Day 45 48 - Mali, Bandiagara - Christmas
Trip Start
Nov 09, 2008
1
35
163
Trip End
Jul 02, 2009
Bandiagara,
Mali
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Rach and I chat about how pretty Regent Street would be. All the people bustling along under umbrellas dressed in hats, scarves, gloves and beautiful winter jackets. Mulled wine and winter Pimms. Ice skating in Hyde Park, Tower of London or various others places. Christmas parties and oh its just so wonderful this time of year... even in you are in a two horse town with slow internet connection and ridiculously expensive Pringles.
So yes back in good ole Bandiagara after the Dogon Trek. Think we arrived around 3.30pm. Was good to be back and see those who didn't come, especially of course Oliver.
Very busy few days with Jamie's birthday, Kiwi Mike's on 24th, then of course Christmas. Jamie's milestone of reaching the grand ¼ century age of 25 was carried out in style... or rather he was carried out in style after drinking copious amounts of alcohol and joining Jay in bulldog antics and other non mentionable drunkenness which doesn't quite add up to Jamie's entry in the truck diary being "... for sure Jamie didn't puke and didn't get naked. It was, instead, a civilised evening of light banter and intelligent discussion." Of course it was! Oh and I have to mention Clara's wonderful chocolate marble cake cooked on a camp fire. Good effort love, delish.
Kiwi Mike, having not previously joined in on the drinking binges, surprised everyone by downing an astonishing amount of alcohol, including a lethal birthday pint concoction, whilst still making perfect sense and remaining vertical. What can I say, the man's a machine. We started first down at the swimming pool enjoying a lazy afternoon with beers in hand then continued into the night back at camp.
Beer pong was bought out only to be outdone by Kristy's introduction of flipcup. A truly magnificent drinking game which resulted in a merry combination of the other truck and us. The winning teams varied but the best by far was when the girls kicked the boys butts. Woo hooo... better get practicing lads!!
After a trip into town and walking part the way home after thinking being left there, Jamie, Suzy and I were picked up by the hotel ute. Turns out they had headed off to collect our Christmas lunch... which was now laying in the back with their throats freshly slit, flies taking the opportunity to deposit maggots where they could. Hmmm tasty. They would later be seen hanging from a tree skinned and gutted.
With everyone enjoying Christmas Eve and Mike's Birthday the night resulted in myself and Rachel sitting outside Suzy and Sam's room singing In the Jungle and other epic Lion King classics in the hope of getting Suzy out of bed to come play. Needless to say we were most thrilled to hear Sam's say "Would you just get up and go" before the door opened and Suze scurried out to join us in a few more drinks and some lovely drunken flower photos. Most hilarious end to a bloody good night.
As is always the case a good night is followed by a not so good day and I felt awful! Actually to begin with I felt fine, possibly even still drunk but as the day wore on so did my hangover. Christmas started out by Suzy waking me up at 6:50 to come and cook breakfast.... why on earth I agreed to such a thing I have no idea. So making the most of the last 10 minutes I eventually hauled butt out of bed and joined her in the prepping of a most scrumptious Chrissy breakfast of hashbrowns, beans, roasted tomatoes, eggs to order and bread.
With last people served near 9.30 we were greeted by Santa and his/her friendly little transvestite helper. Sitting around our Christmas tree it was onto the presents and the lovely stockings filled with sweets we each received from Jay, Kate and Oasis. Thank you!! Kate and Jay got a mass amount of goodies as they so deserve... Kate even being reunited with her beloved scarf from Fes which she lost in Todra Gorge. Turns out Kelvin and Ania had been walking behind us and picked it up. She was thrilled.
Also she had completed the chocolate challenge Lindsay had set a month ago... no chocolate till Christmas and she had done it. I had been storing a Toblerone for her so at midnight Christmas eve it was snuck into her mozzie tent. Having a sixth sense about these things she woke at 00:25 to see it staring sweetly at her so of course she ate it and went back to sleep blissfully happy.
