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Sevare, Mali

Once we got to Bandiagara, we checked into a little hotel and I settled down to wait until my stomach showed signs of improvement. It was nice to be back in relative civilization, but a bit frustrating since I wasn't able to take any advantage of the cold beers on offer. Bugger!

I'd been on a diet of plain rice and water for the last 3 days, and was beginning to get quite thin, but the only time I'd relented and had something a bit more exciting to eat my stomach started up with a vengeance again. No details necessary, but it wasn't pretty.

Mohamadou stayed around for the first day, and then left for Bankass the next day after I'd paid him the last of what I owed him, so I was pretty much on my own. This was a bit frustrating, as the town itself is flat, dusty and pretty boring, and most of the travelers there were all at the start of their trips, and trying to get groups together to go into the Dogon.

On top of this, the Harmattan (a seasonal wind that blows through the Sahara from the North East) had started in earnest a couple of days ago, and the wind was blowing with a vengeance. (In fact, my last view from the top of the escarpment before we left for Bandiagara was basically pretty much obscured by big dust clouds). A good tip if you're going to the Dogon would be to try and miss the Harmattan, as it mostly obscures the views, and it can be pretty chilly and windy at night - especially if you're sleeping on the roof. Additionally, if you're doing any biking in Burkina Faso or Mali in late December or January, I would really really really recommend that you plan your trip so that you don't head North East - the wind has to be seen to be believed, and it blows for days.

Anyway, after two days in Bandiagara I was pretty keen to move on, and get to Sevare, as I heard there was a really nice place to stay called Mac's Refuge. I was pretty eager to be there for New Year's eve, rather than in Bandiagara, so I dosed the water I had with a mixture of salt and sugar to make up some basic rehydration fluid, and set off the next morning, even though things on the stomach front were still no better.

I was feeling pretty weak, but luckily the Harmattan was essentially blowing from behind or to the side of me (which was pretty good, as I doubt I would have made it going in the other direction). The ride of about three and a half hours was uneventful, and I made it into Sevare still feeling relatively chirpy.

Sevare lies on the main road from Bamako to Gao, and serves as a feeder town for Mopti, which lies on the Niger river. A lot of aid agencies and NGOs use it as a base for their Sub-Saharan work and it's pretty civilized, with some tarred roads (complete with road markings), a big power generating station, an airport, and even some internet cafes! That said, it's very dusty, dry, and spread out, with lots of mud walled buildings, and it's pretty hard to convey the bleakness of the place, especially with the Harmattan blowing.

I'd been in Africa a while now, but once again I got caught out by the difference between the sketch map of the place in my guide book, and the reality of the 'roads' on the ground. What looks on the map to be a nice unambiguous road often turns out to be a dusty bumpy track and leaves you asking yourself "That can't be it, can it?". However, I managed to get myself oriented, and at last got to Mac's Refuge.

And what a refuge it turned out to be! Basically it's inside a small walled compound right on the edge of town, and despite looking pretty desolate from the outside, once you get inside the gates it's all pretty civilized. Unfortunately the rooms were outside of my budget, so I opted for the roof at 5000 CFA a night, figuring that the famous breakfast included in the price would make it worth it. Anyway, after my Dogon trip I was well used to sleeping on the roof, although now that the Harmattan had started I put up my tent to keep off the wind, as my lightweight sleeping bag just wasn't proving effective enough.

Mac was born in the Dogon region of Mali in the 1940's, the son of a couple of American missionaries who had come to West Africa during the 1920's. He could speak the local Dogon language as well as French fluently and had gone to school here. After spending some time back in America he had returned to Mali and finally settled down and opened this guesthouse.

Mac's was run by Mac (surprise), who was the son of American missionaries, and had been born in the Dogon region in the 1940's and gone to school there, so he could speak French and Dogon fluently. He'd spent some time in America, but had returned and opened the guesthouse with some money he'd earnt working as an adviser to the US military on a peace mission in the region. The rooms looked pretty nicely set up and cosy, and there was a communal dining area where meals were served, and even a small selection of books and magazines, some of which were actually pretty good. Ironically though, although there was indeed a pool with nice clean blue water, I never ended up using it, as it had somehow lost its appeal with the temperature drop caused by the Harmattan.

Breakfast consisted of fruit salad, muesli, porridge, real coffee, and even pancakes with a selection of syrups, including maple! Unfortunately I had to restrain myself until things had settled down stomach-wise, so I only ate a smallish selection of the above, but even this only served to kick off my stomach problems again. So - back onto starvation rations. I was feeling a lot better though, just having reading material on hand, so I settled down to read as many of the magazines and books that I could.

I'd been carrying a dose of a pretty strong anti-biotic with me called Metronizadole, but had been holding off, as is normally recommended, and trying to let my stomach build up some natural resistance, and get better by itself. However, things were pretty much reaching the point where I would have to give in and start taking the antibiotics, as even when I'd had a couple of cases of Giardia in East Africa I'd never been as sick as this. My moneybelt underneath my trousers had been the only thing holding them up for a while now (I wasn't carrying a belt to save weight), but it had now reached the point where my trousers were now slipping down over the moneybelt, and things were getting a bit silly. Still, I was desperate to have a drink and a decent feed on New Year's eve, especially after the relative hardship of my Dogon trek, and since you couldn't have any alcohol while taking the antibiotics I decided to have one big nosh-up that night, and then start on the drugs in the morning.

