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]

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Hello from Bamako Wow was it ever pleasent and hellish to get here. No good direct transport through Guinea so I had to hop bush taxis. First one was really easy: Conakry to Mamou. Only real stories from this are the asshole cops who want bribes threaten me with arrest for holding someone elses passport (they said i didnt look like my picture); and there were lots of police check points too. The same day I cought another taxi from Mamou to some village in the middle of nowhere. There I had to compete with the attention of a polite and [View Full Entry]

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Well I’m in Djenne to see the market and the Mosque. I spent Saturday looking around Mopti with Anil. These would-be guides are very, very annoying! They really detract from the Mali experience. Bought a ticket to go to Djenne by boat. Stupidly I paid in advance because the next day the boat turned out to be bogus! Down 4000CFA. Oh well, after a long wait caught a bush taxi to Djenne. Met a guide named “John Travolta” (WTF!) but I agreed to let him give me a tour. He turned out to be honest and didn’t try to screw me, [View Full Entry]

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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]

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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]

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Well Yousouf is quite the quite the partier! His lawyer friend Arnaud took me to a bar where Yousouf met us after picking up Anil and the Nigerian kid, Raymond, we’d met the night before. We proceeded to pound ’em back on Yousouf’s tab (including supper). It was the most I’ve drank since Canada! I was somewhat loaded --- man my tolerance is low! Anil also hooked Anil up with someone in Djenne. We should meet up again on Saturday night in Mopti. Today I’m hungover. I went to a very good museum (Musee Nationale), but got hustled out of 5,000 [View Full Entry]

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The bus trip finally ended after some more great hospitality (the guy next to me shared his dinner with me and let me use his cell). The Malian boarder guards want plenty of bribes. We had to pass a hat around the bus to collect for them. It was too late when I arrived to get a hold of Baidou’s uncle Yousouf who’s supposed to look after me, so I spent last night in a hotel. I slept until 12:30 as I was so tired! I then moved to a dorm room where I met an American Anil and a Japanese [View Full Entry]

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Kurzes Update: noch immer mali, noch immer bamako. mehrere erfolglose versuche mit meiner visakarte an geld zu kommen, die einzige bank wo das moeglich ist hat freitag mittag zugemacht. heisst also zwei weitere tage bamako. und dann montag mittag so schnell wie moeglich (was hier in mali wohl so ziemlich alles heissen kann) weiter in richtung conakry. gestern abend gabs unglaeubige blicke als ich von meinen liberia-plaenen erzaehlt habe..ich bin gespannt was auf mich zukommt! heut abend ist getting together mit den couchsurfern bei denen ich im moment bin, bei einem super unsympathischen franzosen, dem ich bis jetzt noch kein wort [View Full Entry]

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Bienvenue und herzlich Willkommen, schoen dass du den Weg zu meinem Blog gefunden hast - hoffentlich gefaellt es dir! Hier werde ich die naechsten 7-8 Monate versuchen, mehr oder weniger regelmaessig mitzuteilen, wie es sich hier so lebt. Momentan heisst 'Hier' Bamakok, die Hauptstadt von Mali, wo ich seit vorgestern bin. Morgen oder uebermoren werde ich von Mali in Richtung Guinea aufbrechen, und sobald ich in Conakry mein liberianisches Visum bekommen habe (was hoffentlich, hoffentlich schnell gehen wird), werde ich nach Monrovia aufbrechen und dort fuer zwei Monate beim Centre for Media studies and peace building ( http://www.cemesp-liberia.org/ )mitarbeiten. danach habe [View Full Entry]

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In Bamako, we took a box of a room - the kind dead bodies might be found in come morning - and I think you could even say we relaxed. Certainly we slowed down. Road travel in the Gambia and Senegal had drained our energy and we were flat like pancakes; emergency! Bring on the Vietnamese food, Castel beers and glowing riverside sunsets! Seriously, there is nothing like beef Saigonese style and a view out over the Niger River as the sky turns golden to soothe the impact of eighteen hours of the stench of illness and a soundtrack of baby [View Full Entry]

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