Olympe International Bamako

... and little was done. There was more of a military presence as roadblocks were set up throughout the country to "protect" the population from bandits, but in reality they just demanded bribes from all passerbys. People became restless. Opposition leaders presented themselves as elections were to draw near. Dadis promoted himself to a general and declared that he would run for elections. That declaration was not received well by the public. On September 28th a protest was ...

... of it is that we made it to the house of Farka Toure, there were pictures of him with his father and of his father playing the guitar, etc. we chilled out and drank some tea and water and laughed for about an hour. then Vieux called his assistant to go and get his guitars, he had around 15 of them in his closet. <br><br>Vieux just cut a new album that is called "Fondo" it was put out by 6 Degrees records in San Fran ...

... possibly the first time, ever) when I turned onto a bigger street (the place i'm staying is in a wee side street) and was faced with what is essentially a dirt track with goats at random locations up the side. But it's so pretty with all the women walking around with their bright, colourful clothes and (quite often) balancing things on their heads!<br><br>Yesterday I went for a wander around the city and visited ...

... be about 9pm when we would arrive. The advantage of the long drive would be a couple of days rest and relaxation beside a pool and 24 hour bar with cold beer. Surprisingly some people didn't want to make the long drive, 7 days without a shower must not have been long enough for them.<br><br>As we entered Bamako we made a detour that ended with the trucking hitting overhead power cables. Luckily no problems, the locals ...

... to do a little more shopping. Last, we met with some friends (Dusty and Julia Reynolds) and spent some time hanging out before heading to the airport. We actually had pizza deliv**ed from Olympia. It was really good pizza. The toppings w**e quite traditional. They did have trouble finding the place as the streets are not marked well in Bamako but it made it th**e. Aft** checking in at the airport, we took a bus to our flight and w**e on our ...

... arrived back unscathed... I'm not sure who won... although of course I would say us. The bar magically opened with be**s upped in price so some went off to continue the festivities whilst I and oth**s wisely opted for bed. My goodness Bamako is a long entry!!! SORRY! Final day in Bamako and I headed into town whilst Oliv** stayed at camp. Our taxi was stopped by police and the driv** had to pay 1,000 CFA - due to the fact he was carrying a bunch of ...

... and come undone whilst crossing. Oops. Martin and I invested in funky multi coloured plastic kettles as you see the locals walking around with them everywhere and since souveniers are pretty much slim to none we figured that would do nicely. Oliver didn't seem to share my enthusiasm, possibly as he was preoccupied with the wheetabix I had bought for him. Apparently the museli on the truck tastes like cardboard. So back on the truck ...

... with many of the children. Our team of 17 went into training unsuspecting of what was to come. Last week our confirmation arrived. The night we fly into Mali, will be 1 of 2 nights we spend in Bamako. As our first sun rises in Africa, we will leave for an area called Dogon Country by van. The people of Dogon migrated into an escarpment sometime in ...

... m'a communiqué sa décision de sortir sa mère de l'hôpital et la ramener en brousse pour qu'elle puisse passer ses derniers mois de vie dans la paix de l'environnement familial. Sur le coup, je n'ai pas pu m'empêcher de ressentir de la tristesse, même si sa façon naturelle et pragmatique d'aborder le sujet minimisait le drame. Ce n'était qu'après, quand j'ai transcrit cette rencontre sur mon cahier de voyages que j'étais ému au point de couler les larmes. J'ai essayé de l ...

... 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 ...