Djenne, Bamako, Mopti & Timbuktu
Monday 23rd January
We drove on to Djenne taking the boat across the short stretch of water to drive in near to the mosque on market day which was pretty manic. We’d thought about staying at the Campement on the north side of Djenne, but there was going to be no way to get the vehicle past the mosque on market day. Arriving in the car also meant that there was many people offering to be our guide – even just to a hotel and offering conflicting advice about which route to take. There looked to be many roads on the map in the guide, but the car was not a key mode of transport here and most of the roads were not wide enough for a car and some ha
d deep open sewers at the side. We managed to head out west and find an open bit of wasteland to which there were no other routes out. But then got back to what seemed to be the only drivable road around the west of Djenne and up to the Campement. This was full, but we needed to stop for a drink to get out of the midday heat. We visited 2 hotels on the west side, but they were also full – everyone visits Djenne on market day, so we took the only option for staying in Djenne – sleeping on the hotel roof. Their roofs are nice terraces, even if a bit dusty and nice and cool unlike some rooms. We walked around the market in the late afternoon – nothing really of interest to buy, but no hassle as there are plenty of tourists. We ate at one of the restaurants, where the food was not too spectacular, but the waiter did tell us that there was a new direct road to Segou, not taking the big detour of the main road. Walking back to the hotel was pretty difficult with no street lights, no moon and we’d forgotten the torch and you wanted to be careful what you stood in.
Tuesday 24th January
We woke up early and saw the sun rise at 7. After a quick walk around the much quieter Tuesday morning Djenne, we found the new road to the north of town very quickly. It wasn’t tarmac, but was well graded. We made quite quick progress to Sarro, but then it wasn’t clear which would be the quickest route to Segou. The route we took weaved through more villages to Dioro, when we eventually hit the tarmac outside Segou. Some of the villages didn’t seem quite so used to tourists, and lots of kids run excitedly towards you shouting toubab – the Bambara word for tourist. Segou has some nice hotels, although unfortunately they all seemed to be full except the Hotel de France which had definitely seen better days. We stayed at the Lebanese run hotel on the route out of town which had a nice bar to watch the football, but the food wasn’t as good as the Lebanese restaurant standard set in Niamey.
Wednesday 25th January
We left early to make a dash for the Mauritanian Embassy in Bamako to try and get our visas as quickly as possible. Although we thought we’d drive a bit faster, the Malian buses were still trying to overtake anywhere possible. We saw a lorry with its front cab completely smashed in and I struggled to imagine something that could be hit here and that unforgiving until we saw a burnt out tanker a bit further down the road. We reached Bamako and progress was going quite well until be hit the Boulevard de Peuple when we became surrounded by the green, bashed up transit van taxis in a busy market. We eventually squeezed our way through to the far end of the road near the railway station, but in turning the corner here the policeman took offence to John’s driving, thinking he was trying to run him over and was chasing after us, but fortunately the traffic lights went green just in time for John to make a hasty getaway. We stopped to ask someone the way to the Mauritanian Embassy or just any embassy to get us in the right direction and we soon found the Iranian embassy and after asking a few more people we found the Mauritanian Embassy. It was just a few minutes to 12 but we were shown through to the office of a very helpful Mauritanian lady who helped us fill in new visa forms in French. We were then shown the waiting room and got the passports back with visas within 30 minutes. The lady was very helpful and it was worth getting the visa just for the pleasant experience. We then drove to the Mande Hotel, west of the city on the River Niger to meet Kathy and Steve for a drink and lunch – salad and white wine – luxuries not often found in West Africa. Our table was overlooking the river where we could watch the fishermen passing on pirogues and look along the river towards the few tall buildings in central Bamako with women busy doing the tough workout of the washing in the river in the foreground. At forty two pounds for a room in a good hotel by the river, we didn’t consider leaving the hotel after lunch. Kathy and I spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool – while the guys worked on the cars.
Thursday 26th January
We decided to spend an extra night in Bamako. John wanted to take the car apart and work out if the fuel tank was leaking and ended up needing to get the suspension welded back together. Meanwhile Kathy and I were happy for the time to go and see the centre of Bamako. We took a taxi from the hotel and after a stop a minute down the road where the taxi driver tried to sell us a journey to Mopti which at a goods days drive away sounded a bit far, he took us too the city centre. I asked for Les delices de Bamako – a patisserie shop, but obviously my French wasn’t quite up to standard and he interpreted this as the l’eglise de Bamako and we ended up outside the Cathedral.
It wasn’t far back to the bank where we used the first working cashpoint we’d found on our trip in Africa. We then went to the patisserie, which had a great old atmosphere, although there were only men there. The coffee and fresh orange juice were great, but the Danish pastry and croissant were very solid. We then walked around the centre of Bamako, including the artisan market, and restocked up on paracetemol for which we receive constant requests for in Africa. We then went to the French cultural centre and took a taxi back to the hotel. This was quite an experience and we weren’t sure if the extra guy in the front was also a passenger or a friend to show off to. But fortunately we and everyone else we encountered on the way survived in one piece. It was then time to relax again by the pool. We thought we had to be a bit more adventurous and leave the hotel that evening and went to the Campagnard restaurant, described by the guide book as Bamako’s finest, we were worried that it might be really smart or expensive, but was quite relaxing, a cross between a Swiss chalet and English pub and the food was great and the waiters took the piss out of the guys English manners, being greedy and ordering everything first.
