We travel Niger River and trek in Dogon Country

  Mopti, Mali
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Tuesday 16th January Segou
Woken by the 5.30am call to prayers from the mosque. Our "fancy" hotel has the reception, restaurant and pool area in one place, and the sleeping area in a compound a block away. Great for the car owners, who park outside their room, but not so great for the people trying to sleep in the rooms, with all the vehicles getting an early start. Decide to see if there is a vacancy tonight back at Le Djoliba. Find that the person we had to move out for, hadn't turned up, so the room is already made up, and we can move back in straight away (at 7am) before our morning tour.
Down to buy bread, and sit on wharf in the morning chill, having peanut butter and bread breakfast, watching the day's river life begin.
Down to l'Auberge to wait on the verandah for "Barry", our guide. Turns up early by local standards, but had to borrow a phone to find our boat driver. If we have the story right, the pinasse belongs to Barry, but the driver is from the pottery village. Leave from the foot of the main street using the bowsprit to keep our feet dry. The pinasse has a small, quiet outboard, and it is pleasant heading downstream along the bank, checking out the early morning river bank life - women washing, men unloading sand barges, fishing boats loaded with nets, some gardening below the high banks.
Barry tells us that in high water season, the river enters the streets, 4 or 5 metres up, and in low water, recedes to a narrow stream, a further 4 metres down.
We can see a lot of basic freight boats, not the elegant pinasses, and each has two men on board, and one or two below loading sand from the bottom into bags to be hauled up with multi-stranded ropes. All the sand from the shallow water has already been taken, so they now have to work out in the deeper water in the middle of the river. A lot of water comes in with the sand and as the boat fills, a lot of bailing is needed. This could be the Malian national sport. It is quite chilly in the water, but we are told these are Bozo, the people of the river, and they can handle it.
Our first stop is a Bozo fishing village,a cluster of 3 or 4 buildings on an island maybe 200m long, by 100m wide, which shrinks to the perimeter of the buildings in the wet season. They have mango and gum trees, and a couple of unusual coconut relatives, with pandanus-like leaves, and a large,tightly packed cluster of green nuts. They do not have a lot of trees on the island, but are busy cutting a large branch, complete with fruit, from their Mango tree because they need the timber.
Take photo of the family,

1. Kids in village on Segou boat trip

show the kids, and we later email some photos to Barry so they can get a copy .

The next stop is the so-called "pottery village", but there is no sign of pottery being potted, or kilns, or old, broken pots. There is, however, a small depression which may be their clay source. We are told that it is not the potting season, as there are other things to do now, but we are not totally convinced. Our boatman lives here, so, after meeting the head man, and taking photos of the communal cooking area, we move on to sit in his cool mud hut, while he changes his gear so mum can wash it. Meet various siblings, check out all the village, which has maybe 30 buildings, mostly square, but some circular with conical thatch roofs. See the weaving of reed into the diagonal pattern mats, about 2m by 1.5m. This work is done by the old men.
The last village was mainly a terminal for the ferries and commercial pinasses, generally a larger village, on the mainland, with a variety of tribal house styles. Were chatted by a young woman objecting to our photos, but Barry flashed his guide card, and told her to pull her head in. He gave the impression that guides have the power to make life hard to those who give tourists a hard time. Saw a weathered example of the "mud cloth", which is the diagonally woven reed mats rendered with mud on either side to provide a structural material similar to ferro-cement, particularly useful for circular grain storage bins, which take on a spherical form, with a conical thatch roof on top.
All of the house construction incorporates black polythene plastic for waterproofing, but it is rarely in continuous, watertight sheets.
Back at the pinasse, where it is blowing quite hard on the river, we pick up the boatman's elder brother, and head back across. There are fair sized waves, and it gets a bit exciting when we take them abeam, but the pinasse handles the waves OK. About halfway across, we get a distress call from one of the big public pinasses, which has a broken outboard, and is making heavy weather of it, just poling and using a large steering paddle as an oar.
Our crew shouts something, and keeps going, but as soon as we are put ashore, the pinasse returns to give a hand. There seems to be a lot of co-operation between the people here, and a lot of good will. In the villages, socialism seems the norm, but possibly only within family groups.
Have a break at the hotel, and discuss the hypothetical of us going to the Dogon with the mystery American couple he has lined up. Haggle back and forth, from 90,000 cfa to 215,000 cfa, then back to an acceptable 150, IF we did it, having explained our prior commitment to Ali Guindo at Mopti. Being people of integrity, even a final 125 didn't move us. We did, however, get his email and telephone number, with an agreement to contact him if our other arrangement fell through.
We then headed out to look at the Somotra Bus station and, hopefully buy a ticket for tomorrow, but while we are able to determine a bus leaves from here at 9, we can't buy tickets till the morning.
Head down the wide, hot Bvde de l'Independence, past the opposition bus station, which doesn't have buses starting from here, to the internet at the communications centre. Reserve an hour, and start uploading diary and photos. The uploads, either due to line speed, or an improved program, are lightning fast, but we still need two hours to do it. At Cfa1000 per hour, it is still pretty good value. Jut manage to send the fishing village photos to Barry before our time is up.
Walk back in the dark to the hotel, then down to the waterfront to check out some action, where there is a group of 3 Landrover Discoveries doing some sort of round-the-world stunt. Back at Djoliba, we find we have lost our water bottle with its insulated cover. Figure it must be back at the Internet, so gird up for the long trudge back, before 8pm closing. At the internet, they know just what we want, and have put it away for us. This is a pleasant surprise, as we have a bad track record with our water carriers, having lost them in Fiji and Cuba -both time returning within ten minutes, but no-one having any knowledge of them. After a few days in Mali, we're not really surprised by this. We've found the Malian people to be lovely people, friendly and honest. We feel very safe in the country.
More Capitaine (Nile perch), this time on the upper terrace, where it gets quite chilly at night. Sort most of our gear out, and get a reasonable night's sleep - we're starting to beat the jet lag.
Wed 17 Jan Segou - Mopti
Packed by 7am, then down to our baker for our 2 loaves for 250cfa, then down to the waterfront to have our jam and peanut butter baguettes. Out of the hotel before 8. At the bus station quickly, as the road in this direction has a good towing surface for the bags. Some confusion between the price, onze, and the departure, neuf, but work out we are getting the 9am bus, which normally leaves at 9.30 (well, this IS Africa. Later talk to people who waited till 1pm for it to leave, and others who had a breakdown for 4 hours, so it's obviously our lucky day). Usual MP anxiety on which bus, why is there more freight than can possibly fit, where are all these people going to sit, but situation is sorted by finding out there is an earlier bus to Bamako, and our bus hasn't arrived yet.
DP does the rounds of the nearby streets, getting some good photos, particularly of a butcher-type place, where there is a whole animal hanging, and the attendant is busily making little bundles of meat, fat, and odd bits of the animal, using the intestine like a piece of string, to tie it all together.