Mac's was full on New Year's Eve, mostly with English speaking travelers (including a lot of Europeans, but most people were speaking English) and I quite enjoyed myself. It was the first time basically since I'd left Ghana that I'd had much in the way of proper English conversation, and it turned out to be a good night. The meal that night was Chinese, even including prawn crackers, and so we stuffed ourselves to the gills with food and drink, wished each other a happy New Year, sang Auld Lang Syne, and went to bed quite content.

The next day I paid for it, of course, but it was straight onto the Metranizadole, and things started looking up pretty quickly from then on.

The really good news on getting to Sevare was that I could check the internet, and see if my attempt to book a place to the Festival au Desert at Essakane had been successful. I'd been a bit skeptical that things would work out, since I'd cut it so close in trying to book a place, but surprisingly, there was an email waiting for me from a guy called Almou Agmohammed, which included his phone number , and said that he was my travel contact for the festival, and that they "would have a meeting point in the airport at Mopti"

Although I assumed that this would be on the 3'rd of January, the email was a bit light on details, such as the time to be there, so I rung the number Almou had given me, only to get someone who could speak virtually no English. I tried as best I could in my terrible French to find out when the meeting time was, but often the French say the time in 24 hour format, and I couldn't really tell if I was meant to be at the airport at 5 pm, 7 pm, or 9. Luckily another guy at Mac's had a mobile phone, and could speak French, so when I got back he did me a huge favour and rung them up and confirmed that it was in fact 7pm, and that they would meet me at the airport.

Satisfied at last I settled down to spend the next couple of days at Mac's reading, resting, and recovering a bit of my strength. Little did I realize that the next few days would turn out to pretty much be the highlight of my trip, a complicated saga of madly driven convoys through the desert, blown tyres, nights out in the bush, lots of waiting around, a con which ended up with one of the locals in jail in Timbuktu, and camels, camels and more camels.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1104220020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1104220020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1104220020/tpod.html Mon, 09 May 2005 03:21:53 -0400 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Bandiagara, Mali

For those of you who don't know, Dogon country consists of a number of villages on, above, and below a long escarpment that runs for more than 200 km in Southern Mali. The people who live in this area have a very strong set of animist beliefs, and a particularly vibrant and complex culture built around them.

I'm not going to go into too much of a detailed of the Dogon themselves, as there is an awful lot on the internet, and to be honest I don't think I could do it justice here - I'm jut going to write a few of my impressions / experiences and leave it at that.

The most famous part of the Dogon country are the villages right on the escarpment (either at the top or on the slopes at the bottom of the cliffs). It's one of those places with a sense of mystery and power about it, particularly because of the numerous small mud dwellings built into cracks in the cliff itself (somewhat similar in feel to the Anasazi dwellings in the Southern U.S. I guess). These are often in places where the only way it seems possible to get to them is to abseil down from the cliff tops, using modern climbing gear. Why anybody would want to build dwellings in these spots (and how they managed it) is still a mystery that nobody really has an answer for, although Dogon legend attributes them to a tribe of very small people called the Tellem, who could fly. Anyway - enough on that - as I say, you can look it up on the net if you want to find out more about it. Suffice to say that despite the number of tourists and all the crap that goes with the tourism industry (guides, hangers-on, beggars, hassle etc.) it's still a pretty special place, and one I'm glad I've been to.

The living conditions around the falaise are pretty tough - lots and lots of rocks, with very little water - and it was constantly amazing to see how the Dogon managed to scrape a living in these surroundings. They even manage to grow a range of vegetables like onions and tomatoes, which they water by hand from wells, and in some places the little arable land is also terraced off into rice paddies, which are irrigated during the brief rainy season. (In fact they grow so many onions that the result - large balls of onion paste - can be seen being traded up and down the Niger river, and are even exported overseas.

The first days trek was pretty much a taste of what things were to be like for the next few days - a hot and sweaty hour or two's walk to a village (no more than about 6 km), a walk around to see some of the sights / fetish houses / hogons (meeting places), then a long wait in the shade somewhere for lunch, another wait after lunch until about 3, when the heat had subsided, and then another hour or so of walking to the campement where we would spend the night - not exactly physically demanding, although the heat and lack of any breeze during the middle of the day were pretty uncomfortable.

Accommodation was usually a mattress on the roof of one of the huts - not as bad as it sounds, as it was a lot cooler than inside. The only time this proved to be a problem was one night when I noticed a chicken sleeping in a corner, only to discover the next morning at 4 a.m. that it was in fact a rooster, when it started crowing about 2 metres from my left ear, and wouldn't stop despite numerous stones being thrown at it, and a brief chase which resulted in it merely scuttling off to another corner of the roof.