Friday 27th January
We took advantage of the large buffet breakfast at the hotel – sausages, eggs, fried and boiled, ham and good cheese, then went to the supermarket to get luxuries like yogurt, sausages and French wine. Bamako was heaving with traffic as we left and you could taste the pollution. We travelled back across the main bridge and got the final views of Bamako. We tried to find the Institute Geographique de Mali for a better map to help us with the more rural routes to Timbuktu, but failed. We continued on to reach Segou by late afternoon. Segou looked very quiet and relaxed on a Friday afternoon and very tempting to stay the night, especially if some nice accommodation was available. We said that we hoped to camp all the way to Timbuktu. We were rewarded for continuing on with a scenic drive near the river, crossing north of it over a dam at Markala. We took the road heading east towards Massina which turned out to be tarmac and we realized that this was probably the quick route from Djenne to Segou that we should have taken previously. We headed off the road to try and find a good camp spot near the river, but ended up finding a village where they didn’t look to welcoming, so we headed back to drive a bit further down the road. We kept driving and weren’t finding a secluded spot and was soon getting dark and the area was getting marshier, so we camping not far from the road.
Saturday 28th January
We continued on the road to Massina, where the tarmac road gave way to a much dustier route. We then reached a channel and the directions in the village were that we had to cross it. After seeing some people and donkeys wade through we could see it was not above knee height. We made it through OK but then John thought he’d drive the car back it to wash the dust off and then the wheels started spinning and we had to be winched out by Steve. The village across the water was Diafarbe, where I thought I’d have an attempt at trying to buy some bread, but it looked pretty sleepy until we found the grand bricked town hall, mosque and market. There still looked to be no sign of bread, but John after talking to a Tailor who requested his photograph directed us to a shop around the corner. We headed out east trying to find the piste towards Mopti, but found a smaller village with no obvious piste. Here amongst a group of children we found a French teacher who took us back to his house to get directions and consult the map. Unlike what was shown on the map, we were told the route was north to Tenenkou before heading to Mopti. We had lunch to the south of the village, bordering on the River Niger where we enjoyed the fresh pineapple bought in Bamako and John and I went for a swim along with a few of the local kids. After lunch we headed north back across the channel to Tenenkou, and soon after we hit another couple of channels to cross, by which time it was getting near sunset and we camped next to a palm tree on the canal which was pretty noisy with all the birdlife. John decided to try his fishing rod and was trying a number of different bait includ
ing our good cheese but didn’t catch anything. We were in view of a couple of villages which consisted of a few buildings on higher ground surrounded by palm trees. A few people came to investigate who didn’t speak French, but seemed quite friendly. There were lots of bugs flying around so I retired early to the tent to escape the bombardment.
Sunday 29th January
The drive continued along a dusty road with us stopping to ask for directions to Mopti at each village. By lunchtime we’d found the River Niger and a good place for a swim. Soon after lunch we found the ferry crossing north to Mopti. Mopti was busy with the stalls around the port and we headed on to Sevare to the supermarket which had none of the delights of Bamako. We then picked a hotel on the route back to Mopti. While John was working on the car, the Dutchies drove past and spotted him, so came in for a drink. They were just heading to Mopti after visiting the Dogon region. They’d been to Benin, Togo, Ghana and Burkina Faso since we’d left them in Niger in December. We met up at the restaurant Sigou that evening, although the fish meals gave you the taste for camp food again, but John’s steak was pretty good. The River Niger did not look so clean here with all the busy port market, unlike Bamako and Niamey.
Monday 30th January
We headed into Mopti for some breakfast and to see the busy morning port and after buying some bread which is very dry and airy and not nearly so good as other bread in Mali we headed back to the hotel to spend the rest of the morning in or by the pool. We left at Midday after buying a big watermelon, to start our route to Timbuktu. We left the tarmac at Konna and reached a lake with no name that looked good to camp by. That was until we started driving to it and sinking before we reached some grazing cows and made a hasty retreat. Steve spotted a rockier area nearby where we were able to camp right by the lake. This was in view of two villages and it wasn’t long before we had 3 guys come over to visit. They couldn’t speak French but with limited communication we understood they were Bozo fisherman. John had already started fishing and tucked into the final French supermarket salami for bait. Meanwhile Steve had given them a land rover magazine to look through, although what they thought of it was impossible to tell as they found it hard to comprehend that a bottle of water we were drinking came from Mali. John was having no success with the fishing and asked if they had small fish to use as bait. We didn’t know if they’d understood and they left us before sunset, but we though because they’d indicated it was getting cold for them with the breeze blowing off the lake – much warmer than England though. However, they returned a little later by pirogue bringing some fish as bait, one guy bringing his wife and son with him. John was also given a heavy terracotta fishing weight. John gave them some hooks, line and weights although it was John that needed the help and he’d still not caught anything by the end of the evening, although the bait had been eaten. The fishing was obviously best left to the Bozos.
