Hotel Le Relais Bamako

This will unfortunately be my last blog for Peace Corps Guinea. I have had my official COS (Close of Service) yesterday and therefore I am no longer a Peace Corps volunteer. It's been quite a trip. How did this happen? A lot of you have been receiving my update emails just to reassure you that I am well but I really haven't had the time or the motivation to write about it before now. But since I am leaving for East Africa tomorrow I figured it was about time to have some ...

this is one of those rare moments that magically happens when you are traveling. our guide happens to be childhood friends with Vieux Farka Toure who is the son of the late Ali Farka Toure, perhaps the most famous guitar player in all of Africa. he was a guitar hero of mine. and now, well, now Vieux is as well.<br><br>Our guide Amadou tried to get hold of Vieux the whole time we were traveling, but he was out of the country ...

... my bags and changed some euros (at rubbish rates...) and found a semi-official taxi and negotiated a rate and got to the mission catholique, it was around midnight...so the nuns had all gone to bed. Luckily, semi-official taxi driver man was very persistent in his hammering on the door, and someone eventually appeared. She was not overly happy at being woken up, but she let me in and gave me a key and pointed me in ...

... in goats, sheep, camels and cows. We all went for a walk through the crowds and were all impressed with their friendliness. They wanted us to take photos of them. There are many places where people want you to take photos so they can charge you for the privilege, here they just want to be nice.<br><br>The town is also home to our first beer in a couple of weeks. Mauritania is an Islamic country which forbids alcohol in ...

... it but apparently it spilled outside pretty quick. Classy place. Around 1:30am we all called it a night, buying last be**s and jumping into the two taxi vans - the oth** truck &amp; Kristy in one and Oasis in the oth**. We then proceeded to drive at near death speeds racing each oth** back to the campground. People on motorbikes slapped our hands as they drove by getting in on the action by zooming around us. Stopping at traffic lights Jamie decided to ...

... beautiful... clearest complexions ever with massive beaming white smiles. They would ask for your hand and then kiss it. So cute. Unfortunately we were unable to take photos as we were warned they were rather sensitive about it, so much so that someone from a previous tour actually got held in the police station. Needless to say the cameras were kept firmly hidden. Walking through the streets and dirt offshoots we encountered a lot of ...

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... carré. Déjà c'est un grand autodidacte et si le fait d'avoir appris le français (qu'il parle impeccablement) tout seul, mot par mot, sans trop se soucier de le faire en maîtrisant la grammaire (qui demeure pour la plupart des enseignants et savants de ce monde la SEULE façon d'apprendre une langue) n'impressionne guère, que dire de son magnifique espoir de s'avoir auto-alphabétisé ? Je suis époustouflé. Sans jamais dénoter le moindre intérêt de me toucher et toujours avec la ...

... out the windows to catch a breath of still air, you are presented with tray after tray of food, each resting on the head of some woman or girl. For us, an egg sandwich was just what we wanted for breakfast. Others tucked into cous cous and vegetables, fruit, cakes, bread and meat - there was no end of choice. A short while later, and we were off again.  At this stage, we were still about 7 or 8 hours behind schedule, and heading for the unpleasant prospect ...