The first night, Christmas Eve, I was the only one in my campement apart from a couple of French families (including kids) who didn't speak a word of English and pretty much kept themselves to themselves. I bought Hamadou a beer (although he's notionally a Muslim he still drank), and then, missing my family in New Zealand quite a bit, climbed up onto the roof to listen to my minidisk player and to go to sleep. It turned out, however, that the French group had paid for a mask dance that evening, and at about 10 p.m. the whole shebang started up in the clearing right next to the hut where I was sleeping - I sat up and had a really good view of the proceedings by the light of the moon as the whole village turned out for the fun. Much later I nodded off to sleep with the sound of drumming still going on outside.

The villages that we visited usually had a number of campements, with varying degrees of luxury, but one thing I hadn't realized was that because I was Hamadou's only client, his profit margins were quite small - as a result, he tended to cut costs a bit, and we ended up staying in the more basic campements. (Note that when I say luxury here I'm not talking electricity or fridges - I only saw one gas powered fridge on the whole trek - just places that were set up nicely, with quiet well shaded areas, and accommodation that was a bit more spacious / secluded etc., with nicer furnishings etc.) I'm not sure if you're organizing a trek how you can make sure that you stay in the better places, other than asking others who have just finished a trip, and specifying any recommendations you've been given in your contract - basically though, after talking to some other people, it seems that if you really squeeze your guide when you negotiate a price, he's probably going to try and recoup the costs in some way - provided you're not paying a sucker's price, it seems you generally will get what you pay for.

You may be wondering at this point why I was even bothering with a guide, as it wouldn't be too difficult to find your way between the villages yourself (you just follow the cliffs - though finding the routes up and down them can be a bit more tricky). The reason is that the Dogon beliefs are so strong, and their rituals all-pervading, that its very easy for a tourist to blunder through some ritual or sacred area and thereby contaminate it. When this happens the poor Dogon often then have to perform new sacrifices and rituals to get everything back to normal, and a sacrifice of a goat or even a chicken is extremely expensive in their terms.

In fact I met one couple a few days later who wanted a romantic evening on Christmas night, and decided they wouldn't stay in the village where their guide wanted to, but would find their own spot to camp overlooking the escarpment. They duly did so, leaving their extremely worried and upset guide behind, wanting nothing to do with it, and walked off into the dusk to find a spot. (We actually joined up with these guys and their guide for the last part of the trek, as their guide - Abdullai - had once been a porter working for Hamadou, and was now a guide in his own right at the age of 23. In the end I actually became quite friendly with him, as he was quite a bit more lively and less cynical than Hamadou - I took to nicknaming him 'Speedy' for the speed at which he walked, which left Hamadou a bit miffed as if it should have been his nickname by rights)

The next morning it turned out that they'd found a spot, started a small fire, sprinkled a dead branch with tinsel as a Christmas tree, and had just given each other their presents, when an extremely upset village elder turned up with an interpreter. It turned out they were camping right next to a sacred burial ground - to make matters worse, when he spotted the 'Christmas tree' the elder nearly went ballistic, convinced that some sort of magic was being practiced. The interpreter managed to calm him down a little, and they were then moved to another, non-sacred spot where they spent the rest of the night.

On the whole though, the Dogon seem to have somehow pulled off the trick of maintaining their beliefs and society while still incorporating (and benefiting from) a tourist structure into it. The campements also seem to give you a good taste of Dogon life, but somehow still keeping you from being too much of an intrusion as the villagers go about their daily lives, and it's quite easy to see the improvements in the way of wells, schools and clinics that the tourism seems to have brung.

Anyway - whenever we got to a village Amadou would disappear off to buy supplies and organize the cooking of lunch or dinner, which normally consisted of a chicken or goat stew of some sort, with huge amounts of couscous or rice. (Breakfast each morning was pretty basic - a couple of bread rolls, jam, and a cup of instant coffee.)

The food was OK, and seemed to be safe enough to eat, but 2 days before the trek ended, and after a nice chicken stew and a couple of beers with Hamadou and Abdullai, I was woken up in the dead of the night with, without exaggerating, what was to be the worst case of the trots I have ever had in my life - vomiting, diarrhea and the whole bit.

The walk out over the next two days was pretty grim - the heat combined with exhaustion from being up all night, as well as being weak from hunger, meant that it was an exercise in endurance. Luckily it wasn't actually that far, so by lunchtime two days later we were in Songho, where we got a lift to Bandiagara where I could rest up for a few days.

All in all though, it was a great trip - the tenacity the Dogon show in being able to live in their environment, the views from the top of the escarpment, and the atmosphere and mystery of the Tellem houses halfway up the cliffs really left an impression that I'm not going to forget in a hurry.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1135319520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1135319520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1135319520/tpod.html Mon, 09 May 2005 00:50:12 -0400 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Djiguigombo, Mali

The next morning, I made up my mind - I was going to go with Hamadou, even though I did feel that the number of choices I'd had for a guide was slightly limited. When he came back we set down to write out a contract detailing the towns along the falaise we would visit, and how much it would cost. (as the guidebooks recommend you do)

At this point I made an unfortunate discovery - I'd understood Hamadou's price to be 8,000 CFA per day (or about $16 US), which seemed remarkably cheap, as the guidebooks quoted something in the range of 12000 or more per person, depending on the number of people in the group etc. However, he had been saying that it was 18,000, which was a bit more than I'd budgeted for.

