Niger River, Mali

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Hi everyone, I think some people may have missed out on receiving one of the blogs I posted a couple of days ago - I posted 3 blogs just before leaving Addis Ababa - if you didn't receive all three, please just check out previous blogs to keep up to date. Many thanks, the cause might have been internet service. Having a beer in Bangkok at the moment and using free wifi (probably not really free if we have too many beers) - heading to the beach for a few days next week. Love to you all. Ros


Niger River trip Day 2 - 3/1/2011

After rising at 5.30am (are we on holiday!!) we set off on the river again in time to catch the sunrise - magic. Today was a full day on the river - once you got used to the rythm of the boat and accessing the toilet at the back of the boat - I got game enough to climb on top of the rattan-type roof of the boat and just watch the world go by. Some people choose to plug into their iPods and relax or have a sleep (once you relax a bit you can sleep on top of the boat and not be afraid of falling off).

Our major stop today was at Niafunke - Michael's dream. He had been waiting to stop here every since the trip started - as this is the birth place of Ali Farka Toure. Ali Farka Toure was born in 1939 and died in 2006 - he was a great guitar player and made the transition from the traditional instrument to the western instrument in no time and was known as 'the John Lee Hooker of Africa.'

While Niafunke is not much of a town, we did have a walk around the place and paid a visit to one of his wife's houses and saw some photos, etc. His house had a separate lounge room (very fancy by Malian standards) which housed some photos and posters and a hugh flat screen TV. I believe there is a hotel in the town that houses most of his memorabila. We walked to see his grave - the area was dirty and uninspiring but the grave was still in good nick.

The local guide that took us there tried to sell us Ali Farka Toure CD's over the top of his grave!!! - the CD sellers always seemed surprised that we already had several of his CD's and prior to this trip we bought and listened to a lot of Malian music in preparation for the festival - and a lot of the CD's we were offered we already had - so no sales for the CD guys - having said that between our group we have still managed to keep the Malian CD economy bouyant.

Niafunke is in a nice position on the river and there are a couple of very impressive new houses on the waterfront which looked very enticing - but we were off again to find a camp for the night.

The landscape was changing - more gradually than I thought it would - and we camped on a sand dune at the bank of the river. It was dark when we finally hit shore and all hands on deck to set up camp - some people went for a swim as well. It was a really nice camp site although we could hear motor bikes going to and from the town nearby - it was an interesting exercise to go for that toilet stop behind your tent in the middle of the night and you had to be careful not to roll down the sand dune.

The food on our boat trip was great - we bought fresh ingredients - fish and chicken - from the local markets and off the fishermen on the river. Our cook, Genava, also made us fresh salad - a first in Mali - the salad consisted of cabbage, cucumber and tomatoe (no seeds), boiled eggs and potato and onion.....but the dressing was to die for - especially after a continual diet of spagetti and bread. The dressing is a combination of mustard, vinegar, chicken stock, pepper and garlic and mayonnaise.

I don't know how Genava managed to cook such good meals for us - all on a tiny coal stove in the back section of the boat - which they continually bailed water out of all day. We had fresh brewed coffee as well and the boat was also loaded with soft drinks and beer and we carried our own spirits - so, all in all, what more could you want.

River Niger Day 3 - 4/1/2011

Today we reached Timbuktu - great excitement - we were finally there - arriving about 4pm after an earlier stop at Dire for about an hour - just in time for the market. I really enjoyed this market as it had a combination of food (including a fish market), clothing, spices, material - nearly everything you could need. In Mali that have something called "shea butter" that is used when cooking, and as a body lotion but the majority of the shea butter is exported to France to be used in the cosmetic industry......and by this time all the ladies were feeling the need of some additional conditioning for our skin...so, when in Mali do as the locals do......

There were 3 or 4 other boats travelling up the river at the same time and we had a bit of fun each day between the boats - helped to make the days pass. The boats swapped staff for a chat/visit sometimes; we compared food and travel stories as we moved up the river and it all came to a head on the last day. We were showing off that we had beer and gin and having a bit of banter with the people on one boat - and later in the day as the boats came close together, two guys from one boat boarded ours and stole a bottle of gin but we kept one of the guys captive.....what fun - especially as one of the girls on our boat was interested in the good looking guy from Columbia (the one we captured) - so we thought it was a reasonable swap.

The other highlight of this day and our arrival in Timbuktu was the sighting of two pods of hippos along the way - they were beautiful to watch in the wild and we were able to get reasonably close to them as well.
Timbuktu itself is about 15kms from where the boats arrive and there was great excitement when we set foot in land - we were actually here - Timbuktu - we had made it. Timbuktu actually existed - some people thought it didn't and I heard one story where a girl's mother always told her that if she misbehaved she would be sent to Timbuktu - so she didn't think it existed either.

Anyway, all hands on deck to unload the boat and pack all our gear into a few 4 wheel drives that were waiting for us and we drove along gum tree lined roads into the main town. Timbuktu was our guide - Hamma's - home town and we were looking forward to him showing us around.

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Comments

[Jonny]

cool
i might actually go