Dear Friends,
Hello again. Its been a long time and there is a lot to tell you about so find a comfortable place to sit, grab some popcorn or drinks or whatever and lets take a trip to Timbuktu, or, as the French call it, Tombouctou. (I decided to do a couple parts to break it up some. Next one will be up shortly.)
Wed. morning around 6am Abby and I grabbed our bags and left campus for the bus station/gas station/night club that is about a 15min walk away from the hall. It was still somewhat cool at 6am. When we got there we found out the bus was full so we took a taxi to the Ford station which is a little further in town where we figured we could find a ride fairly quickly. The Ford station is just in the parking lot of another gas station. They are vans that are in good condition and have a/c for a good price. We got in line and left around 7:15 am when the next one came. Not too bad. We headed into Accra to get our passports from the Malian Embassy where we had taken them to get our visas. It was great to get there and just walk in, get the passports and head to the airport. One never knows when or if there will be a delay on anything here so it was a huge relief that it was ready to go. From there we took a taxi to the airport and got there in plenty of time for our flight. Again, we were very happy to have gotten this far without too much trouble. The airports have a/c so that is always a welcome relief from the heat. I actually got quite cold before the plane came for us to board. Still, no complaints about that. We had some fries while we were waiting for our flight which didn’t leave till close to 4pm. I thought it was scheduled for 2pm but things are always subject to change and delays or cancellations here. We ended up having plenty of time before the flight so we just hung out enjoying the a/c.
When we went to board the plane they loaded us on a shuttle bus and drove us about 100 yds to the plane where we got off and climbed the stairs to the plane. We thought that was pretty funny. We could have walked to the stairway by the time it took them to load us up and drive us that short distance. Ah well, it was no big deal, just amusing. It was a smaller plane holding maybe 100 people. We lifted off and flew straight out over the ocean, making me wonder where exactly we were going until they turned to the right and flew along the coast. We stopped in Liberia and then went on to Bamako, Mali. Out my window to the East there was a huge lightning storm as we were flying from Liberia. It was incredible to watch and slightly concerning. I’ve never seen the sky lit up so much from lightning. It filled the sky as far as I could see to the left and right out my little window and lasted about an hour until it either subsided or we passed it. The sunset at the same time out Abby’s window on the other side of the plane was incredible, too. Beautiful deep oranges and pinks!! Just beautiful!! I haven’t seen too many sunsets like we get at home since I’ve been here. I miss seeing those. The sun sets pretty quickly without much fuss, sadly.
Bamako is the capital of Mali and large city with several million residents I believe. We got there around 8 or 9pm, can’t remember, maybe later. It felt pretty late. We were met at the airport by Gorel, our contact, who drove us about 15-20mins in his Land Rover type vehicle to his place in town. He is a Malian, maybe in his 40’s, married with I think 4 children. It was dark out, of course, but seeing a little of the city was interesting. It looked a lot like Ghana but somehow felt more modern or developed or something. The streets weren’t crowded with vendors and garbage and stalls as much and traffic was light. There were functioning street lights lighting up the nicely paved roads. Course, some of that could have been due to the time of day. Still, it felt a bit different and it was a nice change. Gorel’s home is down a narrow dusty uneven dirt road and is enclosed inside a wall with a large metal gate. Many of the nicer places here are walled-in compounds which is nice and gives you a good sense of security, though I‘ve never felt in danger from someone here. There was a paved courtyard with octagon-shaped stones for the pavement. The kitchen was in a small building off the main building that was under some construction. They are apparently adding another apartment area above the kitchen and out over part of the courtyard so future guests have their own space. Pretty cool. The houses are built of stone and cement bricks and they don’t have much color other than various shades of tan. The windows often consist of some sort of metal bars in nice designs over them and certainly don’t have glass on them. They usually will have curtains hanging inside though. The metal grates over the windows come in lots of designs, as you might see in some of the photos, and this is similar to Ghanaian windows, too.
