Hotel Doux Reves Mopti

... and salty and erin gets sad. but my thoughts are it either

1) makes you either appreciate the meat you eat more
or
2) vegetarian

some organizations we have discovered are great to help these families:

1) kickstart.org
2) motopumps to bring water from the river to rice patties
3) unicef
4) potters for peace-if this gets started in mali...

... 10- amadou and our wond**ful guides

worst:
1- night 2 camping when i thought i was being attacked by animals in the middle of the night in our tent aliong the ***** riv**
2- camping night 4 with dung beetles the size of my palm in the sand
3- gnats flies mosquitoes
4- women doing backbreaking work with babies on their back all day while men sit around ...

... Djenne (and it's quite a long way from there...) and then I'll have to wait there for other transport, which is then going to be expensive... Now normally, that's ok. Waiting at a junction in the middle of the day and in the sweltering heat is ok. But ON MY OWN? When I don't know what I'm waiting for, exactly? Possibly the kind of thing that is generally Not A Good Idea and not the kind of bad idea that seems so much fun that I'll do it anyway. Ok, I say, but I've bought a ...

... in the world ever. Such clean dorms, and it so happens I'm the only person in mine at the moment, so it's just like a giant room! AND IT HAS A POOL! Guess what I'm doing this afternoon...

The town is crawling with hopeful guides wanting to take you into the Dogon country. This is meant to be many people's highlight of Mali but.. I don't think I'll go. I'm really funny about the whole idea of 'polluting the culture' and the whole 'ethnic freak-show ...

... excited about going th**e but a little sad that we wont be th**e for Sarah's b'day on the 27th. Although, we think we'll be doing the Dogon walk and maybe if it works out we'll be seeing the Mask Dance which would be v**y special. Ov**all, being in real Africa now is just amazing and mind-blowing. The people are amazing, the col,ours they wear are so beautiful, and we feel so welcome and at home h**e. Its only been 5 weeks and so far it is ev**ythiung we had been dreaming off fo so long.

... it's busy with boats unloading their cargoes. We take a narrow wooden pirogue boat across the harbour to the bar, which provides a good vantage point to watch the boat build**s next door, the sights and smells of the market selling dried fish and vegetables and the huge blocks of grey coloured salt which has come down riv** from Timbuktu.Distracted by the activity of the harbour around me I lifted my glass of cold be** to take a ...

... do, except read, and take in the v**y nice view of the riv** and the shore. The riv** ***** is huge, and it s quite extraordinary that such a vast amount of wat** flows through one of the driest countries in the world. During the second day, we travelled through an inland delta, a massive lake, and saw a huge eagle (and oth** nice birds, but I can t name them). The countryside changes quite rapidly between ...

... Watch this space. Kristy's birthday evening turned out to be quite eventful with her downing a bottle of tequila... with the help of myself and non drinker NZ Mike. Needless to say she was totally paralytic whilst the rest of us watched on. She did manage to put in a great bargaining effort on behalf of myself for a "bronze" (more wrought iron) statue getting him down from 60,000CFA to two for 35,000CFA. I'm sure Oliver will be thrilled. At least ...

... ed with wifi, swimming pool, table tennis and steak, or some hung around Via Via. Those at Via Via w**e subjected to the continual advances of the aircondition trous**s man selling 100% cotton airconditioned pantaloons and matching shirts of sev**al hideous designs. One of the group succumbed only to be met with Martin's comment of "Did you buy those in the dark". The aft**noon was marked by the first game of Risk on tour with Jason coming ...

... mais ils sont si lourds que parfois ils échappent à tout contrôle et se révèlent très dangereux pour les toubabs qui sont agglutinés accroupis à remplir leur formulaire d'entrée. 3/ non, non vous ne saurez rien des retrouvailles intimes avec les voyageurs partis depuis un mois et demi. Juste la photo de groupe à l'arrivée. 4/ et depuis l'arrivée, JP et GG nous menent un train d'enfer. mais ils nous traitent bien en hébergement et ...