It seemed a genuine misunderstanding, since I'd say in hindsight that it would just not be possible to get a guide in the whole of the Dogon for 8,000 CFA per day, so we sat down and after some more discussion settled on a price of 15000, per day, with a bonus of 20,000 at the end if I was happy.

We would set off at 7 the next morning on a horse cart to cover the 5-8 km (I'm not sure which, but walking it would have taken up too much time) across the plain from Bankass to the bottom of the escarpment, and then spend 8 days trekking up, down and across the falaise from West to East, beginning with a climb up to see the village of Djiguigombo. In the meanwhile, Eric would deliver my bike and spare bags to Bandiagara, where he would arrange leave them at the 'BraMali' brewery depot when he next picked up a consignment of beer for the campement.

How do I sum up the next 8 days ? Let's start with Hamadou - he was quite a thin guy, with slightly bandy legs, and a face that leant more towards Arab features than strictly African ones. He had obviously been in the business for a long time (15 years according to him), and he knew his way round Dogon country like the back of his hand, and was continually being greeted by friends and other guides in all the villages we came to.

He was a very proud and honest sort of person, and I kind of got the impression that he'd become a bit jaded with the business of catering to tourists, and the whole tourist mill that the Dogon country can quite easily turn into. In some ways this was a good thing, as I got a bit more of an honest trek, without going through the clichés of watching mask dances put on for tourists with fake masks etc. - In a way I prefer this, as I'm the sort of person who prefers to stumble upon things by accident, because although quite often you don't see as much that way, what you do see has a bit more tendency of being genuine.

However, he wasn't the sort of guy who readily volunteered much information about the things you did see around the villages, especially on the Dogon customs and beliefs, which was a bit frustrating, and his English, though serviceable, wasn't particularly eloquent.. However, that said, I was happy enough with the tour I got, all things considering. Just being able to experience the Dogon country was privilege enough.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103535480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103535480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103535480/tpod.html Mon, 09 May 2005 00:04:02 -0400 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Bankass, Mali

I had lunch at Ouahigouya, and then carried on to a small town just before the border called Tiou, arriving just in time to be accompanied for the last two kilometers by two guys out training for football, who ran alongside me doing a very respectable 17 km per hour, and even managing to hold a bit of a conversation with me at the same time.

Unfortunately, I discovered that there were no places to stay, and nowhere to buy food. Luckily a shop owner let me put up my tent inside his compound, and I made do with a packet of biscuits, some bully beef, and a carton of orange juice that I'd bought earlier that day.

The next morning I crossed the border without any hassles, and continued on into Mali, and seeing my first camel along the way. I stopped for lunch in a town called Koro, as I needed some decent food by this point, and then rather unwisely set off at about 1 pm for my intended destination of Bankass. Unwisely because it was the hottest time of the day, (the average daily high around this time was about 38 degrees) but unfortunately I didn't have much choice if I wanted to get to Bankass that day.

As I set out I could see the top of the falaise (or Dogon escarpment) beginning to loom over the horizon. It made quite an impressive and exciting sight, especially since I hadn't seen much in the way of hills or mountains for a long time.

The ground was very dry, with sparse bush and lots of Baobabs around (more f....ing Baobabs!), and after only about 4 km I got my first puncture of the whole trip. After fixing it in the shade of a thorn bush, with the sweat dripping off me, I carried on, reaching Bankass by around 5:30. It must have been market day, as for the last 5 km or so I was met by a stream of donkey carts heading in the other direction, and even a couple of guys on horses decked out with very fancy saddles and bridles more reminiscent of what you would expect to see an Arab riding.

I was so tired by this point that I got into town making barely more than a walking pace, but, knowing what to expect, I was determined to ride to the campement (campsite / guest house) that I'd chosen from the guide book without stopping in town itself, where I would be sure to be hit on by lots of hopeful guides wanting to take me into the Dogon country.

Sure enough, as I rode through I got some calls of "Stop, I want to talk to you for a minute" and so on, and shortly thereafter a guy rode up next to me on a scooter, asked where I was going, and then offered to show me the way. At least he had a bit more nous, and after showing me where the campement was, let me sit down and recover with a beer in peace before coming over to talk about whether I wanted a guide. When he discovered that I could only speak English, and since he couldn't, he disappeared, only to re-appear half an hour later with his mate, another prospective guide, who could.

I'd pretty much made up my mind at this point that I wasn't going to get a guide in Bankass, but would head off to the main town in the area, Bandiagara, where there was meant to be a much better selection of guides. As a result I spun them a line about having to get to Mopti to meet a friend of mine from the Peace Corp who had already arranged a guide through his local contacts. They finally accepted the story, and left me in peace to order a meal of spaghetti and meat.