2. Local butcher at Segou bus station

Cons her way aboard the bus early to get good seats near the front on the side MP has determined as shady. MP does a cat-and-mouse with a large woman with a lot of luggage, edging our bags closer to the bus, but is relieved of this duty when an old freight organiser says to bring the bags around the other side, and puts them in for 1000 cfa, knocking back a coin offer. MP is much more relaxed with the bags aboard, and takes his place, over the wheel as usual, not a good place for bumps and foot room.
By now, we have a dozen big plastic drums, a bike, and bags of grain in the hold, as well as personal baggage, and a fair bit tied on top. It is a fairly upmarket bus, but they still manage to overload it. We get away at about 9.30, "on time", with a lot of clutch slipping and engine revs, but don't get terribly far down the street before our first pickup, not the usual 3rd world "everyone on outside the terminal", but possibly arranged pickups.
We start off pretty slowly, obeying traffic rules, staying behind the slow vehicles,

3. Transport for people who can't afford the bus

but wind up to a reasonable rate on the open road, which is pretty good. The villages here look more prosperous than those on the way from Bamako, with greener trees, obviously ploughed land, and numerous fields of large gourds.
On the side of the road are large, circular assemblies of nested half-gourds, on the way to market. One medium size village has a market,

4. Market on roadside on way to Mopti

and we can see donkey carts, push carts, bicycles and pedestrians strung out for kilometers, heading in, even at 11am. Houses in the village have their own mud-walled compounds, with mud brick houses, and elevated granaries, circular at first, then square with pyramid roofs.
Each village has its set of speed bumps, and, generally a rock barrier each side of the road, and oil drum barricades. Our bus is obviously fragile, so we take it dead slow over the bumps. This accounts for a fair bit of the unexplained extra 3 hours on the trip.
The first leg of the trip to Bla involved a leg to the SE to cross the Bani river, a tributary, but still a massive river with a long, low level bridge. This direction gave us the sun on our side, contrary to planning, and it was pretty hot, even with the curtains.
At Bla, we took the turn north onto the main road, and there was a major shouting match at the bus stop with someone taking up space. No blows traded, so on our way. Called into the Somotra bus station at San, to find the loos far from San-itary, so the driver herded the passengers back into the bus for a short drive to the Bon Coin restaurant, with better facilities, and a free meal for the driver. MP photographs an interesting pedal-operated well pump, donated by an aid program. There are signs of all the usual aid organisations here, all driving the best vehicles.
The bus stops at a small village, and driver gets out to buy papaya which are being sold on the side of the road. Dianne is missing her fruit, so asks him to buy one for her. Offers 500cfa, but he wants 1000. Gives it to him. Quite a few get off the bus, milling around. Dianne gets off too, and negotiates to buy a papaya for 300cfa. Hops back on the bus feeling very proud of herself, only to find Murray sitting with FOUR papaya on the seat - the 1000cfa had been for a basketful of papaya! End up giving a couple away, eat one, and keep two for "later".
Get some good Baobab photos.