Tuesday 31st January
We continued north around the lake and reached Korinetze and continued heading north following alongside a channel. We passed through another village and to the north of that we reached another channel which was too deep to cross. They had one of the Malian blue crossing boats on the other side of the channel. The channel crossing wasn’t shown on the map (although there were two others shown to the north) and we thought from the GPS we could have been further west than the main piste, so we headed east to try and skirt around the channel. Meanwhile someone had told us to ask for someone named Konna in the village to take the boat across the water. In trying to drive around the channel we managed to nose dive into a small ditch and needed to be winched out. This was within view of a grand looking man in green robes on his camel. His camel was making a loud gurgling sound which didn’t sound friendly. He shouted at us and told us to follow him. It was quite impressive following a camel to the piste. It shows the camel not land rover is king around here. The piste continued to head east, but we thought we were best to stick to a proper route for a while and it did turn into a road that had been newly constructed. Not a road that was on our map, but it took us east to Ngouma. Now we would just be taking the route further east to Timbuktu. Looking at the map we thought it would be nice to camp by a lake again. As we reached a village about 15km further on we bottomed out in some deep sand and needed to start digging. We were expecting Steve to arrive shortly behind us, but meanwhile we worked on getting the car unstuck and used the help of a passing herdsman. It took a good 15minutes to get out of that and take a parallel route without the deep ruts. By this time we though Steve must have passed us on a parallel route, so we thought the best thing would be to head forward as quick as possible. We stopped two passing trucks we saw and managed to get a passenger to understand us – but neither truck had seen a white land rover. We continued on a few kms to the next village which had a good view of the surrounding plain, but still no sign of them. We continued on to Kanioume and where the market was finishing and asked again, but no one had seen them, so we started heading back. We bottomed out again in some deep ruts near the village with the good view and this time needed sand ladders. After a few attempts we got out and continued to the village where we originally got stuck and travelled a bit beyond. From the map it looked like there was a lake near the village, and we’d said that we wanted to camp by one of the lakes, but there was no sign of water at this time of year. By this time it was getting towards sunset and we thought we’d have to continue on and camp somewhere before Kanioume. As we got to the village with the good view two guys on motorbikes with the big old Dogon style guns waved us down. They managed to tell us the white land rover was traveling between Kanioume and Bambara-Maounde. So we knew they were ahead of us and could try and find them early in the morning. We camped near to a dune from which you could look out and see many camp fires of the nomadic people.
Wednesday 1st Feb
We packed up quickly and were driving before 8. We didn’t have any breakfast, but Kanioume looked too sleepy to find bread, so we continued on. Half and hour later we spotted a paper sign on a tree. Kathy and Steve camping at the next tracks on the left – and there we found them. We both recalled what had happened yesterday – they hadn’t spoken to the guys on the motorbikes, although they’d spoken to others. We thought we’d use the CB radios today! – for the first time since Niger. At Bambara we managed to buy some bread and after that there was a heavily corrugated road for the route to Timbuktu. It was so heavily corrugated that there were lots of parallel tracks, which we took instead. After 90 km we got to the River Niger where we stopped for lunch. We reached the crossing point and there were two boat loads of vehicles in front of us so we sunbathed on the shore while being pursued for cadeau by the local kids. Men in two pirogues with sticks were trying to persuade their herd of cattle to swim across the River Niger. This took quite some persuasion and two escaped the sticks back to the bank. The boat crossing seemed to be taking some time as the route was not to the dunes at the nearest point opposite. It was about two hours before we could get on the boat – a tricky manoeuvre that involved reversing the car up the boat ramps onto the deck. The ramps were fairly steep and we’d seen plenty of Toyotas stuck with their back wheels spinning on the ramps before driving off and starting again. One Toyota nearly managed to get its back wheel to drop between the two ramps, but then someone else argued they’d take over the driving. By the time we got on the ferry, there were about 14 cars waiting to get across and each ferry could only squeeze on four. We soon saw why it was taking such a long time as the route was some distance upstream. This was far enough for a passing fisherman in a pirogue to hitch on to the side of the ferry and save his energy for a while. As it was late afternoon by now we thought it would be better to stay and visit Timbuktu tomorrow, so we’d camp outside. We ended up driving to Timbuktu and taking the route east out of town to Gao. From this route out it was easy to see how Timbuktu could be swallowed up by sand as we were immediately in soft sand. Fortunately we managed to find a spot to camp a few kilometers out without getting stuck. We saw an airplane leaving Timbuktu airport and the buildings and lights of Timbuktu seemed quite imposing for what I thought would be quite a small place.
Thursday 2nd Feb
Both cars managed to get stuck and need winching out within a few hundred metres of leaving our camping spot. The heavily corrugated road had taken its toll on our car and the welding done in Bamako had already given way. We checked into the Hotel Colombe just after 10 and John found a welder opposite to start welding back together the suspension. Meanwhile we took a late breakfast in the hotel. While watching the welding, John met a French tourist who’d taken the route John planned to Mauritania who told him it had taken 4 days from Nema, southern Mauritania. We took advantage of the hotel to get some washing done – African women are a lot more experienced and better at handwashing than I am and with everything containing so much dust, it was great to have some white sheets back again and my dress probably cleaner than when I bought it.