About this time I noticed the only other Westerner I'd seen around was directing the cooking of the meal in the kitchen. When the food arrived, he introduced himself, and we started chatting. His name was Eric, and he explained that he'd first come to the Dogon from Holland a number of years ago, where he'd struck up a very close friendship with a guy from one of the villages, and had come back regularly since then to visit him and his family, eventually ending up as a de-facto member of their family. The guy had subsequently died, and had ended up leaving the campement to his children and wife, who had been making a bit of a hash of running it, so Eric was coming over as often as he could to help them out, and give a bit of a guiding hand.

He then told me that there was a local association of guides who were pretty good, but were struggling against the stranglehold the guiding association in Bandiagara had on the business, and suggested that I have a talk to one of the guys he knew and could recommend. I thought this might be quite good, as he seemed to know what he was talking about, and it would actually be easier to begin my trek from this end, rather than taking another 2 days to get up to Bandiagara, then having to find a guide, and possibly ending up spending Christmas eve in Bandiagara (which didn't sound like a particularly exciting town) rather than in a small village on the falaise (the Dogon escarpment).

He sent off somebody to fetch the guy, and who should turn up but the same guy I'd spun my line to before. Before we started discussing details I started to apologise to him for spinning him a line, as I felt a bit bad about it, and didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with him, especially if I was going to be in his company for the next 8 days or so. He didn't seem too worried, and was more interested in discussing details of what I wanted to do. However, it turned out that he had another group booked for when I wanted to go, so off he went in turn to get another couple of potential guides for me to talk to.

The main problem was that most of the guides spoke French, and your choice was limited if you wanted somebody who could speak decent English. Eric told me that the next guy I talked to was pretty good, but unfortunately it became apparent within a couple of sentences that his English just wasn't up to scratch, so I had to say no to him. I then got talking to the next guy, Hamadou, who's English seemed OK. Although Eric couldn't vouch for him personally, I thought that the people I'd met so far from the Bankass guides association seemed pretty switched on, so I got him to outline a possible itinerary, and told him I'd stay in Bankass the next day, rest, and think about it what I wanted to do.

Afterwards, over another beer, Eric suggested that he could arrange to transport Meryl to Bandiagara for me, and leave her with a contact he had, so that I could finish my trek there, without having to double back to Bankass to get it. With quite a bit on my mind, I went off to bed that night to mull things over and decide what I wanted to do....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1135157220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1135157220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1135157220/tpod.html Sun, 08 May 2005 23:56:59 -0400 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso

That Sunday I set off for the border with Mali - a ride that was going to take me about 3 days. As usual, Sunday turned out to be a good day to leave on, as the traffic was a lot lighter, although it had the disadvantage that school was out, meaning that there were a lot of boys around on bicycles.

One poor lad, as usual, took up the challenge when I passed him, and immediately sped up, passed me, and then slowed down after doing so, so that I had to pass him again if I wanted to maintain my pace. This was only mildly annoying, but unfortunately, about the 5'th time he did it he mis-timed a high-speed swerve past some other cyclists, and wiped one of them out, along with himself, but luckily missing mee. Feeling sorry for him, as he had been having quite a bit of fun, but rather relieved that they hadn't hit me, I left them to sort it out, and rode off into the distance.

About 70 km further, what should I see in the distance, but three cyclists heading my way. It turned out that they were Dutch - two guys and a girl - and had spent the last 3 weeks biking from Bamako, headed for Ouaga and then Ghana on a 5 week holiday. We had a bit of a chat, and then headed off in our separate directions, after they had told me the name of a good place to stay in the next town I was headed for. Turned out this was a special bonus, because when I got into town and stopped to ask two old guys for directions in my atrocious French they suggested I stay at the Anglican mission, and sent me off with a boy on bike to show me the way.

I'm not sure what they were thinking, as when we got there it turned out to be basically an abandoned compound, with a house with no water, electricity or furniture. If I hadn't known that a better place existed I'd probably have taken it, but as it was I politely declined the offer and set off to find the other place. When I got there it turned out to have a private bathroom and even airconditioning! Talk about a bonus.

Nicely rested, I set off early the next day, knowing that I had a rather long ride to get to the town just before the border. At around lunchtime I stopped to in a small town to have my usual beer or two, not realizing that I was about to get thoroughly frightened. After ordering a beer a couple of guys, one of whom was rather large and stocky, came over, said hello and shook hands. Since they didn't speak any English, and my French was limited, the conversation soon died, and they left shortly thereafter. I then struck up conversation with a local teacher who could speak pretty good English, which was quite nice for a change.

While we were talking, the big stocky guy came back on a scooter, and said something in local dialect to me, which the teacher translated as "He wants to know if you have anything for him". Being quite used to being hit on by now, I said, rather grumpily, "Por Quoi", and then "Non", and bluntly turned back to talk to the teacher. The conversation went on for a while, and then the teacher said matter-of-factly "You see that guy - he was fighting in the Ivory Coast for money". On further quizzing, it turned out he had been a mercenary for the rebels for a couple of years. Great - now I'd gone and been rather rude to an ex-mercenary, who knew where I was going, and could easily catch me on his scooter on the rather lonely roads! The teacher then asked me "how I can find the money to travel for such a long time", and then a bit later whether I carried a gun or anything to protect myself. Feeling distinctly paranoid at this point, the only thing I could think of was to explain that I didn't need a gun, showing him me necklace (which I'd bought a couple of years back in Vietnam), and explaining that I'd had a witch-doctor put some juju on it "for protection" when I was in Ghana, making some comments about the secret society with the bull-roarers that I'd learnt about from Prof. Poppi to try and lend my story some credibility.