When we got there they had supper ready for us. It was spaghetti and then rice and sauce with French bread. The spaghetti was really good and a nice change. We were really tired but the night wasn’t over yet. Gorel goes salsa dancing Thursday nights from about 9pm to midnight apparently and he asked if we wanted to go. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to sleep!! But we decided to go with him. Not to dance, just to see a little of the night life. He drove us for about ½ hr through town to the night club where he goes dancing. It was a really cool place and it was packed. There was a bar in the middle of the place with all kinds of seating around and then a smallish dance floor on the other end of the bar area. There were several people out dancing and he grabbed a partner and was on the floor soon after introducing us to a couple friends. We sat and watched trying not to fall asleep. The people were a variety of nationalities and ages. It was fun watching the people and seeing them dancing. I was more focused on trying adjust to the stifling dry heat of Mali and not falling asleep to care much after awhile. I certainly haven’t seen anyone salsa dancing here, though I admit I’m not one for the nightlife here. The people were very friendly but not pushy and were just doing their thing, not minding us much. Kind of a nice change. Gorel got Abby out on the dance floor once. Abby likes to dance but doesn’t know how to salsa but had fun anyway. There was no way I was going out there!! These people know how to salsa!! And I don’t. We were so tired and wanted to leave. We went out with him on the condition we would leave at 11:30pm. Should have known that wasn’t gonna happen. It was around midnight before we left, slightly irritated that we had to ask to leave, and didn’t get back to the house for another ½ hr. Then trying to sleep was another challenge. They put us in a room in the house which was entirely too hot for sleeping. The fan barely ran and there was no ventilation to move the hot air around. We tried sleeping on the queen size bed without touching anything. It was a very difficult thing, trying to sleep when you are that hot and uncomfortable. I got some sleep but not much.
The next morning we got up around 7am, had some breakfast of bread with honey or cheese if you wanted. They often drink this Milo drink which is kind of like a powder you mix with hot water, powdered milk and sugar as you like. Its supposed to have some protein and such in it. I find it odd to drink for breakfast as I’m not in the habit of drinking hot chocolate type drinks for breakfast. Still, you take what you are offered here cuz you never know when you might get something else. We were planning on doing some sightseeing after getting our flight taken care of and finding an atm that might work. We found an atm and Abby was able to get some money but my stupid MasterCard rarely works here, even in Ghana. Thankfully, there is one bank in Ghana that has a branch right by our dorm where it works. No such luck in Mali. What a frustrating thing since I hadn’t brought too much money with me and the money I brought was in Ghana cedis. We got that exchanged but it wasn’t much. We thought we’d have more time that day to find more banks to try so we weren’t too worried about it.
We went to the travel agency where they had made flight reservations for us to get to Timbuktu from Bamako but, of course, when we got there, the reservations were not . . . well . . . reserved or something. Not sure why they hadn’t kept the reservations for us but they hadn’t. Not a hopeful start to the day. They weren’t able to get us on the flight but said we could go to the airport when the flight was scheduled and see if anyone didn’t show up. Hmm. Not exactly a good plan in my mind since we weren’t likely to get on the flight and would have wasted time waiting for it when we could have been doing something productive. So we decided we would take the bus that day, Friday, and not bother with trying to get on the flight. That left us with only a couple hours rather than the whole day we had tentatively planned. If we hadn’t left until Sat. morning we were going to take a short tour around Bamako and see some sights, maybe do some shopping, go to a museum and see the Niger river which runs through Bamako. I can’t say I was disappointed to miss the museum but it would have been nice to some of Bamako. However, we were glad to be on our way to Timbuktu, at least until we got on the bus.
We sat at the ‘station’/parking lot waiting for the bus for an hour or more and we were only ½ hr late heading out. It took a great deal of maneuvering to get everyone’s luggage and such loaded onto the bus. Not sure how they got it all on or if they did but we finally left. The bus was similar to an STC bus that we are used to riding, like what I imagine a shabby Greyhound bus might be like, though I’ve never been on a Greyhound bus before. They are nicer than the deathtraps that are the trotros usually. This one was nicer, too, but there was no a/c and hardly any ventilation or windows that could be opened. This was not looking good. It was at least a 13 hr ride and the thought of sitting on this suffocating bus with 50+/- other people was less than unpleasant. We had no idea how bad it would be until the end of the trip. Mali is much hotter than Ghana and is a dry heat which seems to make us much thirstier than we usually are. It can get up to 110degrees F in Mali and I think it was in the hundreds when we were there. At least, it sure felt like it. Complete misery for me. Made me question why on earth I thought this was a good idea. I think I’m still pondering that . . .
