The Lion King Lives Here

In the last update I talked about the change of scenery. I think that this will be a nice way to start this update seeming as its ‘Green-ification’ - not a real word - coincides with the phase of the trip that we are now in.

The drive down to Bamako from Nioro was a romantic Africa the likes of which we had not yet seen. Rich green plants carpeted the hills and plains as far as the eye could see and the ground, in the patches which broke into the greenery is a dusty red. Even to a blind person it would have been obvious that the landscape had become more fertile as the number and frequency of bugs slamming into our windscreen increased the closer we got to visible pools of water on the roadside.

On arrival in Bamako it became apparent that everything there is a hussle in a land of expert husslers. Whilst in other places we had been many people had enquired the value of the car and made offers to snap it up, here everyone was a potential car dealer. Even stopping to ask directons resulted in the ‘sell the car’ conversation - although we are getting quite good at keeping to the task at hand in broken French (having now picked up ‘tout derwa’, ‘agosh’ and ‘adwat’ - straight on, left and right).

Tired from the day’s travel and needing to find a hostel before dark we eventually settled in Auberge Lafia in the Centre Ville. The task of finding the place was made much more difficult by the millions of mopeds which surrounded our car at every junction and on every road.

One of the Courtyard Regulars, Ma’man, quickly informed us after meeting him that he is a guide and after announcing our new friendship showed us to a resturaunt in return for a meal. In the resturaunt we met some of his ‘brothers’ big ones or small depending on whether or not they were older or younger than him. After drinking a couple of bottles of Castel each (one bottle being the size of about two pints back home) we were happily acquainted with this new family: Ma’man, our new big brother, a couple of stoned and drunk friends sitting at a nearby table talking to us in Reggae lyrics and Boni, an english-speaking businessman. After the two who spoke in Reggae left we chatted to Ma’man and Boni for what seemed like hours.

The next day, having agreed to update Boni’s website - slightly jokingly - Ma’man woke us to fulfill our promise and off to Boni’s office we went.  After fixing some dodgy French-Enlgish translation on his website (www.boni-voyages.com - I have no idea if our changes have been made) he fed us lunch and off we went to start our exploration of Bamako.

Within a day of staying there we were familiar with the regulars who frequented the hostel’s courtyard to watch the TV there and knew where the local shop, bakery and internet cafe was. Bamako’s Grand Marche, a labyrinth of shops, was a harrowing but with hindsight enjoyable experience. There seems to be no differentiation in the salesman’s attitude between the tourist market and the local market so if they see that you are ‘Tubab’ (white), they assume that you have money to spend and will shove whatever they have to offer you in your face from phone cards to soap, to clothes to keyring torches - the best product I was offered was a shoe-shine boy offering to shine my crocs. Having felt a bit claustrophobic in the market we headed back to our hostel where the sell was still on from our courtyard brothers: on our request, one guy got on his moped and came back with a selection of pretty creepy but charming Obama T Shirts - an offer we couldn’t refuse. 

On the advice of a friend we also tried to find some local photographers in Bamako. This brought us to the studio of Malick Sibide - whose wor is well worth looking up. Whilst the old man himself was not there, his son, Jah, was. We spent a good hour or two exploring his studio: looking through books of photos, sifting throug his epic dusty camera collection and playing around taking silly photos of ourselves in his style. In Bamako we also got some very expensive Burkina Faso Visas, this was a mistake, doing it at the border would have been better, but done now.

During our stay, Ma’man had convinced us to take him as our guide on our journey to Burkina Faso so that he could show us Segou, Djenne - and its mud Mosque - and Dogon Country - home to the Dogon Tribes and Villages.  So when it came the time to leave the city and hit the road again, off we went on the Ma’man tour with the man himself in the backseat.