He seemed to accept this pretty matter of factly, and shortly afterwards I made my excuses, got on my bike, and rode as fast as possible for the next town, Ouahigouya, all the time checking in my rear-view mirror to see if I was being followed by anybody on a scooter. I did the 25 km in just over an hour, which turned out to be the fastest average speed I ever managed in Africa.

Needless to say, nothing happened, and thinking about it, there was probably very little to be worried about. The fact that the ex-mercenary was in his home village, where everybody knew him, and where he would be the first suspect if there was any trouble, and also the fact that he was out of the context of the conflict, without other soldiers to egg each other on probably meant that I was worrying unduly about nothing.

In retrospect, when you're alone and in an unfamiliar environment sometimes the significance of small events can be magnified out of proportion. I've often found myself fuming at some small slight, when in hindsight it really isn't that much of a big deal. I was pretty glad to get to Ouahigouya though!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103379240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103379240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103379240/tpod.html Fri, 08 Apr 2005 03:30:21 -0400 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Not really too much to say about Ouaga - very dusty, which in combination with exhaust fumes and smoke etc. left a burning sensation in my nose and throat. One of the things that I hadn't realized is that with all the dust in the air kicked up by the Harmattan (the seasonal wind that blows in over the Sahara from the Northeast during winter) people get colds and coughs quite easily - not really a pleasant experience in the dry heat.

I managed to both get the email off to my folks asking them to transfer the money for the Festival, and get my Malian visa, so I was pretty much set.

The only other thing of note is that there are quite a few Baobab trees around in the countryside now. I've got mixed feelings about Baobabs - they're quite a cool tree really, if rather ugly, but they tend to grow in hot dry climates, so I tend to associate them with uncomfortable cycling conditions. I've included a picture of one with this posting in case you're interested. (Or at least I would have if there hadn't been a number of power cuts in Tamale, causing me to lose a large amount of writing, and to give up in disgust)

Oh yes, a couple more things about Ouaga that spring to mind. The first thing is the unbelievable number of hawkers around - it's virtually impossible to sit and have a drink in any restaurant that opens on to the street without being continuously approached by guys selling everything from kitchen knives to shoes to feather dusters. You can't help feeling sorry for them, as it looked like really hard work. These guys were so desperate to make a sale that all you had to do was glance in their direction and they would notice it and head over your way to see if you wanted to buy anything. A couple of days of this turned out to be a good way to learn just the right nuances to shaking my head with a disinterested look and getting them to move on to the next customer.

One rather surreal aspect when I was there was that since it was coming up to Christmas a number of guys were selling Christmas decorations, so it wasn't unusual to see people walking past carrying fake Christmas trees all done up with tinsel and decorations, and, even more bizarrely, giant inflatable Santa Clauses floating past in the traffic.

One puzzle that I only worked out later was that they guys walking past carrying trays covered with pieces of burlap sack were actually selling kola nuts, which they covered with the sacking after soaking it in water to keep them fresh.

Another couple of hawker 'specialities' that had me puzzled (and still do, to some degree) were, firstly, the guys walking past carrying a small sack, and clanging a pair of scissors together with a metallic ringing sound. They seemed to be offering pedicures, although quite what the market for that sort of service is, given the level of poverty around, I don't understand.

Another variation on this was the guys walking past clinking two glass bottles together. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe they were offering a sort of dry-cleaning service, with solvents of various sorts to get stains out of clothing. Not that I ever found out for sure though.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1102337700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1102337700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1102337700/tpod.html Mon, 21 Feb 2005 09:01:11 -0500 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Lawra, Ghana

The next day, leaving a somewhat impatient and anxious Prof. Poppi (convinced that the people who were bringing him his money had done a runner), I set off for Lawra.

After an uneventfull days riding, with a lunchtime stopover for beers at a place called Jirapa, (which was bursting at the seams with spots playing reggae music for some reason) I got to Lawra, only to discover that the only 2 lodges were full up with guys from the army posted there for the election the next day. Consequently I set off to find Jerome, who I'd met in Wa. The guys at the petrol station where he'd suggested I ask for him sent me off with a kid on a bicycle to show me the way to his house. Not unexpectedly, he wasn't there, so we set off back into town after leaving a message for him, only to meet him about half way. He'd heard I was in town and had set off to find me.

Funny guy, Jerome - we set off for his local bar to have a cold beer, where a pattern of events that was to repeat itself a few times took place - namely him buying the beers, putting them on tick with the obviously slightly disgruntled bar owner, and then heading off to another bar to repeat the process.

Over drinks he explained that he was the local nurse at the eye clinic (quite a responsible / respected position, given the scarcity of qualified doctors, plus the high incidence of relatively easily cured but potenially serious eye infections in the local population), and had put himself through school etc by working in the Ivory Coast for a few years, as his father, being a farmer, hadn't believed in school. He also told me at one point that he had to be carefull not to lose his temper, as he couldn't control himself when he did, and would end up getting in fights - something I wasn't keen to see, but which luckily didn't occur while I was there.