After breakfast we went and explored Timbuktu – we didn’t have high expectations as the first European explorers to reach Timbuktu all said it was a city in decline together with many guide books since. We walked around an artisan building, the petit marche, where the food looked pretty grim – cabbages cut up into at least eights and going brown as obviously this small quantity was what people could afford to buy. In walking around an English speaking boy followed us, offering to show us the sites. We didn’t ask for a guide and John hates following a guide, but when we passed the grand marche building, he showed us up to the top of the building from where there is a view out across Timbuktu. There was a Tuareg there who recognized the Tuareg and camel on the front of my Bradt guide book, although said the camel was now dead. I asked the boy, Mahamoudou if he was a Tuareg, but he explained that is family were slaves to the Tuareg until the 1970’s when there was a drought with many Tuareg heading into the towns from the desert and slavery finished. Mahamoudou said his favourite football team was Man United, although this still didn’t make John any keener to have him around. I mentioned that Spurs have a Malian player, Kanoute, and asked if he was popular in Mali. He said he was one of their best players. Aumar, our guide in the Dogon region didn’t speak so highly of him and I wondered if he’d displayed some of his more frustrating performances, like he does for Spurs, for Mali recently. The fruit and veg here looked a bit healthier. There was a material stall opposite where I bought some fabric and was immediately grabbed by the Tailor next door to make an outfit from it. I didn’t need too much encouragement – sounds much more interesting to have clothes made in Timbuktu rather than China. He wanted the equivalent of ten pounds for his work and half of it up front – much more demanding than the Tailor in Niamey, and there was only half the material to work with. I negotiated to nine pounds, then he took measurements and got started. We made our way to the house that Heinrich Barth stayed in when he was in Timbuktu. There is a little museum which has a few of his belongings information about him and pictures from his journey. I thanked Mahamoudou and gave him some money and one of my African books. We then went to the internet café run by our hotel where I did manage to get some information on the blogsite, before it froze up. I returned for an hour in the evening and didn’t manage to get anywhere with my email or blogsite.
Friday 3rd Feb
John went early to the bank to get some more cash for changing in Mauritania. I took the better option of going to buy some of the round Timbuktu bread from the kiln bake
ries in the street. I also took all the passports to the tourist office to get the free Timbuktu stamp. I then took a final walk to the Grand marche, bought some more Malian material and then went to look for the houses of other explorers that reached Timbuktu. On the way I met Mahamoudou who was returning from school as all four teachers had not made it to the school that day. Gordon Lang’s house which is now an ordinary residence with a child sitting in the doorway. Rene Caillie’s house had to be rebuilt in 2003 after they had a lot of rain. Rene Caillie was better liked by Mahamoudou for his better preparation learning Arabic and travelling through the Tuareg area with a caravan. Meanwhile John had returned from the bank – a process that took 1 ½ hours! I went back for a final stint at the internet café and was very frustrated when the blogsite froze before I’d managed to add any photos. We headed to the flame of peace, a memorial constructed at the end of the Tuareg rebellion when 3000 weapons from the Tuaregs and Malian army were burnt. The memorial has some of the burnt out weapons cemented into it. The road out west to Goundam was a pleasant surprise – a well graded road and none of the deep corrugations of the road to the south. We thought at this rate we’d get to Mauritania pretty quickly. We stopped for lunch by Lake Fati. It was pretty warm so I thought it looked like inviting to paddle, but the ground was very clayey and close to the lake the cracked desiccated clay gave way and I just managed to pull out my tyre sandals, but now had my hands and feet covered in clay. We continued until we reached the police roadblock in Tonka. The police weren’t too friendly – maybe because we’d nearly driven past the Halt Gendarmerie sign. Both Niger and Mali have many roadblocks which are just 3 or 4 drums in the road which are often just removed with not much interest or just gendarmerie signs when just a nod or wave as you drive past seems to be all that is required. After some debate with John and Steve and without any of the requested cadeau or drinks requested being given we were on our way. At Niafounke we reached the river again and thought it would be nice to camp by water for the final time before a long desert stretch. After exploring the north bank of the river there looked to be better camping opportunities on the other bank, so we took the ferry across the river. The first people we found didn’t seem to welcoming so we drove a bit further. We found a good spot to enjoy our gin and tonic, watch one of the best sunsets and watch the many fishermen in their pirogues laying their nets. One pirogue had a father and daughter in it, the young girl being the one to pole the boat along while the father sat back and played a stringed musical instrument whic
h was a great setting for the music to carry.
Sat 4th Feb
We headed back to the ferry to get back across the Niger for the final time. As we drove along we heard a big clang and John stopped to look what it was. I thought it must have been parts of the tow bar clanging. Then John found a short piece of the spring suspension. Upon inspection this came from the front passenger side of the car and the largest piece of spring had fallen onto a smaller piece of spring with the third smallest piece of spring, now in John’s hand. We knew we had to get back across the water to Niafounke, see if there was any mechanic there and work out what our best options were. There aren’t too many land rovers in this part of Africa, although we had seen a number of old land rovers in the centre of Timbuktu. We found a mechanic in the centre of town and asked if they had any springs for a land rover. They immediately asked us for a jack and wanted to start working on the car straight away, but John wanted to see what the replacement part was before thy started work. As the suspension has a 2 inch lift, we really needed two springs so the driver’s side would match and it wouldn’t sit skew. Meanwhile John called Scorpion racing on the satellite phone for advice and to see what the best options were for couriering parts to Africa. We thought this would mean that we’d have to go back to Bamako and being Saturday this would take the best part of a week out of our schedule. After a search on his motorbike one of the guys managed to come back to the garage with the front spring from a land rover defender. There was only one, as the other one had broken. John and Steve negotiated a price for the spring and managed to reduce the price of the old spring to the equivalent of fifty pounds and 10 pounds for the labour – for which there were up to 10 people gathered around the car at one point, but John had to been in the centre supervising, helping and handing out his tools. After a couple of hours the work was complete and as a pleasant surprise the car was not sitting skew. John tried a few swerves down the street without warning to test the suspension and fortunately my lunch stayed down and the car passed the test. We took the road to Lere which wasn’t so fast, but we got to Lere by 5. This was shown on the map as a border town. We were getting a little worried about our visas which looked liked they’d expired yesterday, so we thought the sooner we left Mali the better. Fortunately the border official didn’t notice and in fact asked us the date before he stamped our passports – not noticing the visa date. We continued just a few kilometers down the road to camp in an area of hazel type bushes.
