Le Djenne Bamako

... out http://sixdegreesrecords.com they have a bunch of cool artists on their site and I think his is available for purchase.

Vieux is already famous , at age 28 he is going to become increasingly so as his musical legacy grows. the techniques of the master have been handed down to him and I think his playing and singing which is already really good is only going to get better.

what again was extremely ...

... lovely, air-contioned!) museum, where the people at the door decided I should join a little conference that was going on concerning the future of the town of Djenné... so I sat in on that and understood very little! My spoken French is awful at the best of times but with African accents, it's a proper mission to understand (Yes, yes I am most definitely going to go to France with a crazy Scottish-African hybrid ...

... the time.



The campsite at Bamako had air conditioned rooms so I booked one for the night. Arhhh, private shower, toilet and air conditioning. Most of the group followed the lead and took rooms as well. Very good idea. By 2.20am it was time to make my way to the room, the bar had run out of beer, I don't think I've ever know that to happen at a place I've been to.



The next couple of days were for ...

... I had been able to stomach for the last 4 days was water. I was about to embark on two three and a half hour flights with a stop at Casablanca for five hours with no water. YOU ******* GIVE ME BACK MY WATER. Of course I didn't say this, not that he would've understood me anyway. I simply shuffled away, head bent, no energy and waited to get on the plane. Mercifully I had an aisle seat, the runs were still going strong. The meal came by and I asked for two cups of water as I ...

... out of the taxi and onto the back of one of the bikes. He was quickly ush**ed back to the taxi by the driv**s friend. In between all the driving and sw**ving the taxi driv** also managed to somehow stoke my hair putting his hand between the small prison cell type gap between the front and back seats. Most bizarre but it continued for pretty much the whole trip despite my best efforts to lean forward, the oth**s of course found this hilarious. Somehow we ...

... if they could sing Brittany Spears (Oliver's trick from Nepal) Martin stood up with no shirt on. You should have heard the kids scream and laugh. Oh it was hilarious. He did it again and received the same response. We tried to convince him to crawl up to the doors and jump up but he was having none of it. Poor kids would probably have had a heart attack. They're so funny. So now in Mali. Woo hoo. Don't know what it is but entering ...

... verre d'eau bien glacé, tellement glacé que je craignait pour mes dents, surtout après avoir bu l'infusion qui venait à peine de quitter le feu. Après tout cela, voici qu'une assiette débordant d'un repas somptueux m'était présentée. Souvent du riz cassé avec une sauce viande ou bien du poisson, mais à chaque jour c'était un repas différent et j'ai pu goûter plusieurs plats typiques, toujours avec une bonne variété d'ingrédients, toujours avec des légumes. Il faut par contre qu ...

Voici mon premier vrai post en "real time", tous les autres ont été écrits avec beaucoup de soin sur un ordi portable que je croyait appartenir à Baby et que l'on a failli vendre pour du carburant à Nouakchott et le voilà hier , le vrai propriétaire du machin débarque à la maison ici à Bamako et retrouve son appareil un peu.... mmhhh, disons abimé. C'est ma deuxième semaine à Bamako et je la conseille très vivement à vous tous. C'est une ville ...

... is incredible and the people are amazingly friendly/ We had the added benefit of having a fantastic guide who came from Dogon COuntry who added so much to the experience. 3 days of walking in the blistering heat was certainly worthwhile ... a very slow climb up the cliff at the end keeping company witht he slowest passenger and a about 100km of very bad roads to get back again to civilisation. Again however I had to leave the group and go ahead to Bamako to try to get visas for ...

... to guess how long it would really take, we just hoped it would be morning before we arrived. A rumour went round the train that we wouldn't leave Kayes until 4pm...and sure enough at dot on 16:00, we pulled out. They certainly keep strictly to some unknown schedule! The beautiful scenery kept rolling by. We were startled that Mali looked even greener than east Senegal. We had been expecting things to get drier after the border. In fact, even the wares at ...