He had a brand new Chinese bicyle with him for transport, but seemed barely capable of maintaining more than a walking pace with it. It turned out that the reason he had the bike was that his scooter had been used by a local lad while he was away, who had ruined the engine, and it was currently undergoing expensive repairs, hence the reason why he didn't have much money and was putting everything on tick until next payday.

We later dropped my gear back at his place and walked back into town, again at a very slow pace, and had dinner and another couple of beers at another spot. By this time it was quite late, and the town was very quiet, but on getting back into the centre of town Jerome announced that he was exhausted, and too tired to walk back to his house (a distance of no more than a kilometer), so he set about finding somebody with a scooter to give us a lift back. After much faffing about this was managed by apparently trading some eye ointment with the guy who gave us the lift.

The next day, Jerome emerged looking somewhat the worse for wear, which didn't seem warranted by the relatively few beers we had, and after a very slow start we headed back into town on our bikes for a beer 'to get him started', first dropping into the hospital so that he could sign in an show me around.

Being election day all the spots were closed by official decree, but after some hunting around Jerome found a place that was willing to serve us, once again on tick, although this time with some quite vocal opinions on the matter.

Finally, at about mid-day I collected my gear and set off for Sawla, having first made sure to give Jerome what I calculated to be a bit more than we'd spent over the previous day on beers and food, and getting my hand kissed in thanks in return.

It was only later that I put two and two together - Jerome seemed to be able to only manage about 200 metres at a time on the bike before having to get off and walk for a bit, and seemed to have problems with physical activities people a lot older than him wouldn't blink an eye at. He'd also mentioned at one point that he was sick but after some tests on his stomach for a suspected ulcer the doctor was looking for some other cause, and problems with his heart might now be a possibility. He'd mentioned this pretty casually so I hadn't really thought much of it at the time, thinking more that the alcohol and cigarettes might be the real problem, but looking back on it I think he was quite seriously ill with some form of heart disease, with no real prospect of treatment if that was they case. Poor guy - I hope he's OK.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103111700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103111700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1103111700/tpod.html Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:53:15 -0500 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Hmmm - another three very long days on the bike under my belt. It's all a bit complicated to explain, but basically, I worked out that I had to get to Ouaga quickly so that I could arrange my Malian visa, and get to the Dogon country in time for Christmas / New Year's, and if I didn't leave Bobo straight away all the timings would be out.

On top of this, I'd heard about a music festival held in the desert Northwest of Timbuktu, had emailed the organizers to find out how I could get a ticket, and been emailed back in return with instructions to transfer some money to a bank account in France. After mulling this over for a while to see if it was a wise idea or not, I'd decided to go ahead with it - the kicker was that I needed to email my folks to do the bank transfer for me, and the next place after Bobo where I could get email was in Ouagadougou (the thought of trying to transfer the money directly from a bank in Burkina Faso, in French, was too horrible to contemplate ) ... And I couldn't wait around in Bobo any longer otherwise I wouldn't get my Malian visa in time. With me so far? ...

Anyway, suffice to say that it was 2 days of 140 km each, literally on the bike from dawn to dusk, and a third of 95 km. Not much fun, especially as there was a bit of a headwind. The only memorable happening of any sort occurred in a room in the only (partially completed) guest house in a small town along the way. While organizing my bedding by kerosene lantern in a small bunker-like dark concrete room something large and black scuttled off into a corner. Thinking it was a cockroach I squashed it with my shoe, only to be a bit surprised that it squashed so easily (cockroaches being pretty sturdy creatures, usually taking a number of blows from a solid object before being killed). This left a big black smear on the wall, but not being too keen to investigate further and find out what I had just killed, I made sure that my mosquito net was tucked around the mattress securely and went to sleep, hoping that that would be enough to stop any creepy crawlies ... only to wake up the next morning and discover that something else had eaten the big black smear in the night.

Come to think of it, one other thing happened which was quite amusing in retrospect. The air had gradually been getting drier and dustier as I worked my way North, and one of the unwanted side-effects of this was, to be blunt, dirt-encrusted and clogged nostrils. At one point in the afternoon on day 3, it reached the point where I could stand it no longer, and I resorted to unblocking the blockage, so to speak - only to cause an almighty nosebleed, just as I came up to a village and pulled in to try and find a cold drink. I'm not really sure what the owner of the local store thought when she first saw me, but she disappeared off and promptly came back with a bucket of water to wash my face with, which was much appreciated. She also made sure to point out to me that she thought it was due to me being silly enough to strenuous exercise in the middle of the day, when all sensible people found shade of some sort and stayed put until the heat died down. I didn't really feel like pointing out to her that it was actually self-induced.

Finally, getting in to Ouaga, I found a place to stay, and then an internet café to catch up with my emails, only to have my wallet pinched from under my nose while I was sitting in front of the computer. Pretty sure I know who it was too (there was only one guy sitting next to me), but you can't really go about searching people on suspicion alone.