5. Landscape from bus to Mopti with baobabs

The baobab here is the coconut palm of the South Pacific. Everything is used for something. They use the bottom section of the bark for making string, eat the fruit in the pod(which was surprisingly good - inside looked a bit like a dry meringue, and tasted a bit like a lolly when you sucked it), use the pods for fuel and to make rattles, cups and bowls when they're dried, and eat the leaves when they're chopped, boiled and a sauce is added. See some elevated landscape near Sofara, a precursor to the Dogon country, which is nearby. We've stopped at numerous checkpoints during the day, but everyone just waits in the bus while the driver goes away for 10 minutes (or more). Late in the day we were stopped, and officials came on board for a passport check. Worried when they took the passports, then ordered us to the office, but no shakedown or problems. It was now getting on dark, even though the sun was fairly high. The dust clouds seem to dim the sun without producing the sunsets one might expect. Into Sevare just on dark, and see the turnoff to the recommended hotel, but we want to continue the 12 kms on to Mopti, which is on the river, and has the port area. Determine that our bus does go all the way to Mopti, and decide to stay on. A complication arises when we are hailed by unknown guide types, who turn out to be henchmen for Ali Guindo, and want us to get off so we can stay in Sevare and leave at 7am tomorrow for the Dogon with Ali, as there is some sort of special festival tomorrow in one of the Dogon villages. In no mood for an early start tomorrow, so stay on the bus. It is now pitch dark, and we are driving on crowded, narrow roads with not-too-flash headlights. The driver shouts at the French-Canadian couple beside us for using a torch to read the guide. Cross a long causeway into Mopti, then through a maze of back streets, turning into alleys to reach a very basic Somotra terminal.
In the melee around unloading, we are adopted by a large guide in traditional dress who has a card for the hotel we want, and wants to take us there. There are no obvious taxis, and the bus conductor who was instrumental in the great papaya-buying fiasco and our friend because DP gave him one of the excess papayas, checked out our guide as genuine, so we decided to give it a go, walking with him. At this stage, we didn't realise he was going cross-country, and we spent a tense 20 minutes following him through alleys, and across wastelands, with DP nearly getting run down by a motorbike, and MP having to carry his bag through the sand while the guide carried DP's, keeping an eye on him in case he made a break with the bag. At this stage hope our trust is warranted as we have no idea where we are, and there are a group of young blokes right behind us. Eventually, we arrived at our hotel of choice, to find a lot of tourists, including some from our bus.
Fortunately, hotel wasn't full, so we booked in, had a short talk with our "benefactor", and brushed up for tea, did our washing, and reported to the terrace restaurant for drinks. Had an only fair meal, and an extended talk with Keita Abdoulaye,our guide, deciding not to do anything Thursday, but probably Friday, for around 50,000 Cfa.
Before bed, we ring Barry at Segou to confirm we will go to Dogon with him and the Americans on Saturday, and try unsuccessfully to cancel with Ali. Our phone seems to receive calls better than send. Other complication is guides have only intermittent service while they're in the Dogon, plus they all must buy the minimum amount of credit on their phone, so have to continually use someone elses when they run out. We've only given our phone number to two people,yet we continually get phone calls from all different numbers. Pretty noisy bunch of young women guests near us, but settle down for a reasonably quiet night, after requesting an extra blanket, but still grieving for the good room and beds at Djoliba.
Thursday 18 Jan - Mopti
Pretty noisy early, with roosters crowing, donkeys braying, and starting up of motorbikes outside our window, but no mosque. Washing is sort-of-dry.
Finally cancel with Ali, as he's extra two people have fallen through, and we don't want to be the only people on the tour. Out in the street by 7.30. It is a long march through some pretty ordinary streets, even going the short way to reach the river at the flash Kanaga Hotel, which we have a look at. From the riverfront can see interesting villages on the other side of the river, and various pinasses and pirogues. Continue walking towards the port, which is a hive of activity and extremely interesting. Pinasses for Timbuctou and other ports being loaded, and unloaded. See the slabs of salt

6. Salt tablets from Timbuctou -at Mopti port

that are brought by camel train to Timbuctou, and then loaded onto pinasses and brought here. Also great piles of firewood, gourds, dried fish, goats, chicken etc etc. Wonderful! Also see them heating drums of rice and water over fires.