We drove on to Djenne taking the boat across the short stretch of water to drive in near to the mosque on market day which was pretty manic. We’d thought about staying at the Campement on the north side of Djenne, but there was going to be no way to get the vehicle past the mosque on market day. Arriving in the car also meant that there was many people offering to be our guide – even just to a hotel and offering conflicting advice about which route to take. There looked to be many roads on the map in the guide, but the car was not a key mode of transport here and most of the roads were not wide enough for a car and some ha
d deep open sewers at the side. We managed to head out west and find an open bit of wasteland to which there were no other routes out. But then got back to what seemed to be the only drivable road around the west of Djenne and up to the Campement. This was full, but we needed to stop for a drink to get out of the midday heat. We visited 2 hotels on the west side, but they were also full – everyone visits Djenne on market day, so we took the only option for staying in Djenne – sleeping on the hotel roof. Their roofs are nice terraces, even if a bit dusty and nice and cool unlike some rooms. We walked around the market in the late afternoon – nothing really of interest to buy, but no hassle as there are plenty of tourists. We ate at one of the restaurants, where the food was not too spectacular, but the waiter did tell us that there was a new direct road to Segou, not taking the big detour of the main road. Walking back to the hotel was pretty difficult with no street lights, no moon and we’d forgotten the torch and you wanted to be careful what you stood in.Tuesday 24th January
We woke up early and saw the sun rise at 7. After a quick walk around the much quieter Tuesday morning Djenne, we found the new road to the north of town very quickly. It wasn’t tarmac, but was well graded. We made quite quick progress to Sarro, but then it wasn’t clear which would be the quickest route to Segou. The route we took weaved through more villages to Dioro, when we eventually hit the tarmac outside Segou. Some of the villages didn’t seem quite so used to tourists, and lots of kids run excitedly towards you shouting toubab – the Bambara word for tourist. Segou has some nice hotels, although unfortunately they all seemed to be full except the Hotel de France which had definitely seen better days. We stayed at the Lebanese run hotel on the route out of town which had a nice bar to watch the football, but the food wasn’t as good as the Lebanese restaurant standard set in Niamey.
Wednesday 25th January
We left early to make a dash for the Mauritanian Embassy in Bamako to try and get our visas as quickly as possible. Although we thought we’d drive a bit faster, the Malian buses were still trying to overtake anywhere possible. We saw a lorry with its front cab completely smashed in and I struggled to imagine something that could be hit here and that unforgiving until we saw a burnt out tanker a bit further down the road. We reached Bamako and progress was going quite well until be hit the Boulevard de Peuple when we became surrounded by the green, bashed up transit van taxis in a busy market. We eventually squeezed our way through to the far end of the road near the railway station, but in turning the corner here the policeman took offence to John’s driving, thinking he was trying to run him over and was chasing after us, but fortunately the traffic lights went green just in time for John to make a hasty getaway. We stopped to ask someone the way to the Mauritanian Embassy or just any embassy to get us in the right direction and we soon found the Iranian embassy and after asking a few more people we found the Mauritanian Embassy. It was just a few minutes to 12 but we were shown through to the office of a very helpful Mauritanian lady who helped us fill in new visa forms in French. We were then shown the waiting room and got the passports back with visas within 30 minutes. The lady was very helpful and it was worth getting the visa just for the pleasant experience. We then drove to the Mande Hotel, west of the city on the River Niger to meet Kathy and Steve for a drink and lunch – salad and white wine – luxuries not often found in West Africa. Our table was overlooking the river where we could watch the fishermen passing on pirogues and look along the river towards the few tall buildings in central Bamako with women busy doing the tough workout of the washing in the river in the foreground. At forty two pounds for a room in a good hotel by the river, we didn’t consider leaving the hotel after lunch. Kathy and I spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool – while the guys worked on the cars.
Thursday 26th January
We decided to spend an extra night in Bamako. John wanted to take the car apart and work out if the fuel tank was leaking and ended up needing to get the suspension welded back together. Meanwhile Kathy and I were happy for the time to go and see the centre of Bamako. We took a taxi from the hotel and after a stop a minute down the road where the taxi driver tried to sell us a journey to Mopti which at a goods days drive away sounded a bit far, he took us too the city centre. I asked for Les delices de Bamako – a patisserie shop, but obviously my French wasn’t quite up to standard and he interpreted this as the l’eglise de Bamako and we ended up outside the Cathedral.
It wasn’t far back to the bank where we used the first working cashpoint we’d found on our trip in Africa. We then went to the patisserie, which had a great old atmosphere, although there were only men there. The coffee and fresh orange juice were great, but the Danish pastry and croissant were very solid. We then walked around the centre of Bamako, including the artisan market, and restocked up on paracetemol for which we receive constant requests for in Africa. We then went to the French cultural centre and took a taxi back to the hotel. This was quite an experience and we weren’t sure if the extra guy in the front was also a passenger or a friend to show off to. But fortunately we and everyone else we encountered on the way survived in one piece. It was then time to relax again by the pool. We thought we had to be a bit more adventurous and leave the hotel that evening and went to the Campagnard restaurant, described by the guide book as Bamako’s finest, we were worried that it might be really smart or expensive, but was quite relaxing, a cross between a Swiss chalet and English pub and the food was great and the waiters took the piss out of the guys English manners, being greedy and ordering everything first.
