise. Sanga is at the end of the road, well dirt track to be exact, and there is very little traffic coming or going. Luck was on our side today; the owner of the hotel was sending his vehicle and driver to Bandiagara to pick up some guests. We negotiated a fare of almost half of what we paid to get here, to take us to Bandiagara. We arrived in the dusty and rather desolate town of Bandiagara at 09.30. Today was market day in Mopti and most of the population of the town had left early in the morning, explaining the rather desolate feel to the place.
This gave us our next problem; as most people had made an early start for Mopti there was now very little transport heading down the road and even fewer passengers waiting for a bush taxi. We sat down and waited in the large empty taxi park. There was a bache sitting in the sun that could carry almost twenty passengers; when we arrived we brought the total number of passengers waiting to three. It was going to be a long wait. After lunch it became apparent that we would not make it to Djenne today, we would be lucky to get out of Bandiagara by nightfall. I began to look on the bright side of our problem; at least we could make it back to Sevare and stay at Macs Refuge for the night and set off to Djenne tomorrow morning. What got me most excited was the prospect of eating at Macs; maybe it would be curry night again which would be perfect washed down with a cold bottle of beer.
At 16.00 that afternoon the other travellers, who had arrived during the day looking for transport back to Sevare, and Joanna and myself began negotiating with the driver. We bought the remaining empty seats in the bache so that we could get going before nightfall. Within an hour we were back in Sevare and we took a taxi back to Macs Refuge. When we arrived my dreams had become true; it was curry night! In addition, Teresa and Tara had returned from Dogon country and were staying at Macs that evening. Tara was in a mad rush getting organised, as she was booked on a boat to Timbuktu that night. Teresa had arranged with Macs driver to take her to Djenne the next day. Things could not have worked out better, we agreed to travel together and split the cost of the vehicle and driver three ways.
The three of us made an early start for Djenne with Alain, Mac's driver. Alain was also a blacksmith and had done a lot of work for Mac over the last few years, restoring and building his guesthouse. The journey to Djenne took a couple of hours, returning along the main highway towards Bamako before turning north at a small junction in the middle of nowhere onto a quieter and narrower road to Djenne. The road ran straight along a causeway through the marshland formed by the inland delta of the Niger and Bani rivers. Rice grew in abundance in the marshes suddenly giving this dry and arid landscape a welcome hue of green. The water and vegetation also attracted bird life to the area. Storks stood in the water alongside the road watching us pass by in our white 4WD.
The road came to an end at a small collection of ramshackle gift shops on the banks of the Bani River, where the ferry docked. The ferry was not in good shape; the engine had broken a long time ago and it had also reportedly sunk a few years ago. An outboard motor had been welded to the side of the ferry, which now powered it back and forth across the river. While waiting for the ferry to cross the river we were pestered by the souvenir sellers; we had come to expect this in this part of the country, the hub of the tourist industry. Once aboard the ferry, which was just a barge that could carry about four or five cars, we encountered more souvenir sellers, this time they had their small makeshift stalls set up on the ferry. The crossing didn't take too long and we were soon on the other bank and on our way for the last few kilometres to Djenne.
We crossed one more river, this time by bridge, before we reached Djenne, which sits on an island in the river Bani. We drove along the narrow dusty streets, winding between the mud brick buildings to the main market square and the Grand Mosque. The Grand Mosque is a classic example of Sahel-style mud architecture and dominates the town. It is the largest mud brick building in the world and is very distinctive with wooden spars jutting out of the walls. These spars help support the mud bricks and also provide useful scaffolding for the annual mud re-rendering after the rainy season. The current mosque was built in 1905 on a design based on the previous mosque, dating from the 11th century. Today was not a market day and the town was fairly quiet and the market square empty. Market day, as well as being the busiest day for locals when everyone from the surrounding villages comes to town to buy and sell; it is also the busiest day for tourists when they arrive by the coach load to witness the colourful spectacle of the market.