7. Boiling rice to de-husk it - Mopti port

They are also laying it on the ground to dry, with everyone stepping on it.
Find Patisserie Dogon, which has been recommended, and have breakfast of pastries, and half of our papaya, which the owner lets us eat there. No doubt the left-overs will feed the goats in the courtyard (dirt, with all the rubbish swept but only to the sides, not picked up) which we see when we visit the courtyard.
Continue on to the end of the port area, where we cross a long, rickety bridge made out of timber covered with earth and straw. Pay 100 cfa toll (the going rate was 10cfa per trip, or 2c). Area now starting to become residential (if you can call mud huts "residential") so turn back, and go to Bar Bozo right on the point, with great views over all the port area. It's now nearly midday, and quite hot, so we spend a few hours here, watching all the tour groups arrive (at the same time) for their lunches, while we write the diary and read. Also watch pinaases fore Timbuctou being loaded

8. Mopti to Timbuctou pinasse

Also watch the men building the pinasses from large planks of hand-sawn timber. They were even making the nails they were using, forging them from steel rods.
Later we walk towards the Old Town, to see the classic Sahel-style mosque,

9. Mopti mosque

which was built in 1933, but is re-rendered with mud every year on the lower part.
Finally find a reasonably quiet seat (it's not easy in this town) to eat some of the second half of our papaya. Give the rest of it to a young boy who has been asking us for "cadeux" for ages. He shares it with half a dozen kids.
Back to the hotel, where we confirm a boat trip for tomorrow with Keita Abdoulaye (our rescuer from the bus last night) for 50,000 cfa for the whole day, including lunch. Also talk to Richard and Adam (the English blokes we met in Bamako) and Paul, the Scotsman we'd "talked" to on the internet (under the name "Timbuc2), and some other travellers who have been to the Festival of the Desert, and back by pinasse. Had some "interesting" tales.
Friday 19th January Mopti
Our guide is supposed to pick us up at 8.30am, but we get a phone call to say he'll be late. Finally arrives at 9.30, and we walk down to the river to get our boat. At this stage we realise there was one question we forget to ask - does our boat have a motor? It is quite cute, a pirogue with a man who poles it along, with a canopy and mats and a quilt. We can lounge in comfort, but there is no padding on the back rest, so it is only fair. Stretching across against the inclined planks of the hull works better .
We travel along the south bank, passing low mud islands with green grass on them. Pass a large tug from the colonial era, and enter the Niger proper, rather than the Bani River. There are both permanent village and temporary fishing accommodation shacks and hamlets along the bank, with some reed shelters right out on the flats. Lots of groups of women washing clothes and bodies in the river, not all that discretely. Men are mending or making nets. On the grassier flat there are large herds of Fulani owned cattle. Watch a large truck/taxibrousse cross on a steel ferry, with a big crowd of people, presumably passengers.
Go ashore at Tongorongo, a Bozo village which was well-known for its pottery

11. Woman potter - Mopti pirogue trip

and mosque.

13. Village mosque - Mopti pirogue trip

Shown a good viewing point for the mosque,

15. Village mosque Mopti pirogue trip

which involves scrambling up onto the roof from a buttress. Dianne has trouble stretching her leg up to the buttress, so they bring a pot that she can precariously stand on.

14. Dianne getting from roof -Mopti pirogue trip

Village is quite attractive, with rendered mudbrick buildings lining narrow alleyways.

12. Village roofs - Mopti pirogue trip

Come across men putting out a fire in a knot in a large tree, with a lot of people watching. Told that they were smoking out the bees to get honey.

16. Smoking the bees-Mopti pirogue trip

When we get back to the boat, lunch is ready - rice with a vegetable sauce, and fried fish, followed by watermelon. Very good. The local children enjoy the leftovers, and we wait around for a while till the poler is ready to go. By now it's very hot, even in the shade of the boat canopy. Guide has informed us that he has some clients waiting, and he can't come back with us, and will get a motorbike back instead. He leaves about 2pm, and it takes us another four and a half hours to pole back, stopping in one other village for a quick look.
We come to where the two rivers meet, on the outskirts of Mopti, but continue up the Niger till we reach a channel through the central island. Wait for a heavily loaded pinasse to pass through,

17. Pinasse in channel - Mopti

then we pole and paddle against the strong current into the Bani River, where we do a quick circuit of the port before being dropped at Bar Bozo. Now dark, so have a quick drink, and head home. A local guide accompanied us, wearing us down till we bought half a kilo of kola nuts, for the Dogon, for 2,000 cfa. These are to give as gifts for the village elders, or people we want to photograph (we also have to pay a fee for every village we stay in)
He also put the hard word on us to give him 2,000 cfa for a phone card, so he could ring a prospective client. When we declined, he was still pleasant to us. We really like the various guides, but we can't help them all, though they all have their various reasons for needing the work.
Back at hotel, sit with Richard, Adam and the group, while we eat and talk travel.
Saturday 20th January Mopti-Teli
Try to organise taxi to take us to bache station for Bandiagara, but can't so have to walk. Drag our bags along sand track to the tarred road at the river, where we joined by a "would be" guide. Not all bad as he shows us a side street