Friday 27th January
We took advantage of the large buffet breakfast at the hotel – sausages, eggs, fried and boiled, ham and good cheese, then went to the supermarket to get luxuries like yogurt, sausages and French wine. Bamako was heaving with traffic as we left and you could taste the pollution. We travelled back across the main bridge and got the final views of Bamako. We tried to find the Institute Geographique de Mali for a better map to help us with the more rural routes to Timbuktu, but failed. We continued on to reach Segou by late afternoon. Segou looked very quiet and relaxed on a Friday afternoon and very tempting to stay the night, especially if some nice accommodation was available. We said that we hoped to camp all the way to Timbuktu. We were rewarded for continuing on with a scenic drive near the river, crossing north of it over a dam at Markala. We took the road heading east towards Massina which turned out to be tarmac and we realized that this was probably the quick route from Djenne to Segou that we should have taken previously. We headed off the road to try and find a good camp spot near the river, but ended up finding a village where they didn’t look to welcoming, so we headed back to drive a bit further down the road. We kept driving and weren’t finding a secluded spot and was soon getting dark and the area was getting marshier, so we camping not far from the road.
Saturday 28th January
We continued on the road to Massina, where the tarmac road gave way to a much dustier route. We then reached a channel and the directions in the village were that we had to cross it. After seeing some people and donkeys wade through we could see it was not above knee height. We made it through OK but then John thought he’d drive the car back it to wash the dust off and then the wheels started spinning and we had to be winched out by Steve. The village across the water was Diafarbe, where I thought I’d have an attempt at trying to buy some bread, but it looked pretty sleepy until we found the grand bricked town hall, mosque and market. There still looked to be no sign of bread, but John after talking to a Tailor who requested his photograph directed us to a shop around the corner. We headed out east trying to find the piste towards Mopti, but found a smaller village with no obvious piste. Here amongst a group of children we found a French teacher who took us back to his house to get directions and consult the map. Unlike what was shown on the map, we were told the route was north to Tenenkou before heading to Mopti. We had lunch to the south of the village, bordering on the River Niger where we enjoyed the fresh pineapple bought in Bamako and John and I went for a swim along with a few of the local kids. After lunch we headed north back across the channel to Tenenkou, and soon after we hit another couple of channels to cross, by which time it was getting near sunset and we camped next to a palm tree on the canal which was pretty noisy with all the birdlife. John decided to try his fishing rod and was trying a number of different bait includ
ing our good cheese but didn’t catch anything. We were in view of a couple of villages which consisted of a few buildings on higher ground surrounded by palm trees. A few people came to investigate who didn’t speak French, but seemed quite friendly. There were lots of bugs flying around so I retired early to the tent to escape the bombardment.Sunday 29th January
The drive continued along a dusty road with us stopping to ask for directions to Mopti at each village. By lunchtime we’d found the River Niger and a good place for a swim. Soon after lunch we found the ferry crossing north to Mopti. Mopti was busy with the stalls around the port and we headed on to Sevare to the supermarket which had none of the delights of Bamako. We then picked a hotel on the route back to Mopti. While John was working on the car, the Dutchies drove past and spotted him, so came in for a drink. They were just heading to Mopti after visiting the Dogon region. They’d been to Benin, Togo, Ghana and Burkina Faso since we’d left them in Niger in December. We met up at the restaurant Sigou that evening, although the fish meals gave you the taste for camp food again, but John’s steak was pretty good. The River Niger did not look so clean here with all the busy port market, unlike Bamako and Niamey.
Monday 30th January
We headed into Mopti for some breakfast and to see the busy morning port and after buying some bread which is very dry and airy and not nearly so good as other bread in Mali we headed back to the hotel to spend the rest of the morning in or by the pool. We left at Midday after buying a big watermelon, to start our route to Timbuktu. We left the tarmac at Konna and reached a lake with no name that looked good to camp by. That was until we started driving to it and sinking before we reached some grazing cows and made a hasty retreat. Steve spotted a rockier area nearby where we were able to camp right by the lake. This was in view of two villages and it wasn’t long before we had 3 guys come over to visit. They couldn’t speak French but with limited communication we understood they were Bozo fisherman. John had already started fishing and tucked into the final French supermarket salami for bait. Meanwhile Steve had given them a land rover magazine to look through, although what they thought of it was impossible to tell as they found it hard to comprehend that a bottle of water we were drinking came from Mali. John was having no success with the fishing and asked if they had small fish to use as bait. We didn’t know if they’d understood and they left us before sunset, but we though because they’d indicated it was getting cold for them with the breeze blowing off the lake – much warmer than England though. However, they returned a little later by pirogue bringing some fish as bait, one guy bringing his wife and son with him. John was also given a heavy terracotta fishing weight. John gave them some hooks, line and weights although it was John that needed the help and he’d still not caught anything by the end of the evening, although the bait had been eaten. The fishing was obviously best left to the Bozos.