As soon as we stopped under one of the few shady trees in the square, the guides found us. It was useful having Alain with us, who did the negotiating on our behalf. He arranged a guide, who could speak English, to take us on a tour around the town. We agreed to meet Alain again in two hours time, and left him to amuse himself. Our guide was not the most informative and seemed bored of his task showing visitors around town. The only good thing was that it stopped other kids and potential guides from bothering us and we managed to wander around without being overly hassled. We could not go inside the Grand Mosque, after apparently a western media company filmed a commercial featuring scantily clad women inside the mosque. Instead we walked around the outside and admired the architecture and could only use our imagination to wonder as to the interior. On our walk around town, our guide showed us some of the local crafts people and their workshops, making pots, cloth, jewellery as well as souvenirs. At a couple of houses we were able to climb on to the roof to take in a panoramic view over the town, which the Grand Mosque always dominated. Many of the houses were two floors high; traditionally the ground floor was used for storage and trading, the first floor for slaves and the top floor for the masters. Some of the houses were decorated in a distinctive Moorish style, a reminder of the time when Moroccan merchants lived here and dominated the trans-Sahara trade. The town was a maze of dusty alleys and roads weaving between the mud buildings that eventually led us back to the main market square in front of the mosque. A local shopkeeper along the square was making a good profit allowing visitors, including us, to climb onto the roof of his shop to take in the view across the market square to the Grand Mosque.
Teresa knew about the ancient site of Jenne-jeno about 3km outside of Djenne, which I must admit I hadn't heard of before. On the way out of town we stopped at the small Jenne-jeno museum beside the road. We sat under a tree while one of the staff ran off to get the curator who was apparently at home having a late lunch. When he arrived he showed us around the small display of artefacts and photos of Jenne-jeno explaining to us its history and subsequent archaeological excavations.
It is thought that the first permanent settlement in the upper inland Niger Delta was around the third century BC and Jenne-jeno began to flourish from 450AD when the settlement covered an area of some 60 acres. The first settlers used and worked iron, making both tools and jewellery; in the fifth century AD copper and gold began to be used which had to have been imported from many hundreds of kilometres away. Society was changing and becoming organised with interments being made in large burial urns as well as burials in simple pits outside of urns on the edge of the settlement. The buildings were round houses constructed of mud and straw until in the ninth century AD cylindrical brick architecture replaced the previous mud daub buildings. One of the earliest structures built using this new brick technology was the city wall, which measured 3.7m wide at its base and stretched approximately 2km around the town. The geographic position of the town by the inland delta led to it's many years of success. The flood plain provided excellent rice-growing soils, which flooded annually during the rains; levees protected pasture during the flood season and deep basins provided pasture in the dry season. The river was also a major line of communication used for trade with neighbouring towns along the river, including Timbuktu.
The town went into decline in 1200AD coinciding with the spread of Islam from North Africa. Archaeologists have found evidence from around this date with the discovery on the site of brass, spindle whorls and rectilinear houses replacing the traditional round houses. All these influences came from North Africa. In 1180AD the King of Djenne converted to Islam and over the next 200 years people abandoned Jenne-jeno, probably in search of new opportunities in Djenne related to the ascendancy of the new religion. Traditional beliefs prevailed through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with urn burials continuing. By 1400AD though the town was as good as deserted and Djenne now was the hub of civilisation and trade.
Today Jenne-jeno is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. After the curator showed us around the museum he agreed to guide us out to the site, about 2km from the museum. We turned off the road and drove across the plain to the edge of the river. Without him it would have been difficult to find the site; there is nothing left standing today and from the distance the site looks just like any other mound alongside the river. We stopped by the edge of the mound and climbed up to the site. The site was covered in broken pottery; it was like walking on gravel, the broken shards were scattered everywhere, our first sign of the ancient civilisation which used to thrive here. There is not much to see today; as the buildings were built of mud all that remains are some foundations of cylindrical mud bricks, baked into the soil. Floods and rains had eroded the site in places revealing the rims of funerary urns, some with pieces of broken bone clearly showing. We wandered around the site trying to make sense of what we had learnt at the museum and what we could see around us.
We dropped the curator off back at the museum and thanked him for his time in showing us around for the afternoon and drove back to the Bani River to wait for the ferry. A couple of hours later, as the sun began to set, we were back at Mac's Refuge for our last decent meal for a while.
