Africa - Timbuktu - Part 1

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 1:38pm

Hi Friends,

Just a short note about my upcoming trip on Thursday. Today we went into Accra to get our visa and passport situation figured out. We caught the 3:00am STC bus and it was only 15 minutes late. We got there in about 2 hrs which was pretty quick. The Mali Embassy didn’t actually open till 9am but we wanted to make sure we were there early rather than late and we sure were. We got there about 6:30am and ended up sitting on the steps dozing off waiting for them to open. They eventually let us into the building where there were some chairs and couches and we proceeded to sleep some more. We had gotten up around 1am and were understandably tired and couldn’t really do anything but sleep. Someone turned a tv on while we were there and there were “Friends” reruns on which was pretty funny to me. I hadn’t seen any here yet and it was kinda fun.

Finally 9am arrived and we got our paperwork straightened out with the desperate hope it will be done early Thurs. so we can pick them up and go to the airport and catch our 2pm flight to Bamako. We should arrive in Bamako, the capital of Mali, around 7pm Thurs. where we will be met at the airport by a contact from the hotel we will be staying in in Timbuktu. This contact will take us to his place where we will stay the night with the family and then on Friday we will be given a tour of Bamako before we catch a flight to Timbuktu Sat. morning. There are no flights Fri. We will be met at the airport in Timbuktu by our contacts there who will take us to the Sahara Passion Hotel where we will stay for a few days before heading back. We plan to possibly do a rooftop stay for at least one night, meaning we sleep on the roof under the stars which may or may not be very cool.

We are hoping to do a camel trek to the sand dunes where we will stay the night under the stars at a Tuareg camp and then return in the morning. We may do that Sunday night. Not sure yet. Tues. we will hopefully fly back to Bamako, stay with the family again and then catch our flight to Accra early Wed. morning.

We are really excited and I can’t believe I’m actually going to Timbuktu!!! So cool!!! Lots to see I’m sure and I hope I’m able to take more photos there than I have here so far and also do some shopping. We’ll see what we can find. Anyways, just wanted to let you know. We may not have access to internet or the use of our phones so don’t worry if we aren’t in contact much. Just don’t know what to expect until we get there. Prayers are always welcome.