Tuesday 31st January
We continued north around the lake and reached Korinetze and continued heading north following alongside a channel. We passed through another village and to the north of that we reached another channel which was too deep to cross. They had one of the Malian blue crossing boats on the other side of the channel. The channel crossing wasn’t shown on the map (although there were two others shown to the north) and we thought from the GPS we could have been further west than the main piste, so we headed east to try and skirt around the channel. Meanwhile someone had told us to ask for someone named Konna in the village to take the boat across the water. In trying to drive around the channel we managed to nose dive into a small ditch and needed to be winched out. This was within view of a grand looking man in green robes on his camel. His camel was making a loud gurgling sound which didn’t sound friendly. He shouted at us and told us to follow him. It was quite impressive following a camel to the piste. It shows the camel not land rover is king around here. The piste continued to head east, but we thought we were best to stick to a proper route for a while and it did turn into a road that had been newly constructed. Not a road that was on our map, but it took us east to Ngouma. Now we would just be taking the route further east to Timbuktu. Looking at the map we thought it would be nice to camp by a lake again. As we reached a village about 15km further on we bottomed out in some deep sand and needed to start digging. We were expecting Steve to arrive shortly behind us, but meanwhile we worked on getting the car unstuck and used the help of a passing herdsman. It took a good 15minutes to get out of that and take a parallel route without the deep ruts. By this time we though Steve must have passed us on a parallel route, so we thought the best thing would be to head forward as quick as possible. We stopped two passing trucks we saw and managed to get a passenger to understand us – but neither truck had seen a white land rover. We continued on a few kms to the next village which had a good view of the surrounding plain, but still no sign of them. We continued on to Kanioume and where the market was finishing and asked again, but no one had seen them, so we started heading back. We bottomed out again in some deep ruts near the village with the good view and this time needed sand ladders. After a few attempts we got out and continued to the village where we originally got stuck and travelled a bit beyond. From the map it looked like there was a lake near the village, and we’d said that we wanted to camp by one of the lakes, but there was no sign of water at this time of year. By this time it was getting towards sunset and we thought we’d have to continue on and camp somewhere before Kanioume. As we got to the village with the good view two guys on motorbikes with the big old Dogon style guns waved us down. They managed to tell us the white land rover was traveling between Kanioume and Bambara-Maounde. So we knew they were ahead of us and could try and find them early in the morning. We camped near to a dune from which you could look out and see many camp fires of the nomadic people.
Wednesday 1st Feb
We packed up quickly and were driving before 8. We didn’t have any breakfast, but Kanioume looked too sleepy to find bread, so we continued on. Half and hour later we spotted a paper sign on a tree. Kathy and Steve camping at the next tracks on the left – and there we found them. We both recalled what had happened yesterday – they hadn’t spoken to the guys on the motorbikes, although they’d spoken to others. We thought we’d use the CB radios today! – for the first time since Niger. At Bambara we managed to buy some bread and after that there was a heavily corrugated road for the route to Timbuktu. It was so heavily corrugated that there were lots of parallel tracks, which we took instead. After 90 km we got to the River Niger where we stopped for lunch. We reached the crossing point and there were two boat loads of vehicles in front of us so we sunbathed on the shore while being pursued for cadeau by the local kids. Men in two pirogues with sticks were trying to persuade their herd of cattle to swim across the River Niger. This took quite some persuasion and two escaped the sticks back to the bank. The boat crossing seemed to be taking some time as the route was not to the dunes at the nearest point opposite. It was about two hours before we could get on the boat – a tricky manoeuvre that involved reversing the car up the boat ramps onto the deck. The ramps were fairly steep and we’d seen plenty of Toyotas stuck with their back wheels spinning on the ramps before driving off and starting again. One Toyota nearly managed to get its back wheel to drop between the two ramps, but then someone else argued they’d take over the driving. By the time we got on the ferry, there were about 14 cars waiting to get across and each ferry could only squeeze on four. We soon saw why it was taking such a long time as the route was some distance upstream. This was far enough for a passing fisherman in a pirogue to hitch on to the side of the ferry and save his energy for a while. As it was late afternoon by now we thought it would be better to stay and visit Timbuktu tomorrow, so we’d camp outside. We ended up driving to Timbuktu and taking the route east out of town to Gao. From this route out it was easy to see how Timbuktu could be swallowed up by sand as we were immediately in soft sand. Fortunately we managed to find a spot to camp a few kilometers out without getting stuck. We saw an airplane leaving Timbuktu airport and the buildings and lights of Timbuktu seemed quite imposing for what I thought would be quite a small place.
Thursday 2nd Feb
Both cars managed to get stuck and need winching out within a few hundred metres of leaving our camping spot. The heavily corrugated road had taken its toll on our car and the welding done in Bamako had already given way. We checked into the Hotel Colombe just after 10 and John found a welder opposite to start welding back together the suspension. Meanwhile we took a late breakfast in the hotel. While watching the welding, John met a French tourist who’d taken the route John planned to Mauritania who told him it had taken 4 days from Nema, southern Mauritania. We took advantage of the hotel to get some washing done – African women are a lot more experienced and better at handwashing than I am and with everything containing so much dust, it was great to have some white sheets back again and my dress probably cleaner than when I bought it.
After breakfast we went and explored Timbuktu – we didn’t have high expectations as the first European explorers to reach Timbuktu all said it was a city in decline together with many guide books since. We walked around an artisan building, the petit marche, where the food looked pretty grim – cabbages cut up into at least eights and going brown as obviously this small quantity was what people could afford to buy. In walking around an English speaking boy followed us, offering to show us the sites. We didn’t ask for a guide and John hates following a guide, but when we passed the grand marche building, he showed us up to the top of the building from where there is a view out across Timbuktu. There was a Tuareg there who recognized the Tuareg and camel on the front of my Bradt guide book, although said the camel was now dead. I asked the boy, Mahamoudou if he was a Tuareg, but he explained that is family were slaves to the Tuareg until the 1970’s when there was a drought with many Tuareg heading into the towns from the desert and slavery finished. Mahamoudou said his favourite football team was Man United, although this still didn’t make John any keener to have him around. I mentioned that Spurs have a Malian player, Kanoute, and asked if he was popular in Mali. He said he was one of their best players. Aumar, our guide in the Dogon region didn’t speak so highly of him and I wondered if he’d displayed some of his more frustrating performances, like he does for Spurs, for Mali recently. The fruit and veg here looked a bit healthier. There was a material stall opposite where I bought some fabric and was immediately grabbed by the Tailor next door to make an outfit from it. I didn’t need too much encouragement – sounds much more interesting to have clothes made in Timbuktu rather than China. He wanted the equivalent of ten pounds for his work and half of it up front – much more demanding than the Tailor in Niamey, and there was only half the material to work with. I negotiated to nine pounds, then he took measurements and got started. We made our way to the house that Heinrich Barth stayed in when he was in Timbuktu. There is a little museum which has a few of his belongings information about him and pictures from his journey. I thanked Mahamoudou and gave him some money and one of my African books. We then went to the internet café run by our hotel where I did manage to get some information on the blogsite, before it froze up. I returned for an hour in the evening and didn’t manage to get anywhere with my email or blogsite.