18. Home manufactured braziers

to the station, whereas we would have walked a great circle to get there. Only one person (an Italian) has bought a ticket, but despite some reservations (we don't want to have a ticket on a vehicle that doesn't leave first - we've had this happen before) we hand over 7,000 cfa for two tickets and our baggage (we suspect this is nearly double the going rate). A couple of hours later we are only one person short, so we pay for the empty seat when they ask us - for 2,000 cfa, which confirms what the correct price is. They try to put us in the small back seat of the three-seat Peugot, which they normally have three people in, but it is raised, and you get a good view of the roof, rather than the scenery, so we organise for Murray to sit in the front seat with the driver, and make the seat beside him the extra paid-for seat. Dianne hops into the middle seat with another three people. The person next to her is a BIG African, and the Italian man can't believe it when they say for him to hop in - there's no room at all. Eventually he manages to squeeze in, and they hold him while someone else manages to shut the door!
Can't believe what an easy trip we have. The road is very good, and we do the 75 kms in about an hour and a half. Met by various guides at Bandiagara, but no sign of Barry.
One of the locals, Hobibou Tembely, or "Baby" tells us that Barry left about 7.30 this morning with the Americans, and he'll take us. We ring Barry, and he talks with Baby. We don't know whether Barry is actually trekking, or whether he is still in Segou, but one thing is obvious - he's not here, and we won't be going with him. Now about midday, so we organise to go with Baby for 200,000 cfa for 4 days and three nights. He goes off to arrange some food, and we are taken to a hotel where we organise the gear we are taking, and leave the rest at the hotel. Then get a taxi 20 kms along a rough, dirt road to Djiguibombo, on the Bandiagara escarpment. Take some photos of vivid green fields of onions,

19. Onion patch on road to Dogon villages

surrounded by dry, cultivated landscape of terraces supported by rock slabs, with occasional trees.
Mali has various tribes, which maintain their traditions - the main ones we've come across so far are the Bozos (fishermen), Fulani (cattle herders), Tuareg (people of the desert), and the Dogon, who we're now about to visit. They are noted for their complex and elaborate culture, art forms and unique houses and granaries.
Have a look around Djiguibombo,

20. First village on Dogon trip -Djiguibombo

and take photos -of the meeting houses, that are organised to be too low for anyone to stand up in them, thus getting around the problem of heated argument; the graineries with their cute conical straw tops; the extended family wall with niches for each group within the family to put their fetishes, and a place at the side for sacrifices. The men have a storehouse, for millet, and each wife (some have up to four wives) has her own, divided into up to eight compartments. Also see the rooms where the women of the village spend the nights when they have their periods.
Also hear for the first time the very long greeting which is peculiar to this area.
1st person: Morning. How are you?
2nd person: Fine
1st person: Mum is fine?
2nd person: Fine
1st person: Father is fine?
2nd person: Fine
this goes on till all the family is covered, and sometimes half the village. Once this is over, can then actually have a conversation, and say that maybe they're not fine, and give details. Quite interesting the first few times, but by the end of the day they must be hoping they don't run into anyone they know!
It's now about 2pm in the heat of the day, and we start walking the 5km down to Kani Kombole. The last part is down a steep ravine, with stacked-rock stairs at strategic places. It opened out immediately into flat, plowed land with scattered baobob trees leading to the village not far away. Village was quite pretty, and there were quite a few tourists there, including the Americans, who recognised us from Segou, but obviously weren't expecting us to be there. Their guide also wasn't Barry, so that only increased the mystery. He's obviously lied to us, but to what degree we don't know. Didn't get a chance to tell them the story, so looks like the truth will remain a mystery. They started out early this morning, and have only made it this far, so they obviously would have been too slow for us anyway.
Have a look around the village, including another nice Sahel-style mosque,

21. Mosque at Kani-Kombole

and after a drink and a rest, ready to continue the 3km on to Teli. We're happy to walk, but Bebe thinks we won't make it before dark, so organises an ox-cart,

22. On oxcart at Kani-Kombole

which turns out to be marginally quicker, but only if the driver runs and just about pulls it the whole way.
Teli turns out to be a very ordinary village, and we go to a VERY ordinary campement where we are the only customer. A bit of a let-down after the previous village.
Go for a walk round the village,

