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Across the border
Entry 22 of 25 | show all | print this entry |
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....
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