So we set off, oblivious to our impending misery. We soon realized why it takes 13hrs to get to Douenza, the stop we needed where we would meet a driver to take us the rest of the way to Timbuktu. They were stopping at least 1x every half hour and sometimes more often to pick people up, drop them off, and who knows what else. Ok. Fine. If you have to then whatever. But the problem was they seemed to think every stop was an opportunity to get off and buy food or ‘visit the bush,’ which can also be called ‘sending a fax’ or just to stretch. Ok. I get that. I got some water and snacks on one or two occasions but NOT EVERY TIME THEY STOPPED!!!! No one needs to be eating that much food!!! Every time they stopped it would be for 10 minutes or more. Oh the madness of it all!! I wish I had counted how many times we stopped on that wretched journey. Actually, its probly best I didn’t. We couldn’t have known how it would go so we just dealt with it by trying not to go completely insane.
The vendors were selling many things from water and drinks to fruit like papaya and apples and such to varieties of breads, ‘biscuits’ or cookies to yams and sometimes souvenirs like fans. If it was a shorter stop they would come on the bus and sell their stuff. Of course, when they saw us with our white skin they thought we needed at least 12 of everything when in reality we didn’t want any most of the time. Water was a necessity and we stocked up on that when we needed to.
The people on the bus were fairly friendly, with a few exceptions. Did I mention they speak French in Mali?? Oh yes. Not many English speakers, we found. I knew it was going in but I thought there’d be more people who spoke English at least passably. Nope. I got to use my poorly remembered French which was actually kind of fun at times, trying to see how much I could understand and how much I could speak. I did ok. Abby doesn’t know any French so it was on me to try and communicate with our contacts who didn’t know English. It was quite a challenge but part of the trip I actually enjoyed some. On the way there we talked some with a few of the people on the bus, just small conversations as that was all we could manage between my limited French and their limited English. We were the only white people not surprisingly. Tourist season seems to be when its cooler there which is from November to January I think. Many of the people were dressed in head scarves or wraps and traditional clothing like long smocks on some of the men, what you picture for Muslim people I guess. But there were also people dressed in Western style clothing. Not all the women wore scarves like Muslims do but more in the African style which is quite common even in Ghana.
Side note. I have discovered that here they refer to white people as anyone who is not African which includes Asians, Native Americans, Italians, Arabs, and anyone else that we might categorize differently, basically anyone with lighter skin than Africans. I was surprised by that. Just an interesting side note.
On and on the bus ride went. We tried sleeping which was generally an exercise in futility due to our discomfort and on my part, due to the kid/teenager who kept poking me. Let me tell you how happy that made me. This guy, a young Arab man, was at the bus stop with us and we knew he was talking with his friends about us as they were not very subtle about it. Subtlety here is not a concept many people grasp. Anyways, we weren’t too bothered by it until I was sitting on the aisle seat trying to sleep and this kid who was sitting a row back to my left would poke me. Oohh I got mad!! I told him to stop more than once but obviously he didn’t understand me or didn’t care enough to stop. How rude!! I mean seriously, who does that??? You aren’t a 5 year old child!! He must have finally fell asleep himself because it stopped. I didn’t get sleep after though. Too uncomfortable. On the bus, people just through garbage of all kinds on the floor - bottles, banana peals, biscuit wrappers, eggshells, spit. You name it, it was on that floor. And you thought the floors in movie theaters were bad. Wow!! So gross. Plus, because there was no room for our backpacks, we had them either on the floor in front of us leaving us little leg room or in the aisle for people to trip over or use as a footrest. I didn’t even think about having them cram my bag in the luggage bay at the bottom of the bus. No way!!
We left at 1:30pm from Bamako and got to Douenza at 2:30am. One of the guys we talked small small with, Mustaf, was very nice and helpful. At one point during the heat of the day, one of the vendors was selling these fans made from maybe palm leaves or something, not sure what its called or made from really, we wanted to know how much it was and he ended up buying 4! Two for us, one for him and one for the guy sitting next to him. That was so nice!! It couldn’t have been very much but it was a nice gesture. When we got to Douenza and met our driver, he made sure to check and see that we were ok and this was the right guy. I certainly appreciated that. Don’t worry, Mom, we knew the whole time what the plan was. Our driver was a young guy, MC, and he called the hotel where we were going just to verify that he was in fact the guy who was going to take us to Timbuktu. How would we have known who this guy was and where he was going to take us? Even after talking to Shindouk and him reassuring us in broken English and French that this was the guy and it was ok to go with him. Hmmmm…. At 2:30am I was just glad to be off that awful bus for a while and be able to have some ventilation for a while. Goodbye miserable bus and rude kid poking me half the time!!
