Zebrafish

Nov 13

Petrol pump in Bankass, sign behind says 'Texaco, essence, seche'

AIDS poster in Mali, reverse side in local Africa language, probably Hausa

We are following the Bandiagara escarpment, an extremely long and high red cliff face. Around which the Dogon people have been living since the 11C. Before then the pygmy Telem people lived in mud built caves high in the cliff, they must have been excellent rock climbers.

Bandiagara escarpment

Cliff approach, see grain houses under cliff

Dogon village on top of cliff

Dogon hunter using flint lock rifle, monkey skulls on wall behind

Dogon cliff fortified grain stores

Some memorable experiences include listening to the echo of village life below emmanating from the cliffs like ghosts. Drinking millet beer from a calabash under a tree with the men after a Dogon market at night. Eating too much cous cous for the health of ones own tastebuds. Walking through incredible pathways in the cliff that remind me of the mountains near Alice Springs with Baobab trees below which are as much part of the nature here in the Sahel as the Dogon people themselves.

Wednesday market, Dogon Country

Woman making indigo in Dogon country

Wood chippings in Dogon village

I then spent a couple of days in Djenne, one the oldest places in West Africa, mainly to see the Mosque which is also the largest mud building in the world. When its not market day it really quite a small sleepy place. It is only about 80km away but it took 6 hours to get there, with 2 hours waiting for the beat up Peugot 504 to fill up with 10 people. An excruciatingly slow but safe journey then an hour or so wait to catch the ferry across the river Beni.

Djenne mosque, worlds biggest mud built building

Mud printing designs in Djenne

Rice being transported near Mopti

Pirogue travel on river Niger

Nov 17

Grand bateau a Timbuktu

Portable market, taken from boat on river Niger

Silouette on river Niger

The boat trip was really great, if you discount the food and the state of the toilets. Sitting all day watching the landscape slowly change from Sahel to desert and drinking cold beer on the roof while watching fishermen haul in their nets from their pirouges. Then stopping at towns like Niafounke (Ali Farka Toure's home town, for blues fans) for the chaotic transfer of goods off and onto the lower deck, 4th class.

Nov 29

Each day starts to drift into another, time doesn't mean a lot here and I remember it more by the passage of events. After sunrise we'd take breakfast of biscuits and marmalade then head off on our camels for a couple of hours before the midday heat set in around 11am. Then it's time to find a small tree or bush to rest in the shade and eat lunch. Food is quite basic, usually flavoured rice with a piece of dried goat meat. About 3pm we head off again and stop just before sunset when we've found a good sand dune to sleep on in our sleeping bags under the stars.

Half way through we collected water from a 2 donkey powered well. The donkeys are led away from the well which hauls up a leather pouch of water for feeding the cattle and goats. We took our turn and replenished our supplies with this lovely fresh water but freckled water after adding Iodine to make it even tastier.

Desert caravan, Herman, Ahmed, Karel & Karen

Osama bin Montgomery

Tuareg, nomads of the desert

Donkey powered well in the Sahara

Me & my camel

Tea in the Sahara

The day after arriving back in Timbuktu Karel and I took the next weekly grand bateau for two days further East long the great river Niger to Gao. Resting in the shade or on the roof with a cold beer now watching huge red sand dunes and children running up to the top of them to shout 'ca va bien' at the top of their voices as fast as they can.

Me on the boat to Gao

Gao is a pleasant Niger town that deserved more time to take in the ambience but with 3 weeks left I was keen to move into Niger and the home straight of my trip. I travelled onto Niamey the capital of Niger alone, I was told to be at the bus station at 7am, I don't know why as it took until 11am for us to finally get moving.

I'm so glad I paid a bit extra for a seat in the cabin. The road to the border is just a sand track with potholes everywhere. We also had to stop all the time to drop people off in the middle of nowhere, little breakdowns, police checkpoints to bribe and also to allow the driver to do his shopping. At one point I had the skinned rear half of a goat thrust into my face as he was trying to agree a good price for a leg, which got stashed behind me, unwrapped or cooked.

We arrived at the frontier about 10pm and I climbed into my sleeping bag and slept on the floor outside the bus. At 5.30am we crossed the border and eventually took a better tarmac road into Niamey, we arrived about 5pm, the entire journey took 32 hours.