15 January 2009 – Kayes to San, Mali. 20,185 km
Heading into Kayes was a bit of a nightmare. We’d arrived after dark which is always a bit of a dodgy time to be driving about in Africa as there are just the same amount of goats, people, chickens, kids etc as during the day but with the added danger that you can’t see them so well! Also, people don’t like to wear-out their headlights so tend to drive without them on and flash you with main-beam just before swerving to avoid you!! Oz was feeling really poorly so wasn’t up to much in the navigating department but we managed to find the hotel we were after and I squeezed the Mog into the car park and heaved a huge sigh of relief... it was short lived! Someone approached and said that all the hotels in Kayes ware full as there was a festival on but we could sleep in the lorry in the car park. Not ideal but better than nothing I suppose. We went to the bar for a cold bottle of water but when we returned to the Mog were asked to move out of the hotel!! Apparently they didn’t want a dirty lorry with two dirty people, one of whom was poorly in their hotel... well, if that was their attitude we didn’t want to stay – although we did really as I didn’t want to have to drag Oz about looking for somewhere else.
Things generally turn out for the best and being kicked out of the hotel certainly did. We decided to drive out of the town and look for a wild camp somewhere but on the way out we were stuck behind a line of lorries heading out to mend the road. Right where we were waiting for the convoy to get going again we saw a sign saying hotel and I ran in to ask if they had rooms... they did!! We tipped the night guard a packet of cigarettes to watch the Mog and Oz headed for bed. I met a dynamic duo called Jon and Joe who are driving a Land Rover around West Africa and ending in Ghana like us, they were also staying at the hotel for a night or two. The following day we all met up again over breakfast in the wonderfully 1970s decorated dining room – the hotel was brand new and had only been open for 3 days when we arrived so the decor had been chosen to look like this rather than was just very old!! Like all things in Africa nothing worked quite right either! The aircon in Joe’s room leaked water... as did ours and the one in the dining room! The plates all had their price labels stuck to them... as did the knives and forks and the tilling and plumbing was ‘interesting’! Still, it was the only place in town with free rooms! AND all the regional presidents of Mali were staying there too!
Joe had met the presidents of Mopti, Timbuktu and Gao and, as they hung out at the hotel most of the day, we all eventually met them too. There was a 10 day festival in the city and representatives from all the regions had gathered to present music, dance and theatre to the other regions. The Pres. of Mopti, Moussa, arranged for us to have a private recital from a blind flute player from the Mopti region. Guided in by his grandson and looking unnervingly like Ray Charles in a woolly hat, he played the most wonderful, haunting music on his homemade flute. It was the same grandson who created the flute, taking a whole day for him to fashion the instrument from a stick of sugarcane, cover it in leather and decorate it.
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We left Kayes with The Landy Crew and headed for a waterfall for xmas day but didn’t make it that far as the road was really bad... including a very dodgy bridge that we looked at properly once we’d already crossed it and then I spent the next two days worrying about getting back over it!! The local kids were a total pain spending every daylight moment hassling us, breaking stuff and making a lot of noise. We were wild camped next to an old colonial fort and were told it was free to camp when we arrived... surprise, surprise when we went to leave several guys arrived and asked for money! We argued that we were told it was free and also that the kids had disturbed us during our time there – eventually they agreed and we left quickly... except for the bit where we stopped to rebuilt the bridge and then crept over it!
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The Landy heads off down the road leading the way to the fort for our hot Christmas day.
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On Christmas day I challenged 'the boys' to a grand shave-off! As they were all sporting beards of some description, the challenge was that if they shaved them off I would donate some money to FARM-Africa and The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, two charities Jon and Joe are raising money for on their trip. Both charities are based in Africa and are great causes... go on... support them..! You can see the before and after pictures with the boys looking so happy afterwards! |
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Joe eats one of the sweets out of the Christmas stocking his mum gave him before he left the UK in October (arrrrr... isn't that nice of her!) The local kids were not amused at him as they had been asking for 'bon bon' since the day before!! Don't know why Jon's looking so miserable though - he got sweets too! |
Heading back into Kayes, Jon was giving me a lift in the Land Rover and Joe was travelling with Oz when they had a puncture on the Mog... fortunately for me, Jon and I were ahead and knew nothing about it until after it was all fixed!!
After stocking up with veg and bread we headed for Bamako but not before spending two more nights wild camping by the road. We headed for the main campsite in Bamako which turned out to be a total dump and clearly used as a knocking shop by the local businessmen – Joe and I came up with a scheme for photographing the men and then trying to bribe them but in the end decided that laughing at them was more fun! There was a constant stream of visitors to us as well – endless people trying to sell us stuff. I did manage to haggle one chap down from 20,000 CFA to 3,000 CFA for a lovely wooden mask – just shows how much their mark-up is!
It was my turn to feel poorly and so it was decided to check into a hotel for two nights and get away from the grotty campsite. This happened to fall over New Years Eve and we were the most exciting people in Mali that night as we were both fast asleep by 10pm!!
After collecting our visas for Burkina Faso from the embassy we left Bamako on 1st January 2009! Heading for Djenne where the world’s largest mud mosque is situated we stopped for lunch at San at a restaurant frequented by guides and their customers. The whole place was shell-shocked! All the white people were shocked to find themselves thrown into Mali and all the culture shock that goes with it and we were shocked to suddenly find ourselves in a room with lots of white people!!! Still.... I did overhear a rather posh English girl who was travelling with her elderly parents say to the black local guide, “So, will you be eating local food”!! Did she think her food was coming all the way from England??!!