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Published: August 13th 2008
I was ripped off with the price of the boat trip to tombouctou, but in my deffense I have to say that its hard to deal at 6am in a new city with only one eye when youve just gotten off a bus ride of 5hours where you didnt get any sleep.
oh and I also had the strongest argument with someone so far, this skinny tall guy locked me in his house and wouldnt let me out if I didnt pay him 10 thousand cefas for my luggage when I had only agreed to pay him 1thousand. he started to yiell ad point at him and tell hilm that he better beat the shit out of me cause I was gonna call the police and blah blah. he wouldnt move away from the door, after a while he asked for 2thousand, I checked my wallet and only had a 2thousand bill, so if I wanted to give him 1thousand I needed change. I kept on yielling and said that I needed change, he wouldnt move from the door but I just wallked and told him people in my hostel knew i was here and if he as much as
anchoring the boat
this dude was like 60 years old, hardcore...touched me Id call the police an tell them hed rbbed my passport and hedbe screwed. in the end he let me go, I got change and I gave him 1thousand. I dont think I really convinced him as much as annoy him with all the yielling and talking. the thing is, it did the trick and everything ended as it should.
and then it was the boat trip, first day and first night were a bit of a nightmare we were PACKED as much as in that mauritanian train, but more confy cause I could lay down. compared to that train everything feels like heaven. the landscapes are amawing. I did NOT see the hypos that everybody else saw, neither the crocodiles, it was too uncomfortable for that. but the truth is I never really cared that much about seeing animals in africa.
the second day was way more chill and easy, a pleasure to see the fisher towns by the river, to sit on top of the boat and have tea with the captain, or in the baxck and have tea with the workers, ior in the lowest part and have tea with the 2nd class
inside
the inside of the boat when it wasnt that packed anymore people (you dont want me to get into the details of second class comfort...).
then there were the girls and women walking in the water to sell fried fish wrapped in cement paper bags (delicious, btw, I think Ive developed an immunity to dirt in my food), girl s yielling juuusmal ebe which means "theres cold water" coming out of mud villages emerging from brown sand, and in the distant the dunes. the same girls yielling gateau ebe. and at some point we saw the greatness of the lake whose name I dont remember, it was all water around, and some green grass.
all of this, added to the fun of being in any african public transport where everybody ends up exchanging numbers with everybody: I met a great guy called bacari which I hope to see again; oh, and this dogon guy insisting on eating my mangos which were by far too green. I just gave a couple to him. they were green indeed, but ate em anyway. goodie good. im glad I didnt take the private pirogue, which costs about 800 euros divided by a max of 10 peple in it.
the food in the
charonte
not really... boat was rice with some chuncks of cheap meat, no spoons, hand balls of rice as is starting to be the norm; I washed my hands cith the niger river though. also the water I drunk was kept in a bidon with some smell of bleach or car oil, ilm not sure. still, no diarreha so far in more than a month supports my idea of some strange imunity developed by my otherwise quite weak and faulty body. sometimes one runs lucky.
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Jean Claude Lair
non-member comment
dream
i was dreaming about Tombouctou to go see this place after your experience i am not goining