Blogs from Mali, Africa - page 6

After two hot days hitching along the Senegalese highway towards Mali, it seemed time to get back onto dirt roads. The border crossing took only five minutes of formalities (including a failed attempt to talk my way in sans visa), then it was south from Kayes travelling along a classic African red-gravel road passing giant baobabs, tiny villages, and impressive rock faces that extend from the nearby mountainous Guinean border. An unexpected eye-opener on this leg of the trip was the three big mining towns distributed along the route. The West African gold trade is one activity that has drawn the world’s attention for centuries, from the Ghana Empire of the fifth to twelfth centuries to the modern abuse that can be seen along that road in western Mali. The many beautiful hills that were once ... read more

The next afternoon we started the Dogon trail- the main reason for my booking the trip after reading about it in a magazine, and I was not disappointed. Dogon country is pretty much wide open space occupied by tiny little villages that still follow a very traditional way of life, they vary between being Muslim, Christian etc, but there's no animosity between any religious groups. The start of the walk was probably the most comfortable and most attractive, we only started at 3pm so it wasn't so hot, we began by clambering down a steep and beautiful red rock gorge down to the valley below, with awesome views down to the village we stayed at that night where we witnessed, and as always, took part in our first dance ceremony before climbing up to our rooftop ... read more

So its been a while since we last wrote and we have done a lot! Right so we travelled out of Ghana but not before each getting to sit on a crocodile which was extremely bizarre! We also got to feed monkeys biscuits which was a highlight! they actually came out of the trees and snatched the biscuit out of your hand and sat there and ate it..... surreal! We then crossed into Burkina Faso and stayed in Ouagadougou (a joy to pronounce!) where we got to check out the night life of the area..... and spent a lazy day washing clothes! We've also crossed into Mali where one of our tour guides was replaced with another (the initial tour guide caught malaria and we had a stand in..... but Darren the fellow who had Malaria ... read more

Geo: 16.6602, -3.02399Just before we left Canada we had read through a poll that had ranked the worst travellers and the top of the list was dominated by Continental Europeans with the Ugly American dropping well down. We had seen some evidence to support this, but a French tour group waiting in the Timbuktu ferry queue with us was about to put on a show like none we had seen before. All road vehicles have to cross the Niger by ferry as they head south and the ferry dock area was surrounded by a small village with its own population of curious kids who were gathering around us. One of the ambassadors of this French group was sporting a T-Shirt emblazoned with a phrase that would have been inappropriate at Daytona Beach on Spring Break (and ... read more

Geo: 15.3372, -4.20227Having learned the lesson of our last false start, once we were back in Mopti we tracked down our boat crew to confirm that they would be leaving the next day with as much certainty as one can muster in Africa The ‘crew' was a grand total of two people, the captain (although he quickly relinquished that title and I was hereafter known as ‘mon capitaine'- I suspect that this was more related to the impossible task for West Africans in pronouncing my name, but it may have been tied to the tradition of the captain going down with his ship- this was no Esken yacht; the motor was in multiple different pieces, and a furious bailing of water was taking place). Neither of our shipmates spook English and only the captain spoke French, ... read more