23. Mosque at Teli

then read and do diary while we wait for dinner, which takes a while as first the chicken has to be killed, then cooked. End up with a good meal of couscous with chicken in a tomato and onion sauce.
Talk to Baby for quite a while. Surprised that there is a real class system in the Dogon, and they like to marry within their class. The classes are 1. Agricultural workers
2. Forest workers 3. Shoe and clothing workers 4. people who make indigo, and are considered the bad class.
It is OK for a Dogon to marry people from other tribes, EXCEPT Bozo, which they can't because of something that happened in the long-distant past.
Our room consists of four mud-brick walls, a dirt floor, and a door that partly covers the opening. Two light-cane bedframes are brought in, and a number of fairly new, thin foam mattresses, and one not-so new blanket. They hang our double mosquito net, and we use our torches, and a hurricane lamp, to see. Not expecting a good night's sleep, but we put a mattress across the join in the two beds, hop into our double silk sheet sleeper (thank heavens we brought it) and have a remarkably good night's sleep. Room is pretty soundproof, and don't even hear the mosque.
Sunday 21st January Teli-Begnimato
Up about 7am. Have breakfast, then climb part-way up the escarpment to where there are storehouses, and also the remains of Tellem dwellings and stores.

25. Teli - view from escarpment base

These people were here before the Dogon people, and it's a mystery as to how they accessed the cliffs - possibly it was more tropical then, and they used hanging vines. Good photos looking along the escarpment and out over the plains.

24. Family niche wall - Teli

See two tourists on an ox-cart - one looks Japanese, and one Anglo. We'd internetted with an Aussie couple, who were in Ireland, and who fitted this description, so asked if they were Aussies. When they said yes, we asked "Are you Cedric and Avril?" Their reply was "Yes, and are you Dianne & Murray?"

26. Chance meeting with Cedric and Avril

Stopped and chatted for a while. The internet really is an amazing thing!
Surprised by how much birdlife we see around here, particularly seeing quite a few little boys have catapults. Definitely FAR more than in Madagascar.
Continued walking the 4kms to Ende, which is quite a big, picturesque village.

28. Meeting house - Ende

Quite a few tourists there, and lots of cloth hanging in the alleyways waiting for tourists to buy. See the women dying the material with indigo,

27. Indigo woman - Ende

and get a demonstration from an old man of lighting gunpowder which they manufacture with charcoal and some imported ingredients.

29. Local gunpowder demonstration - Ende

The market is on here today, so decide to have lunch here, which will make for a long afternoon. Eat at a very pleasant campement where they have gone out of their way to make pleasant - even has nice toilets. Very different to where we spent last night.
Go out to the market about 1pm and spend an hour there. Quite good - mainly women selling veggies, especially lettuce.

31. Lettuces for sale at market - Ende

Some walk in from miles away.

30. Women coming into market from miles away

Start walking about 2pm to Yaba-Talu, the next village, which is 3.5 kilometres away. A very hot walk in the heat of the day. Have a short break, but then get going as we're told the next village, Doundouru, 2km away, is having a millet beer market which will finish about 5pm. When we get there, we're amazed at how good the market is. Much better than the one at Ende. The millet beer must have attracted all the men, particularly the older ones, who sit around drinking out of big calabashes.

32. Millet beer at Doundouru

Also an interesting meat barbeque,

33. Meat cook at Doundouru

with butchering of the goats taking place nearby. Other men selling tobacco, as well as women selling various vegetables, grains, nuts etc. Take lots of photos.

34. Market at Doundouru

35. Market colours - Doundouru

Our final 1.5 kms is up another ravine. Track is pretty easy to walk,

36. Woman with load on head, and baby -uphill

but goes up till we finally reach the top of the escarpment, passing some interesting outliers of rock, with an enormous rock just balancing on the top of it. Near the top we pass some attractive green onion fields.

37. Onion patch below Begnimato

The campement at the top is situated in a lovely place, on an enormous rock ledge, which has great views over the plains and along the escarpment. Has a really nice feel to it. Room is similar to last night. We order our dinner, and know the meat will once again be fresh, as the chicken is then killed and plucked, ready for cooking. The whole procedure takes nearly three hours. In the meantime once we have a short rest, we walk to the edge of the escarpment to watch the sunset. Spend the rest of the night reading and writing the diary.

38. Dianne and diary by torchlight-with audience

Meet Ali Guindo, the guide we were originally going to go with. He seems really good - once again, we've made the wrong decision as to which guide to take. Ours is certainly OK, but his English is not as good, and he doesn't appear to be as worldly.
Some sort of cultural show doesn't eventuate, but watch a bunch of children bed down on the rocks under a blanket, and another couple of children sleeping standing and leaning against their mother sleeping in one of the long chairs. When we do our midnight loo run, they have gone, presumably to their now-cool house. Interruptions in the night include a dog gnawing a bone, and the curtain door opening in the wind. Cure this with a security chair in the doorway.
Monday 22nd January Begnimato-Nombori
The morning bread/toast is getting progressively rougher, but still OK. MP continues to flirt with crook guts by having coffee. The loo is a hole in a floor suspended over a cess pool. The shower room has no door, and a bucket of cold water.
After breakfast, we are allocated a young boy to take us up to see the hunter, who has a wall full of old guns and arms, monkey skins, and does a pretty good job for his kola-nuts, dressing up in his traditional hunting jacket over a heart-foundation t-shirt, and strikes poses with his long gun.