Early the next day Mac dropped Teresa, Joanna and myself off in the centre of Sevare to catch a return bus back to Bamako. Joanna was due to fly back to London in a couple of days. It was a long, hot day on the bus, but not as bad as our journey up here when we were feeling decidedly unwell. Returning to Bamako again was not a highlight of the trip; I planned to leave the morning after Joanna flew home and that morning could not come soon enough. After our previous visit to the city we decided that the best cheap accommodation option was once again the former Lebanese Mission. This time there was definitely a very different atmosphere to the place. There were no other travellers staying this time, only three rather dodgy looking Spaniards who looked more like mercenaries. They spent most of the day sitting in the courtyard drinking and smoking, once they were drunk they attempted to bang a tune out on a drum, rather unsuccessfully. Unrythmic drumming and drunken singing became the soundtrack of our remaining time in Bamako.
We spent another full day in city and this time managed to visit the national museum now that the workers were no longer on strike. Joanna was busy shopping and we walked along to the Maison des Artisans passing the fetish market on the way. All sorts of animal parts were for sell at the fetish stalls; cat heads, skins, dried lizards, crocadile heads, dead birds and even elephant skin. These products were used by the traditional healers and witch doctors; you could smell the fetish stalls long before you saw them, as the dead animals festered under the hot sun. The streets around the Maison des Artisan were one large bustling market full of colourful, noisy crowds with traffic trying to make its way up and down the street.
Late in the evening Joanna took a taxi to the airport. The next day Teresa was going to meet a friend at another hotel to the south of the Niger River; I was planning to take a bus to Sikasso in the south of the country from where I planned to cross the border into Burkina Faso. Like most days in Africa, things did not go to plan. I had a few things to sort out in the morning, most importantly cashing some travellers cheques while I was in a capital city with branches of all the major banks represented. It took an age to finally get a cashier at the only bank in town who accepted my travellers cheques to complete the transaction. I was not feeling too well this morning but was determined to get out of this city; the pollution was really affecting be badly now. My throat was raw, my lungs were aching and my nose was running as my body did its best to purge the pollutants from my system. After a final stop at an internet café we returned to the Mission to check out.
Checking out of the Lebanese Mission was not without it's problems; the owner, a rather overweight, drunk Lebanese man, claimed that we had not paid him for the previous night, which we had settled before Joanna had left. The man was permanently drinking and it was not a surprise that he could not remember what happened the evening before. You had to see the funny side of the situation, standing there arguing with the owner dressed in only some white 'Y' fronts and a tshirt, as he squinted in the bright sunshine suffering from a hangover. After what seemed an age of repeating the events of the previous night and arguing, he begrudgingly agreed that we had paid our bill in full. It really does help in these situations to keep your sense of humour nearby at all times.
We quickly left and jumped in a taxi and headed south over the Niger River before the owner changed his mind. Teresa jumped out at another hotel and I continued to the bus station. By the time I got there it had gone mid-day and I had missed all the morning buses to Sikasso. The bus station was a chaotic mess of people, vehicles, vendors and touts. A tout took me to a ticket office for a bus heading to Sikasso. I was booked on the overnight bus to the Ivory Coast, which should depart at about 17.00 that evening. I had about four hours to kill while I waited. I still was feeling decidedly dodgy and did not have the energy to leave the bus station so I curled up in the waiting shelter and slept during the heat and dust of the afternoon in a cloud of flies.
I should have been used to waiting by now after being in Africa for three weeks, but still time seemed to stand still and the hours ticked by painfully slowly. The bus company teased the other waiting passengers and myself by parking a bus in front of us in the yard at just before five; at about quarter to six they finally let us aboard and we departed an hour late at six. It was a joy to be finally on the road leaving Bamako for the last time as the sun set over the horizon and the heat of the day dissipated. Once we were out of the city limits and rolling across the savannah landscape the fresh air blowing in through the windows was the most memorable breath of fresh air I had breathed for a very long time. Once the sun had set the bus stopped in order for the passengers to pray. I took the opportunity to wander along to a roadside stall for a semi-cold soft drink while the other passengers were spread out all around the bus on hands and knees praying towards Mecca.
The bus rolled through the night and finally arrived in Sikaaso at 22.30. As soon as I got off the bus a tout spotted me. He was a friendly chap and arranged a ticket for a bus across the border to Burkina Faso the next morning. The bus was due to leave at 07.00 so I retired to the Zanga hotel only a short walk down the road and spent a night in the most expensive hotel I would stay at on this whole trip at CFA15000 a night for a single room. I was exhausted and just wanted a shower and a bed to sleep in to regain some energy before the next leg of my journey to Bobo-Dioulasso tomorrow.
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