We climbed into the land rover type vehicle and set off over the sand dunes toward Timbuktu. I was so tired and just wanted to sleep finally. The ‘road’, if you can call it that, was rather . . . umm . . . well . . . more of a part time road I’d say. Part of the way it looked like a road that was kind of like a paved road and part of the time, the larger part, it was more like a pothole or multiple potholes and lack of pavement. When the road was impassable we drove off road through the sand which was nicer actually as the sand is much less jarring than torn up roads. I figured my brothers who like to go Jeeping would have had a grand time on such a trip. Somehow I was able to sleep some between the jarring and jostling and the suffocating heat and dust. Abby sat up front for part of the trip. By the time the sun was coming up or it was just getting light I gave up fighting for sleep. It was another useless attempt at this point. The dust was so thick and suffocating. I tried using my scarf to cover my mouth and nose as much as possible to keep out some of the dust. That helped a little. The car and everything in it including each of us were covered in a not thin layer of reddish dirt/sand mix by the time we arrived. I don’t recall ever being that dirty in any recent memory.
It was mesmerizing watching the driver navigate the ‘roads’/dunes. He would drive really fast when he could and then slowed way down when we came to potholes or missing parts of the road. He’d make split-second decisions about which way to go to avoid a huge impact with the hole in the road. Left or right? Quick! And he’d choose and we’d climb the sand dunes on whichever side he chose. There were usually paths through the sand and brush where others had made a path but not always. I was very impressed with the driver and how he managed that vehicle and the trip. I suppose he is used to it so its nothing but still, its impressive. There were shrubs and trees and baobab trees which I find particularly creepy and disturbing and ugly and yet fascinating somehow. They remind me of a creepy tree in the movie “Fern Gully,” and I don’t like them. They are rather strange if you’ve never seen them. There were goats and sheep, taller and skinnier than the ones I’m used to in Ghana, eating leaves from shrubs and lower trees. Being taller they were able to almost stand on their hind legs to reach higher branches with leaves on them. Interesting. There were camels, too, and cattle and donkeys. Oh, the donkeys are so funny. They couldn’t care less how large of a vehicle you are driving nor how fast you are going, they just stand there in the road, not moving, not looking directly at you, just sort of spaced out it seems. So funny. Why are they inclined to risk their lives in such a way. They were all along the trip and the same in Timbuktu. They just crack me up, they way they stand or lay directly in the middle of the road and aren’t bothered by anything. I’m pretty sure I’d get out of the way if I saw a large object barreling toward me at a high speed. In fact, I do that regularly in Ghana. They have no regard for pedestrians and will run you down right quick.
So we drove on, going around donkeys and potholes, slowing down for cattle crossing the road, watching the sun come up slowly. The sunrise was not spectacular in display, sadly. It just sorta came up and it just got warmer and pretty soon hot. When we were getting close to Timbuktu we had to take a small ferry, kinda like the one at Keller Ferry, to cross the Niger River. It is really low right now and only took about 5-10 minutes to cross. I guess it can take a really long time when the river level is up. This is not tourist season so we were certainly noticeable.
Despite our inability to be inconspicuous because of our skin and hair color, people here in Mali seemed to be less intrusive and offensive with their attention for the most part. They didn’t mind staring and probly talking and pointing but that was about it. In Ghana, they do that and then try talking to you and are very pushy about stuff. Here, they just seemed to be like, “Hmmm. White people. Ok. Cool/Nice/Blast it (or any number of other reactions)!! Meh . . I’ve got groceries to buy,” and then went on their way. We were nothing special and not worth their time to bother it seemed which was a welcome change and a relief. In Ghana, its more like, “OBRUNIS!!!! Come! COME!!! Give me all your money and let me cheat you out of any that I can and then ask for more!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE NOT RELATED TO BILL GATES???? Are you or are you not a walking dollar sign?? Yes, we think you are,” and they don’t let up until you walk away and even then sometimes they keep at it. Well, that’s what it feels like anyway. They are much more pushy in your face here. So in that respect, Mali was a nice change. Even the kids who were begging in Mali didn’t put much effort into bothering you. If you said no or shooed them away they would go. That is not the way it is in Ghana. Even shopping in Mali was more relaxed as prices seemed to be more set and not so much up for negotion for every little thing. Such a relief!! I still am not a fan of having to bargain for everything from souvenirs to food to toilet paper. Just give me a fair price please.
