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Dogon Country Travel Blogs

Background: The Sudanese Republic and Senegal became independent of France in 1960 as the Mali Federation. When Senegal withdrew after only a few months, what formerly made up the Sudanese Republic was renamed Mali. Rule by dictatorship was brought to a close in 1991 with a transitional government and in 1992 when Mali's first democratic presidential election was held. After his reelection in 1997, President Alpha KONARE continued to push through political and economic reforms and to fight corruption. In keeping with Mali's two-term constitutional limit, he stepped down in 2002 and was succeeded by Amadou TOURE.

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By Bjorndahl
August 7th 2009

Update Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti

Dogon Country

Roughly what is in my journal July 29 Road To Mopti Wow, met up with Maarte. Saw him walk by my restaurant shortly after writing my last joural entry. We went to the National Museum in Bamako but not inside because the ticket guy wouldnt give us change. I showed him the markets and in general just did some catching up. He was sick also ad had only started to recover. I feel almost completely recovered and decided to head to Mopti this morning. When I am there I will decide what to do next. I got to the bus station [View Full Entry]

By Bjorndahl
August 5th 2009

Mopti is the Center of ... Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti

Washing Clothes in Mopti

tourism in Mali, this is a good and bad thing. I have had a long break from this thing for multiple reasons. The main one being I have been very busy. I spent 4 days hiking in Dogon Country, which was amazing, could be heaven on earth. Also spent two days on a crappy bus for what was supposed to be a 7 hour bus ride. And today I spent all day in Djenne where the world famous Great Mosque (made of mud) is. Soon I get busy again but I have decided that tomorrow will be a big blog update [View Full Entry]

By eddy15
July 6th 2009

Back in Mopti! Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti

Back in Mopti after a five day hike through Dogon Country with Anil and our guide Ibrahim! 1 July So this lazy day was spent in the pool talking to unattractive British girls and getting soaked in the rain. Anil and I met Ibrahim in the evening. We finalised our plan. We’ll be traveling with two French girls. Sweet! Right? 2 July When we got to Bandingara there was no sign of the French girls. We leave almost immediately for Douloo (odd?). Apparently the two girls are traveling around West Africa on one 125 cc Honda Motorcycle (very odd?). By this [View Full Entry]

By eddy15
June 30th 2009

In Mopti Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti

Well another night out with Yousouf and Arnaud last night. Met a Colonel in the Malian Army who seemed to like me and hooked me up with contacts in Timbuktu. Also he’s a good contact to have. Yousouf finally let me pay for a round (not that I was trying too hard to) and also gave me a CD. An early rise, a bit rough, and I was on the bus all day. I actually met Anil on the bus, which was good so we went to a better hotel than we’d planned in Mopti. Many annoying “guides”, but I can’t [View Full Entry]

By johnnyrivers
May 1st 2009

The Mali Finale! part 6- Sevare & Bandiagara Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Bandiagara

The Road to Sevare

Our mission for Saturday was to merely make it back to Mopti…judging from past experiences, that was all we could feasibly accomplish… and plan our next move from there. Earlier that week we had gotten the phone number of a reputable Dogon Country guide from the Peace Corp volunteers we had met on the bus to Ouagadougou. While we were still in Mopti, waiting to get to Timbuktu, I had called him to schedule a meeting time and place. Thus our plan was to get back to Mopti, and then find transport to Bandiagara, the location he had chosen to meet [View Full Entry]

By johnnyrivers
May 1st 2009

The Mali Finale! part 7- The Dogon Country Africa » Mali » Dogon Country

The Dogon Country

The Dogon is incredible… I’m not going to waste time trying to explain the awesome hiking adventure we had there. Words cannot do this magnificent beauty justice. So I’ll let my pictures do most of the talking! Our basic schedule from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday Afternoon composed of hiking the land, visiting the villages, meeting the locales, sleeping on rooftops, watching the stars and counting shooting stars, learning about the local culture, cursing the heat of the desert, occasionally riding horse carts, always dreaming about water, laughing at our guides eccentr [View Full Entry]

By johnnyrivers
April 27th 2009

The Mali Finale! part 3- Mopti Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti

Playin' the Waitin' Game

The road to Mopti was...eternal? Yeah, that's a good word for it! Long and hot, dry and dusty. We soon found that the further north you go, the more expensive water got...which is kind of a "no duh" statement since we're traveling into the Sahara desert...hmmmm... At any rate, crossing the border was a pain, not because of any large amounts of paperwork, but because of the excessively spread out process of starting and stopping. We would drive for twenty minutes, and then everyone would pile out of the tro so we could have one guy check out passports. Then we [View Full Entry]

By lprice4
April 27th 2009

Part 2- trip out to Dogon Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Bankass

The “bus” to Koro wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. It was more of… I wouldn’t even know what to compare it to because we don’t have anything like it in the US. It’s a little bigger than a short school bus, and the seats are very similar, but go all the way across so they fit like 5 or 6 people in each row. And of course no AC. I was sitting next to an older woman and he husband and she didn’t know and English and I don’t know any French, so we had a very exciting conversation with [View Full Entry]

By lprice4
April 27th 2009

Part 3- hiking through the Dogon Africa » Mali » Dogon Country

Dogon statue

In the morning we woke up for breakfast and met up with Souleman to head to the Dogon country. We took a horse cart which literally was a horse pulling a flat piece of wood on wheels that we all sat on. As we were driving out of Bankass and through other villages little kids would run out of their houses screaming and waving at us as we were driving. I felt like we were in some sort of parade. It took us about 2 hours to get from Bankass to the first village Kani-Kombole. So Souleman was our guide and [View Full Entry]

By philannie
April 19th 2009

Mali- Mud mosque country Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti

Markets on the way to Djenne

After 3 days of pleasant sightseeing in Bamako-all the old sights but many new,we moved on. We were luck as well with visas. After 4 hours of searching Annie and I found the Niger Consulate and obtained a visa in less than a day. We followed with a Nigerian visa in 2 days. All in all a successful time. After 1 night bush camping we reached Djenne with its world famous mud mosque. Most towns in Mali have mud mosques but this is the largest mud structure in the worls. I had wanted to see this for 25 years.We now are [View Full Entry]

Travel Blog » Africa » Mali » Dogon Country