Another thing also achieved was Merry Moustache. The boys having looked like various porn stars or serial killers for the past month. After the obligatory group photos were taken they were hurried off to the bathroom by respective wives and girlfriends with razors in hand.
At 11 we had secret santa with a twist... name is called out of hat, you choose a present but don't open it. The next person picked chooses a present then has the choice to either steal someone else's or keep what they have. This goes on until everyone has one. Was funny to see people lose presents they wanted such as a priceless 6 pack of coke which Jay lucked out on just at the last minute.
Oliver spoke to his family early in the morning and I after secret santa. Was great to hear everyone's voices despite reception not being the best. Funny being in the same time zone as London but being boiling hot. Shame they didn't get a white Christmas, really thought it was on the cards this year.
The rest of Christmas day I spent laying in bed (our first upgrade since starting the trip!) trying to get over my hangover. Somewhere on site the three little pigs were gutted and shaved - someone commenting on how funny it was to see a pig being shaved with a BIC razor. Two were then chopped up and BBQ'd the other put on a spit roast.
By the time I rose late afternoon I was met by a hive of activity. A table for 50+ was decked out in pretty pink either to match the bougainvillea or as sheer coincidence. Salads were being tossed, pots bubbled over the fire, veggies roasted under a turning pig and carols blared from speakers. Things were now beginning to feel like Christmas.
Armed with a bloody mary I tried to join the festivities but soon gave in and switched to fanta. Dinner was superb. We thought there was a lot of food when one pig had been chopped up but then 5 more people rounded the corner carrying massive trays full of yet more meat. Somehow I don't think we were going to starve and we didn't . Even after everyone had seconds and thirds it still looked relatively untouched.
After rinsing, soaking and scraping pots and pans the drunkenness continued with Roxanne drinking game followed by song after song of Roxette. Turns out the other truck are somewhat obsessed by the late 80's band, so much so they even have a Roxette appreciation fan club. Rather funny to begin with but after about the tenth time of hearing Joyride or Fading Like a Flower both Oliver and I decided to call it a night and were in bed by 9pm!
Boxing day was fabulous - no hangover, nowhere to go and no need to get out of bed. Except for Oliver who during the night had come down with an awful pootomouth bug. Now just to clarify things pootomouth was a term adopted by everyone after the induction talk given by a doctor about getting the runs, vomiting kinda bug from basically not washing your hands and passing things to food, water, cutlery etc etc so if someone is feeling bad we term it - they have pootomouth. Or if something is really disgusting like the swimming pools we've been swimming in... before diving in we look at it and suss out the pootopool ratio and how likely we are at getting sick.
So as it turns out 5 people from the other truck and about an equal number from ours had come down with poo to mouth over night... hmmm not good. Main common factor... pig. Thankfully, unlike Oliver, I put vegetables on my plate and little pork so I was okay. He however wasn't able to leave the room for the whole entire day and night for fear of being too far from a toilet. Thank god we had decided to upgrade!
Boxing day was a pretty non event anyway with everyone off doing their own thing... some at the pool eating cheese sandwiches. You may note that I seem to go on about cheese sandwiches, this is because real cheese, like hard cheese, is a rarity out here. Laughing Cow a plenty but proper cheese... you just don't see it. Others were in town trying to convince the internet to speed up, those who upgraded were in rooms doing whatever. Martin stuck in the same situation as I with his wife Sarah being part of the epidemic.
I said to Oliver it was lucky the rooms had attached outside bathrooms... he said not really as it just echoed his musical talents across the campground. Hahaaa.
Things got progressively worse having learnt South Africa kicked Australia's butt in the cricket and in Perth of all places. So not impressed. The two Saffers were loving it of course. We had a bit of a boxing day test ourselves but unfortunately I was too busy pulling down the tent and getting ready for our departure tomorrow to join in. I'll just have to wait to a later date to bowl the boys out.
