almost finished - Bamako

Well, Dan and I have made it back to Bamako safely, and in time to catch our flights back home.

We stayed two nights in a little town of Secou. It was the nicest town we have visited in Mali. It actually looked and acted like a town, instead of just a wild conglomeration of buildings
and road ways.

On the way to Bamako, we thought about what we wanted to eat and realized that all we have had is spaghetti, rice with sauce, or black-eyed peas . When we got to the only restaurant near the Catholic Mission where we stayed, the dish of the day was Ragu. And this place only has - plate of the day- so we had Ragu which is a vegetarian dinner of eggplant, and other assorted and some unknown vegetables.

But it was very tasty and we enjoyed it. Different from rice with sauce!

I had originally planned on staying another 12 days after Dan left so I could see more of the two countries, Mali and Senegal. After 3 weeks, however, I felt I had seen all I wanted of these countries , and travel is so dangerous I decided to change my flight and return early.
Well, that turned out to be kinda of a Chinese fire drill. But it was finally worked out - with a little different twist.
Instead of flying west back toward the US, I flew east to Addis Abba Ethiopia where I have a 28-hour layover.
I arrived here last nite about 8:30 p.m.
Now, that is difficult. First I had to get a VISA , then thru immigration, then change money, then to the taxis, and finally to a hotel that I found on the
internet.

BUT --- thank the Lord, it all worked out. I am now in Addis Abba, and I went to church this morning at a large national church that had an early morning English service. There were 21 people in the service, 4 westerners.

I'll bum around downtown til mid afternoon, then go to the airport for my flight tonite that takes me to Rome, Italy, and then onward to Washington DC, and then Atlanta.

Good traveling.... and definitely fits the theme of this trip - the Destination is the Journey.

Dogon Country

After returning from Timbuktu, we stayed a day at the Pas De Problem Hotel in Mopti and planned a trip to the "Famous" Dogon Country. I had never heard of it, but it is a big deal around here, and many Frenchmen come here to see it.
So our day began at 6 when our guide arrived, and we went to the shared taxi stand for a taxi to somewhere.
After 2 hours, we departed. About 2 hours out we came to a permanent police check point, and our driver did not have his proper papers! I do not know how he thought he would get by, but at any rate he did not get by!
After about 45 minutes a policeman got in taxi with us, and we drove to the police station. We waited there for about an hour or so - then everything seemed to be corrected, and we headed out again!
We went to the end of the paved road, most passengers had already gotten off, and there started our hike into DOGON country. They are people who used to live in cliff houses but now live at bottom of cliffs in mud houses.

We arrived at our hotel about 5 that afternoon, and I was bushed! But the "hotel" was good. Can't say nice, because it was not NICE. But it was good. We slept on mattresses on the roof, which is always nice, and the toilet was open air - no ceiling - therefore no bad smell, and the shower water came from a tank rather from a bucket.

But I tell you, this is hard traveling. Between the departure times of the shared taxis, the rough rides they provide, the hiking, and the heat , probably the hardest traveling I've done on a consistent basis.
The next day we hiked out and were waiting on a taxi to come - supposedly the one that brought us in - when a very nice tourist bus drove up and turned around, we asked could we ride and he said, 'yes'. I think it had just dropped off some tourist who were going to hike for a few days, and now the bus and driver were free to run a little taxi service. As it turned out he was going to Bamako, and we were going to a town about three hours north of Bamako, so he said he would take us. We rode the bus till an hour and half past dark, and then we were in a town at night that we knew nothing about. Omar, our guide, was still with us and he had a friend who came and got us and took to us to his house - that was no good at all - no mosquito nets, no food, so then he took us to a little hotel that was good. A dorm room on the patio and good food. For supper we had a plate of blackeyed peas, and this morning an egg and toast and butter and jam and tea and coffee.
We will go back to Bamako tomorrow. All for now-
In Africa!
Johnny

Timbuktu and around

Main Street in Timbuktu

Famous mosque

Tuareg Tent - our camp for one nite

view of Timbuktu
Shared Taxi - Eleven hour trip on bad roads with 10 people

Timbuktu is not a pretty town. It's all the same color - tan or dirt colored. There is a paved main street, but all others are sand. In one place the road crew was digging the one paved road out from under a layer of sand that completely hid the pavement.

Trashy is also a good word to describe the town, but this word - trashy - describes all the towns in Mali. The buildings are either stone, brought in from the Sahara; or adobe made in town. Many of them are then covered in mud stucco. We stayed with Omar at his house. It had four foam sofas - just a block of foam covered in fabric - no back or legs , and 4 patio chairs. That was it. All the furnishings in the whole house - except for of course - a TV with a satellite. We watched WBA wrestling! We ate dinner at Omar's from one large serving platter, and all of us ate with our fingers - even me and Dan. Dinner was blackeyed peas, little chunks of tough beef, and a melon, all mixed together. It was good, and I think we did real good.

We also went to the Desert for a nite and Dan rode a camel - everyone has to that once in his life!
We stayed at a Tuareg (tribe of people found all over the Sahara) family tent area, the tents here are made of straw mats, and maybe 30 x 20 feet feet in area. There were two women and several children at the site, the men were off in the desert somewhere. The women's kitchen consisted of a little charcoal cook stove, a pot, a few utensils, and that was about it.

For dinner in the desert we had our best meal so far. It was white rice and pieces of beef. Very tasty, with just the right amount of sand to make it a little gritty, like every thing else.

We slept under the stars, and the sand is a very comfortable bed. They gave us a mat, we had our own sleeping bag - a sheet sewed at the bottom.

The next morning , back in town, we started looking for a way out of Timbuktu. At one shared taxi stand we met 7 other Americans! 5 were peace corp workers recently evacuated from Guinea, and two were men sailing a boat from Israel to Florida,. They had left their boat in the Canary Islands and flown down to west Africa for a little tour around.

We all were able to negotiate a 4- wheel drive Land Rover for a fairly decent price to take us back to Mopti, 240 miles away. A 7 hour trip. 10 people including the driver.

We got to Mopti at 10 last nite, it was an Eleven hour trip on a really bad dirt road and worse paved road. The dirt road, most of the way was of the washboard finish, when it wasn't full of potholes and just plain big holes full of water. It had rained the nite before, so at least it wasn't HOT and dusty.

We're resting up today - getting ready for more African travel.
later
Johnny