Blogs from Mali, Africa - page 20

Emerging from the bush: We awoke in Niafunke with a plan for getting safely - forget soundly - back to Douentza (which now seemed like an imaginary haven - save the fact all of our stuff was there!). The night before, I had asked the bargeman to find us someone to follow all the way back to ‘civilization’ - or rather - just to the other side of all of these tributaries (to give you an idea of the situation, we were but 75 kilometers from land, real land…but with tributaries to cross about every 15 kilometers)… We met our ‘guides’ at the embarquement…and off we went, again, across the Niger River. Our ‘guides’ were just innocently passing through the region on their ‘125’ motorcycle - little did they know they were going to be spending ... read more

On our accidental pilgrimage: So, off we pushed. The road was worse than expected. I really have no idea how Craig managed it. I could barely hold myself together - and I just had to sit, hold on, and balance - not drive and hold up a .5 ton piece of metal. We’d pass the occasional ‘village’ - but none of them had any water, or biscuits. It was strange, you were ‘only’ 30 kilometers from a major tourist destination, but still, in the middle of nowhere. Though, a 4x4 would whiz past us full of toubabs once in a while as a reminder of where we were headed. Good thing, too. Because about 2 hours before sunset (time was sun - looking at my watch had become useless)…the dreaded happen, the bike broke. Pop! The ... read more

3-hour tour: Intro While it never crossed my mind to get some silly entrance stamp in my passport from Tomboctou (Timbuktu), once having read about it in Lonely Planet, it did seem like something fun to do. Which is why it is ironic that, while in the end - we had decided AGAINST spending the extra time and money on going to Tomboctou - not only would we end up visiting the legendary village, but I’d get a stamp from the police alright, just not quite the one I had in mind. Literally, what started out as a 3-hour tour to chase elephants turned into a 3-day excursion - and as travelers know - the best adventures are those unplanned. Those you come out of feeling like a survivor. What remains of those 3 days out ... read more

No quantity nor quality of our combined wits, water, crackers and immodium could have prevented or led us out of our motorcycle maintenance problems. (Maybe that’s a little bit of an overstatement…it is amazing how one little thing ‘let go’ snowballs rather quickly.) … but generally speaking…riding a 21-year-old 600 motorcycle through West Africa is bound to land one in some predicaments. As in the past on my motorcycle adventures in Senegal and The Gambia, the occasional breakdown lends one’s life to often precious interactions with ‘the locals’ - you get to see what’s in a person, a village, a culture. When two pathetic toubabs are broken down with their monster machine in the middle of nowhere, people here tend to come through. Whether self-proclaimed mechanics or not, they do have the best intentions, usually. So, ... read more

Mali - Burkina Faso December 2005 After a long day of traveling we finally arrived in Timbuktu. A famous place living on the reputation of the most isolated and inaccessible place on the world. Here we visited a Touareg family and listened to their story of how they fled to Mauretania by crossing the desert during the internal war in Mali. Sunrise after a cold night sleeping in the desert, 3 days Pinasse trip on the river Niger (Timbuktu -- Mopti Traveling by pinasse! Daily business on or around the Niger river. Every small town in this area has its own mosque. Djenne With its famous mosque and unique architecture, Djenne is the most beautifull and well preserved town in Mali. Even with its firm fixture on the tourists circuit, not much has changed physically here ... read more