39. The hunter - Begnimato

This is presumably a black powder weapon, using the powder we have seen being made in the market. Have also heard a few loud BOOOMS along the way, which we suspect is from similar guns. Have some confusion when we run out of camera battery, but get the shots ok. Walk on to the end of the escarpment to take photos of the cliffs and plain below.
Head out reasonably early, with the big bag entrusted to a porter. The trail led along a valley with cliffs each side, and a watercourse along the north side. Pass a new school built with foreign aid, and pass through onion fields being watered from walk-in wells, dug down as a slot to the water table some 5 or 6 metres below, with access down a rocky slope.

40. Walk-in well - Begnimato

Climbing out of the end of the valley, we are caught by the porter. He has a nasty gash on his knee, so DP gives him some antiseptic. It is lucky he catches up, as we need a new card for the camera.
We walk over high rocky ground,

40. Rocky outcrops at top of escarpment

with views of a large sandhill formation, and green fields in the distance, against the escarpment.
We don't know yet, but this is our destination, Nombouri. We drop into another of the long faults in the terrain, this one with a long, deep pool between the rock walls to the south, and a more open string of pools to the north, with weeds and waterlillies. We make our first stop for drinks at an un-named village, the Campement very nicely maintained, with raked ground and pretty flowers in the garden. Change is again a problem here, and we are running an account with BeBe.
The same fault we are walking leads to a substantial concrete dam set into the rock walls, about 10m high by 10m wide, The pool above disappears into the distance, but at least a couple of hundred metres.

41. Dam on escarpment

We then cross high, rock plains to Dourou, a mainly rock-built village, but still with mud granaries

42. Looking across to Dourou village

The campement is a two-story structure, with a brush roof, and a chaotic courtyard with batteries, solar cells, and accumulated junk on the roof, where we hole up for a while, then walk through the scattered section of the village,

43.Women working with Indigo - Dourou

which is split up by the 6 to 10m deep earth floored gullies typical of the area. It is still too early for the market, so back to the campement, having picked up BeBe's brother as a self-appointed guide , paying him 500. Have a very ordinary lunch of tinned peas, beans and a very nasty camp-pie type of tinned meat.
After BeBe finishes his sleep, he announces he has been talking to his friends from Europe, who have financed his father's attempt to develop agriculture. Suspect we have been short changed again, but are given another English-speaking guide, Ousmane Kamia, who seems pleasant enough, and has a genuine guide card, so cop it sweet, with BeBe promising to turn up at 2 tomorrow to pick us up.
Decide to start off early with our new guide, via the market, which is in full swing. Leave our bags pretty casually with a group of men under a shelter, then do the rounds, getting some photos,

47. Market - Dourou

but missing the millet beer photo, as they want cash, not kola-nuts.
Do the round of the village,

46. Family wall and granaries - Dourou

past the same sights, but get some good architecture shots.

45. Granaries - Dourou

The traverse of the high plain is pretty ordinary until we get into the ravines closer to the escarpment. There are a few women carrying head loads back from the market. Pass a woman resting beside a large bag of rice before the descent .
The descent is quite spectacular, through a slot in the escarpment wall

48. Slit in rock - the way to Nombori.

with a couple of central outliers, with views through down to the valley below. It was cool in the slot,

49. Looking through slit

and quite pleasant walking down, particularly with our guide carrying both daypacks.

50. the slit we climb through on way to Nombori

The village is placed in an angle between two arms of the escarpment, with the large sandhill completing the triangle. We approach across sandy ground, then through onion and "salad" fields either side of a dry watercourse.

51. Nombori- fields with escarpment in background

Our guide stops to buy some aubergines. These are green like a tomato, and he eats them like an apple. We find them less appetising.
The village is another rock-built one, located on the scree slope of large boulders below the cliffs, and blends into the landscape pretty well. The campement is near the bottom, with the compound stepped up the hill, and an L-shaped main building. The garden has a nice bougainvillea, and is quite attractive. There are two young Norwegian men, and the French girl with her guide/companion staying. We decide on the roof sleeping option, and rice and sauce meal with chicken. Settting up the roof takes a while, with black plastic, then 2 mattresses, then our mosquito net tied to stick, a chair, and a bougainvillea, but it ends up shipshape and mosquito proof. Talk to the Norwegians, and the ubiquitous Aly Guindo, who is their guide, then retire to our table for our meal when their meal of meat bought in the Dougou market, and beans arrives.
Our meal is pretty good, particularly the sauce, but we leave most of the chicken to our guide.
We keep requesting blankets until we get a thick wool one. We put one of our thin blankets on the mosquito net as a night radiation preventer, and kip down. It is pretty pleasant, but already a bit cool.