The drive out of Bamako however was a nightmare. We soon learnt at a junction nearby our hostel that policeman like stopping foreign cars, we also learnt that the Customs in Nioro were - to borrow an African phrase - Snake men, not Camel men. The Tourist car paper they had given us was legit but the swines had put the right date on the receipt (04/07/2010), but had sold us a paper to cover our car from (03/06/2010 to 03/07/2010) In effect, it expired before we bought it and before we entered Mali. Bamako policeman werent very sympathetic and saw the opportunity to make a buck, which they did. This happened again at the next junction, although here, with Ma’man’s, not very useful help, we convinced the police to escort us out of the city so that we would not have have to pay what seemed to be every cop in the precinct. By the time we got to the city border over the Niger river, this esort proved useless as we were pulled over again. The bastard asked for ID, I gave him my passport, he sold it back to me using it as leverage during our refusal to bribe yet another set of policeman for our dodgy paper. At this point we were looking forward to Burkina Faso - the land of honest men. 

Segou was pretty dull. We met some of Ma’man brothers, a hotellier by the name of Titty who also seemed to talk in Reggae. On a stroll into the town we also met some of Ma’man’s other brothers, that day we met around 10 of them I reckon. We saw the Niger and got a bit drunk in a bar before heading back to the hotel for a Spaghetti and Chicken Dinner. We left the next morning.

Next stop was Djenne, the home of a large mud Mosque and not much else. To get there we had to cross the Niger. With the boat a few meters from the bank we had our reservations about driving into the river board the boat although after doing it we realised there was not much to worry about. Getting there, you have a mosque and not much else although a trip to Mali I think will inevitably end in you going there as everyone you meet in the rest of the country advises you to go. Here we met two French students living in Djenne to do Anthropological Research into how tourism is effecting the locals. They also spoke the best English of anyone that we had met in a while so we were glad of the conversation. 

Leaving Djenne came the much talked up two days in Dogon Country - where we would be for the World Cup Final. As the landscape changed heading North towards the desert again the weather ahead appeared apocolyptic. Huge winds had created a fierce dust-storm. With no other direction to go, on we drove. The haunted trees around us and choreographed bushes swaying in the wind gave a thrilling sense of drama to the event. I wish I had stopped to take more pictures than I did and to appreciate the overwhelming magnitude of the storm. From this we drove into horrendous rain which slowed us to a stop at one point. As the rain passed we neared Dogon. The rain had washed the dirt of the storm from the car and the  African sky had dried off the water - it was as if nothing had happened.

The drive into Dogon was magnificent. The road itself was in parts, a ‘4x4 Driving Experience’ and in parts a rollercoaster ride for our small Ford Fiesta trundling through the hills towards the Dogon plains. The views were spectacular. 

On arriving in Kani-Kombole, we settled in our hostel and napped. We then explored the small village. A Djenne styled small Mosque, some odd looking trees, a few carved ornaments between the mud buildings and the local livestock was all there was to see. I should also mention that the village was overlooked by a huge rock cliff containing small houses built into the cliff’s face. These Ma’man informed us were once home to the pigmes who had taken since left but taken on a mystical symbolism in the Dogon religion, Anamism. Night fell and we watched the football, Uruguay vs Germany on the villages only TV surrounded by what seemed to be every male in the villager under 30 including a herd of small barely clothed African Children.

The second day in Dogon we walked to the next illage, Teli, where we experimented with Animal Sacrifice, buying and killing a chicken in ritual fashion in the hope of a Holland Victory. This is, as far as I can tell, about as far in-touch with the Dogon psyche as we could get.

When watching the match, in a similar environment to the match we watched the night before, the television cut out 5 minutes before the end of the game, so we missed Spain’s goal. We were pretty tense by the end, feeling the uilt of having put something to death for the cause. The natives croded round the screen however didn’t seem that fussed. We found out the score on the radio afterwards. It appears that our experiment with animal sacrifice was a failure - suprise, suprise.

The next day we walked back to collect our car from Kani-Kombele and headed towards Burkina Faso on nearly 200km of dirt road. The Border crossing here was quick and east, we had our expensive Visas, but even without then I do not think we would have had much trouble. The people of Burkina Faso just seem happy to have a chat and a laugh, often it seems at our naive expense.  

Our arrival in Ougadogou - where we got pretty lost was stressful on account of very poor road quality throughout the city. Since arriving we have sorted our Ghana Visa and our Benin/Togo one is being processed as I write, we will go and pick it up after leaving this Cyber Cafe. Next up, searching for Elephants in Northern Benin’s Nature Reserves before heading towards Ghana via Togo and selling the car. Looks like the end of our journey is in sight.