Lac Debo Bamako

... to go to, and we were given an accurate price without bargaining, so we jumped in and streaked through a traffic-free Bamako to the hotel.<br> As we pulled in beside the hotel, in a dark alleyway, the door was pulled open and we were face-to-face with Mali&#8217;s own version of the used car salesman- Back-Alley Mohammed. He welcomed us to the Hotel Tamana (even though he had nothing to do with the hotel) started barking out ...

... ll meet up for sure in Montreal post your year travel stint. Have a ball.<br><br>Alkayae-thanks for the music and Mopti. Beautiful<br><br>Pinasse team and Aljuma-you rock and we love you all<br><br>Mac-your food saved us<br><br>Patrick-safe travels and hope to see you in Tokyo<br><br>Vieux-we'll see you in the States. Thank you for v**y much for opening your home to us. <br><br>Pet**-maybe we'll see you in Austin. Let us know if we can help with Pott**s for Peace in Mali<br><br><br>

... of course no entry is allowed for non-muslims.<br><br>Continued to Sevare to camp on the roof of a hotel. One thing i've noticed is that in Mali they love to put speed bumps in the most random of places, even on a remote road no where near a town or village.<br><br>Dist cov. =315 km<br><br>Total dist cov. = 6608.8 km <br><br>19th - Free day, some have headed into Mopti and the rest are relaxing in the Hotel or just walking into the Sevare market.

Leaving Mauritania at one of the most remote border crossings in the country is a bit of an adventure. The border crossing south of Nema had seen only 38 people either enter or exit the country all year, that 3 1/2 months. Our group of 28 people took the local Police by surprise, so much so that he did not have the exit stamp for our passports and needed to go home to get one. He also didn't know how to exit the vehicle ...

... Dollars quickly to und**stand what we w**e agreeing too. The vendors used many techniques to try and get us to pay a high** price. One vendor was crippled and tried to use that to make a bett** deal. In some cases we walked away and they followed us down the street to meet are price aft** they knew we would walk away. It is really pretty amazing how this is done ev**y day. I can say that it is not my comfort to go through this process for my ...

... ov** having to pay in full we settled on half and drove off only to pull into a s**vo not long aft** and have the oth** half requested from us. Reluctantly we agreed aft** being given the driv**s ID pap**s as a guarantee... good in principle but not when mass produced as I'm sure they w**e. So arriving at the venue, Hotel Boo, we grabbed some drinks... be** or fanta, found some seats and settled in for the next few hours listening to the en**getic thumping ...

... was time to leave and he was returned to the tree. I climbed up to the beach and spent the first part of the drive curled under my blanket. Soon we arrived in the town of Tintane where there appeared to be a bit of a goat market going on. We met a girl from the States who had been living and working there (Peace Corps) for the past 1 ½ years... doing something at the school and medical centre. She was very surprised to see us and ...

... j'ai a vous racconter augmente à la minute (faut me prendre au pied de la lettre), ce qui me asphixie d'une façon pas possible. Soyez prêts parce que le jour où je vais pouvoir faire une vraie actualisation les posts s'enchaineront. A bientôt Familia, tudo nas calmas? Muita cena para contar, mas este post é apenas e so para vos tranquilizar, não fui raptado nem pelos touareg nem pelos rebeldes de Casamance que alias me preparo ...

... clinicamente morto, para recuperar alguns ficheiros que estupidamente não tinha salvo para a pen drive. Ele é um informatico e não deveria ousar pedir favores no dominio onde a pessoa ganha o seu pão, mas ocorreu-me propor-lhe que pegasse todos os filmes que o disco continha em troca dos meus poucos ficheiros fotograficos. Aceitou e acabou não so por não me cobrar nada, como ainda meteu do seu proprio bolso. Acabei por passar um tempito com ele e dar-lhe umas dikas ...

... matter that the train was slow, late and bound to be bad for sleeping on - the scenery was breathtaking. When the sun finally disappeared, we covered ourselves in mosquito repellants and fidgeted until we found a vaguely comfortable position.  The night passed. We both got some sleep, and both rose with the sun worried about our passports - they'd been taken (along with our companions' identity cards) by a policeman during the night in preparation for the border ...