2 December 2005 - 09:42
Into Mali
Our six hour trip from Selibaby to Kayes got Africanized, turning into 30 hours by the time we finally reached our destination the following day.
Just an hour and a half outside of Selibaby, the driver decided he needed to fix something on the car…back in town (I still don’t understand why drivers don’t think of these things before they leave, but I think it’s probably related to the lack of understanding the concept of preventative maintenance). So he dropped everyone off with a promise to return in two hours (not possible, given the 3-hour driving time involved) and vague directions to a nearby Soninke village. We walked to the village to wait…and then sleep, when he didn’t show up…and then eat breakfast…and then wait some more…until he finally returned after lunch. As I’ve probably mentioned before, Mauritanians aren’t very proficient at estimating (especially in regards to time), keeping promises, or being on time for anything, so I wasn’t surprised that he showed up almost a full day later than he promised, just a little irritated. We finally continued our journey, which went without incident for a full hour before the engine started overheating. The radiator had a leak (sitting in the back, we could see the drops of water forming a trail behind us), so we stopped every time we passed a seasonal pond to fill the radiator. This went on for a couple hours, interspersed with stops for the driver to attempt to fix the leak by pouring first granulated laundry soap, and then cigarette tobacco, into the radiator, with little success, until we eventually stopped in a decent-sized village to repair it.
We finally reached our destination a full day late, four hours after the departure of the train (the last one until the weekend) that we had hoped to take to a lake where we were going to do some cliff-diving. So instead, we passed the night in Kayes and took a boat up-river the next day to Medine. In Medine, we visited an old French colonial fort, tower, and train station and hiked out to see waterfalls. We stayed the night at the home of the town’s super-friendly guide, and then caught a boat back to Kayes the next morning.
Heading straight to the garage from the boat, we snagged the last three places in an off-road bus – a semi-truck whose tractor-trailer had been converted into a 6x9 seating arrangement with each person allotted about 3/4s of the amount of space needed for a normal-sized person to sit with slight discomfort. Ten bone-rattling, sleepless hours later, we were in Bamako, a sprawling, modern-ish city with paved roads, restaurants, good food, tall buildings, lots of tourists, friendly people, huge markets, open sewers along the streets, parks and public artwork, and a blissfully low population of Moors.
But we weren’t in Mali for the city, even though it was really nice, so we caught an evening bus (a REAL bus, like a Greyhound, but a little banged up, and no AC) to Severe the next afternoon. In Mali, the transportation system is much more developed than in Mauritania, and it was really nice being relatively comfortable on the 12-hour trip. We caught a few hours of sleep in Severe, found a guide for Dogon country, and headed out to the part of Mali that friends and guidebooks alike have called “one of the most beautiful areas in West Africa.”