I lost about 120 Euros worth of CFA (the local currency), which was a bummer, but luckily everything else wasn't important - the only real bummer was that it was my 'mugging' wallet, with enough expired credit / bank cards etc. to hopefully convince any aspiring muggers that it was my main stash, meaning that wouldn't hang around long enough to force me to give over my money belt. Oh well - ce la vie - at least I learnt the lesson of keeping all my money securely stashed in my moneybelt except for enough to last a day or so.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1134129840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1134129840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1134129840/tpod.html Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:26:07 -0500 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Diebougou, Ghana

In the morning, mentally psyched up for my first border crossing, and my first biking in a French country, I set off for Burkina Faso via the border town of Hamile. Although feeling decidedly nevous about the Burkinabe border guards, things went pretty smoothly, aided somewhat by the guard being able to speak English when my French failed miserably.

It was just after this that I discovered my first problem - I'd blithely assumed that I would be able to change Euros into CFA, and had spent basically all of my Ghanaian Cedis, only to discover that because it was such a small border, this wasn't possible. This meant that I had to change my last remaining Cedis, giving me a grand total of about 4000 CFA (or 8 US dollars). At this point I got a bit nervous, as the next town, Diebougou, was itself pretty small, and I was a bit unclear about whether I could change any money there (although re-reading my guidebook later I discovered that I could). Compounded by the fact that it was Friday, I had the prospect of a long and moneyless weekend ahead of me.

As a result I set off as fast as my little legs could carry me, and aided by the fact that after about 20 kilometers I reached a tar road I got to Diebougou just before 1, only to discover that the bank was closed for lunch, and would open at about 3. I then bought a couple of precious beers in an attemt to cool off, and found out that there was a place for me to stay at the local autogare (French for bus station, as I found out later).

Returning to the bank at about 2:30, just in case I misunderstood the time, I sat down on a bench outside with a couple of locals to wait. A nice old gent then joined us, and promptly gave me a packet of peanuts, dismissing my suspicious question of 'Combien?' with a wave of his hand, promptly making me feel dismayed at my cynicism. Needless to say the bank finally opened at least an hour late, but I was finally able to change some money and was safe!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1134212460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1134212460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/withmeryltomali/ghanatomali/1134212460/tpod.html Mon, 21 Feb 2005 06:10:20 -0500 My bike and I - a six month trip from Ghana to Mali and back, with sundry side trips.

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Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

Today I finally managed to make it to Bobo (as you very quickly start calling it, since the full name is a bit of a mouthful). I had the choice of taking a nice tarred road, although via a longer route which would have taken me 2 days or so to do, or going for one long day on a dirt road.

Basically, I opted for the dirt road in the end, since if I'd gone on the tarred road I'd have ended up doing part of it again in the other direction on my way back to Ouagadougou. Its kind of a principle of mine to try and avoid doing a section of road twice by bike - its silly enough to do it once on a bike, but twice is just plain stupid. Anyway, the fact that the route was marked in green (indicating a scenically interesting route) on my Michelin map kind of tipped the balance.

As it was about 135 km to Bobo I set off at the crack of dawn, with a bit of trepidation as to whether I was going to make it or not. In addition to the distance, my maps didn't show many villages of any size along the way.

Suffice to say, I made it - the road was actually not too bad - helped, I guess, by the fact that most cars now take the new, longer but faster, tarred road instead, meaning ... not many corrugations !!!! Yay! Still, it was a long hot day, not helped by the final bit of road leading into Bobo consisting of a couple of very long hills (long hills? - yes, I know technically they're tall(ish) hills, but on a bike they seem to go on for a long time)

Anyway - I managed to get a bit more of an impression of what Burkina Faso was like, with a couple of things particularly making an impression. The first was the noticeable difference, immediately after crossing the border, in the relative numbers of motorbikes, scooters, mopeds and donkey carts. Ghana has far more motorbikes, whereas in Burkina the emphasis seems to be on mopeds and donkey carts.

The second thing, even more noticeable, was the sheer number of chickens, and / or goats, that can be carried on a moped. As they day went on I was occasionally passed by mopeds with ever increasing numbers of chickens and goats tied to them. My estimate for the maximum number of chickens I saw on one moped was about 100 to 120 - at least 15 dangling upside down from each handlebar, and the rest on the back in baskets or dangling upside down from another pole strapped across the back.

I guess it was market day, because as I got closer and closer to one of the villages, I passed more and more people loaded up in this manner. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor old chickens, but the goats made me feel even worse. The chickens seemed to bear their lot in a stoic dazed silence, but the goats, often tied up in extremely uncomfortable positions, bleated and cried with a sound similar (I imagine) to a small child being murdered. On more than one occasion I had to put on a burst of speed so as to get out of hearing range of a goat-laden bicycle heading in the same direction as me.

Anyway - the day finally finished with me in Bobo, which was a lot busier than I was used to, having been in 'small town' Africa for the past few weeks. Lots of buses, trucks, cars, mopeds and donkeys, together with a lot of smoke, dust and fumes. Still, I managed to find the hotel I was looking for, with the firm intention of resting up for the next couple of days.
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