52. Our bed on roof in Nombori -early morning

The French girl chatters in the room below, and an amazing series of animal, bird and human noises, reflecting against the cliff wall keeps us awake for a while. The two mattresses are just sufficient, but after the midnight loo call, we get into the thermals, and just about beat the cold, till the night wind comes up, blowing our radiation cover off, and rustling the mosquito net.
Tuesday 23rd January      Nombori-Mopti
Survive till dawn, and up to photograph the sun coming up.
Breakfast is some sort of fried dumpling, tasty enough with the local honey, but a bit suspect, as made with local water. MP finally decides to give the coffee a miss, but it may be already too late.
The washing facility here is an open top alcove, with a dangerously "rocky" rock to stand on to keep the feet out of the dirty water. The loo is also open roofed,with a token curtain, but has a genuine throne, with the bottom knocked out to provide a direct drop. The seat cover is a sheet of cardboard, held down by a small Dogon carved wooden stool.
After breakfast we walk up through the village, to the base of the cliff, where we see the late Hogon's house, meet his widow, and take photos of the sacrificial mound, the Hogon's house, the village below, and the surrounding landscape.

53. Landscape around Nombori -note sandhills

We also find the resident tortoise, wedged into a hole in the floor of a shed. What we can see of the tortoise indicates it is about 70cm long, and 45 cm across. We are told tortoises can be used to detect spoiled or poisoned food. We give kola nuts to an old, blind woman, and take her photo.

54. Some kola nuts for old lady in Nombori

Decide to leave early and do the walk out of the heat of the day. For the section across the flat, we walk with some locals going to work in the fields, and they carry the pack for a fee from our guide. He carries the packs the rest of the way, and we don't object. Take a few breaks on the way up, but there is a breeze, and it isn't too bad. Meet a big group of European tourists at the start of the slot. Take more breaks on the way, and back through the gullies of Dourou without incident.
Get back to the campement at 11am, and try to contact BeBe for an earlier pickup without luck. Can possibly get a lift back with a 4x4, but don't want to pay twice, so settle down to wait.
Have a hard time convincing Ousmane we don't want lunch, forgetting that this is his lunch too.
The wait is relieved by the arrival of 4 Americans and their entourage in a 4x4. They are from Alabama, and quite entertaining. Are into souvenirs, and our guide ends up doing deals with them as an intermediary, buying a Dogon Mask, some carved wooden containers, and a walking stick. The oldest of the group, who has organised the trip, is a classic southern redneck.
At about 3, our 2 o'clock pickup arrives, BeBe free, but they are definitely looking for us. We bid Ousmane goodbye, promise to give BeBe a book for him, and set out in the same, clapped out Peugeot we arrived in, for a hot, rough trip to town. Interesting sight of women pounding onion leaves to make the balls of dried onion we have seen in the markets.
We are offered a trip to Mopti for 15000,on the way into Bandiagara, but opt to try our luck at the Gare Routiere.
Recover our bags at the hotel, can't find BeBe, so DP sets up in the hotel charging the Palm, while MP takes a walk to the Gare, and is intercepted by BeBe on a motorbike. He hustles around and finds a tourist 4x4 going empty to Mopti for only 2000 each. For some reason, there is an urgency about leaving, so get our gear together, leave half a bottle of drink, pay a third party, and into the 4x4, forgetting Ousmane's book.
Quiet, comfortable drive in a vehicle with seat belts, door linings, no cracks in the windscreen.
Pass some roadblocks without problem, stop to pick up a load of firewood and charcoal for the local girl passenger in the front, who is flirting with the driver.
Drop the girl and the fuel at her compound in Sevare, where she is welcomed by a large, friendly family. In Mopti, ask where the driver is going, hoping to get off at the closest point to our hotel. He is going to the Chateux?, but drops us off at our hotel front door.
Check in, make sure we get a room with chauffage, do our washing and tubbing, plug in the chargers, and sleep till 8.
We have asked at the reception how we go about arranging a group to charter a private 4x4. We are planning our note for the board when we are approached by a large African gentleman with a proposition to go to Timbuctou in a new 4x4, travelling in convoy backloading to Timbuctou. Sounds promising, but wants 100,000, which is far too much, as a private should cost about 150,000 return, including fuel, and a public should be 15k for the front seat, 12k for a middle seat, maybe 12k for a spare, say 39k all up. He asks us for an offer,we say 50, he 75, we try 55, settle for 60, with the car to turn up at 8am tomorrow for inspection, half money tomorrow, rest on arrival. A bit dear, but not too bad if we can write an ironclad contract.
Talk for a long while with a Moroccan/Australian from Melbourne, with his Korean wife, and an Austrian girl rockclimber. He has been teaching English in Korea, will be travelling for a long time. Finding Mali expensive, sleeping on the roof here at the Ya pa de Problemes for 3000 a night. Good washing drying night, a bit cool with no blanket.