http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/LukeIRL/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from LukeIRL en-us Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:05:10 +0000 Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:05:10 +0000 The journey from Bamako to Kayes by train and then from Kayes to Kenieba by overlanden truck had been fun but tiring seen as it was rainy season so we rested up in Kenieba for a while. Beautiful town situated where a glen comes out between two falaises. None of the hassle present in other Malian towns.We then organised some motorbikes to take us across the river and into Senegal to Tembacaounda. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mali/West/blog-360864.html We took the boat. It was great. Slept up on top deck out in the open. Took 4 nights from Korioume to Segou. Saw a lightning storm attack the river got beached on sandbanks played lots of centcinquanteetun malian card game in the bar drank the bar dry twice ate wonderful galley food watched dubious Portuguese soaps dubbed in French had showers in showers that inexplicably went on and of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mali/North-West/Timbuktu/blog-360863.html The land cruiser taxi we got from Basskounou to Lere on the Malian side of the border was driven by a madman. He was in competition with another 4X4 driver for passengers and when we stopped to pick someone else we would be overtaken. Therafter he would try to catch up with the other taxi driving crazily off road hitting sandhills swerving to avoid trees and camels and all but losing his ow http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mali/North-West/Timbuktu/blog-360861.html We were told that this route wasnrsquot passable in the rainy season but there was a track going up on the escarpment that was being used by 4X4s at the time. We left Nema around midday and drove straight up a track going up the escarpment which led us to scrubby pastures populated by many goats and camels. The tracks were quite waterlogged and we got stuck quite often we pushed of mud hole http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/Hodh-Ech-Chargui/N-ma/blog-360858.html We took a mercedes grandtaxi from Nouakchott to Nema 1000km away near the Malian border. The trip took 25 hours through rain storms lightning storms sunshine and darkness. At one stage we were crawling through a flood in the very middle of a thunder and lightning storm with water around our feet from the flood around us and coming through the roof from the rain. For a while we lost the road b http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/Hodh-Ech-Chargui/N-ma/blog-360855.html This was one of the best stretches of the journey taking the empty iron ore train from the coast at Nouadhibou to the desert outpost at Choum and then travelling by pickup over the escarpment into Atar.We waited all day for the train to pass by the station outside Nouadhibou and then it was all rush to pile foodstuffs oil barrels furniture animals etc into the open wagons. We ended up in a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/Dakhlet-Nouadhibou/Nouadhibou/blog-360853.html We leave the beach at Taghazoute early in the morning having sardines and baguette for breakfast. We thumb into Agadir just miss the morning bus to Laayoune and have to wait 9 hours for the next. Standard. Get some pizza check the internet people watch a bit in the bus station and the 9 hours are over.The bus travels through the night to Laayoune. Occasionally I woke up to see us driving thr http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Western-Sahara/blog-360848.html We got a lift over the mountains from Ain Leuh to Les Sources del Oum er Rbai with Big Mo in his spacious mercedes. It was our first experience of the Middle Atlas and I was surprised how many pine trees and stone walls there were at first. Sort of like a dry version of Scotland. After a while this gave way to drier open landscape full of goats and berber herders grouped around wells.The Source http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Tadla-Azilal/Beni-Mellal/blog-360842.html Asilah is a beautiful town. The Medina is perfectly built for the climate narrow passageways open rooftops and courtyards communal corridors in houses and all painted in perfect white. Therersquos an old palace with an open balcony 20m above the rocks once used to execute infidels and christians along the beachfront. Another beach 3kms to the South of town is larger with big waves good for s http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Tangier-T-touan/Asilah/blog-360836.html Our Eurolines bus took us halfway across Europe from the Paris suburbs to the Spanish port of Algeciras beside Gibralter on the Southern tip of Spain. We passed through endless French countryside in the evening stopping in a peaceful layby in the shade of some windmills where plums were ripe on the trees beside the road. As night closed in we crossed the Pyrenees to San Sebastian where the ol http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Ile-de-France/Paris/blog-360832.html