Friday 3rd Feb
John went early to the bank to get some more cash for changing in Mauritania. I took the better option of going to buy some of the round Timbuktu bread from the kiln bake
ries in the street. I also took all the passports to the tourist office to get the free Timbuktu stamp. I then took a final walk to the Grand marche, bought some more Malian material and then went to look for the houses of other explorers that reached Timbuktu. On the way I met Mahamoudou who was returning from school as all four teachers had not made it to the school that day. Gordon Lang’s house which is now an ordinary residence with a child sitting in the doorway. Rene Caillie’s house had to be rebuilt in 2003 after they had a lot of rain. Rene Caillie was better liked by Mahamoudou for his better preparation learning Arabic and travelling through the Tuareg area with a caravan. Meanwhile John had returned from the bank – a process that took 1 ½ hours! I went back for a final stint at the internet café and was very frustrated when the blogsite froze before I’d managed to add any photos. We headed to the flame of peace, a memorial constructed at the end of the Tuareg rebellion when 3000 weapons from the Tuaregs and Malian army were burnt. The memorial has some of the burnt out weapons cemented into it. The road out west to Goundam was a pleasant surprise – a well graded road and none of the deep corrugations of the road to the south. We thought at this rate we’d get to Mauritania pretty quickly. We stopped for lunch by Lake Fati. It was pretty warm so I thought it looked like inviting to paddle, but the ground was very clayey and close to the lake the cracked desiccated clay gave way and I just managed to pull out my tyre sandals, but now had my hands and feet covered in clay. We continued until we reached the police roadblock in Tonka. The police weren’t too friendly – maybe because we’d nearly driven past the Halt Gendarmerie sign. Both Niger and Mali have many roadblocks which are just 3 or 4 drums in the road which are often just removed with not much interest or just gendarmerie signs when just a nod or wave as you drive past seems to be all that is required. After some debate with John and Steve and without any of the requested cadeau or drinks requested being given we were on our way. At Niafounke we reached the river again and thought it would be nice to camp by water for the final time before a long desert stretch. After exploring the north bank of the river there looked to be better camping opportunities on the other bank, so we took the ferry across the river. The first people we found didn’t seem to welcoming so we drove a bit further. We found a good spot to enjoy our gin and tonic, watch one of the best sunsets and watch the many fishermen in their pirogues laying their nets. One pirogue had a father and daughter in it, the young girl being the one to pole the boat along while the father sat back and played a stringed musical instrument whic
h was a great setting for the music to carry.Sat 4th Feb
We headed back to the ferry to get back across the Niger for the final time. As we drove along we heard a big clang and John stopped to look what it was. I thought it must have been parts of the tow bar clanging. Then John found a short piece of the spring suspension. Upon inspection this came from the front passenger side of the car and the largest piece of spring had fallen onto a smaller piece of spring with the third smallest piece of spring, now in John’s hand. We knew we had to get back across the water to Niafounke, see if there was any mechanic there and work out what our best options were. There aren’t too many land rovers in this part of Africa, although we had seen a number of old land rovers in the centre of Timbuktu. We found a mechanic in the centre of town and asked if they had any springs for a land rover. They immediately asked us for a jack and wanted to start working on the car straight away, but John wanted to see what the replacement part was before thy started work. As the suspension has a 2 inch lift, we really needed two springs so the driver’s side would match and it wouldn’t sit skew. Meanwhile John called Scorpion racing on the satellite phone for advice and to see what the best options were for couriering parts to Africa. We thought this would mean that we’d have to go back to Bamako and being Saturday this would take the best part of a week out of our schedule. After a search on his motorbike one of the guys managed to come back to the garage with the front spring from a land rover defender. There was only one, as the other one had broken. John and Steve negotiated a price for the spring and managed to reduce the price of the old spring to the equivalent of fifty pounds and 10 pounds for the labour – for which there were up to 10 people gathered around the car at one point, but John had to been in the centre supervising, helping and handing out his tools. After a couple of hours the work was complete and as a pleasant surprise the car was not sitting skew. John tried a few swerves down the street without warning to test the suspension and fortunately my lunch stayed down and the car passed the test. We took the road to Lere which wasn’t so fast, but we got to Lere by 5. This was shown on the map as a border town. We were getting a little worried about our visas which looked liked they’d expired yesterday, so we thought the sooner we left Mali the better. Fortunately the border official didn’t notice and in fact asked us the date before he stamped our passports – not noticing the visa date. We continued just a few kilometers down the road to camp in an area of hazel type bushes.
posted by Tanya at 11:18 am
1 Comments:
Hello
Thanks for this free trip to Mauritania.
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