Hello again. Its been a long time and there is a lot to tell you about so find a comfortable place to sit, grab some popcorn or drinks or whatever and lets take a trip to Timbuktu, or, as the French call it, Tombouctou. (I decided to do a couple parts to break it up some. Next one will be up shortly.)
Wed. morning around 6am Abby and I grabbed our bags and left campus for the bus station/gas station/night club that is about a 15min walk away from the hall. It was still somewhat cool at 6am. When we got there we found out the bus was full so we took a taxi to the Ford station which is a little further in town where we figured we could find a ride fairly quickly. The Ford station is just in the parking lot of another gas station. They are vans that are in good condition and have a/c for a good price. We got in line and left around 7:15 am when the next one came. Not too bad. We headed into Accra to get our passports from the Malian Embassy where we had taken them to get our visas. It was great to get there and just walk in, get the passports and head to the airport. One never knows when or if there will be a delay on anything here so it was a huge relief that it was ready to go. From there we took a taxi to the airport and got there in plenty of time for our flight. Again, we were very happy to have gotten this far without too much trouble. The airports have a/c so that is always a welcome relief from the heat. I actually got quite cold before the plane came for us to board. Still, no complaints about that. We had some fries while we were waiting for our flight which didn’t leave till close to 4pm. I thought it was scheduled for 2pm but things are always subject to change and delays or cancellations here. We ended up having plenty of time before the flight so we just hung out enjoying the a/c.
When we went to board the plane they loaded us on a shuttle bus and drove us about 100 yds to the plane where we got off and climbed the stairs to the plane. We thought that was pretty funny. We could have walked to the stairway by the time it took them to load us up and drive us that short distance. Ah well, it was no big deal, just amusing. It was a smaller plane holding maybe 100 people. We lifted off and flew straight out over the ocean, making me wonder where exactly we were going until they turned to the right and flew along the coast. We stopped in Liberia and then went on to Bamako, Mali. Out my window to the East there was a huge lightning storm as we were flying from Liberia. It was incredible to watch and slightly concerning. I’ve never seen the sky lit up so much from lightning. It filled the sky as far as I could see to the left and right out my little window and lasted about an hour until it either subsided or we passed it. The sunset at the same time out Abby’s window on the other side of the plane was incredible, too. Beautiful deep oranges and pinks!! Just beautiful!! I haven’t seen too many sunsets like we get at home since I’ve been here. I miss seeing those. The sun sets pretty quickly without much fuss, sadly.
Bamako is the capital of Mali and large city with several million residents I believe. We got there around 8 or 9pm, can’t remember, maybe later. It felt pretty late. We were met at the airport by Gorel, our contact, who drove us about 15-20mins in his Land Rover type vehicle to his place in town. He is a Malian, maybe in his 40’s, married with I think 4 children. It was dark out, of course, but seeing a little of the city was interesting. It looked a lot like Ghana but somehow felt more modern or developed or something. The streets weren’t crowded with vendors and garbage and stalls as much and traffic was light. There were functioning street lights lighting up the nicely paved roads. Course, some of that could have been due to the time of day. Still, it felt a bit different and it was a nice change. Gorel’s home is down a narrow dusty uneven dirt road and is enclosed inside a wall with a large metal gate. Many of the nicer places here are walled-in compounds which is nice and gives you a good sense of security, though I‘ve never felt in danger from someone here. There was a paved courtyard with octagon-shaped stones for the pavement. The kitchen was in a small building off the main building that was under some construction. They are apparently adding another apartment area above the kitchen and out over part of the courtyard so future guests have their own space. Pretty cool. The houses are built of stone and cement bricks and they don’t have much color other than various shades of tan. The windows often consist of some sort of metal bars in nice designs over them and certainly don’t have glass on them. They usually will have curtains hanging inside though. The metal grates over the windows come in lots of designs, as you might see in some of the photos, and this is similar to Ghanaian windows, too.
When we got there they had supper ready for us. It was spaghetti and then rice and sauce with French bread. The spaghetti was really good and a nice change. We were really tired but the night wasn’t over yet. Gorel goes salsa dancing Thursday nights from about 9pm to midnight apparently and he asked if we wanted to go. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to sleep!! But we decided to go with him. Not to dance, just to see a little of the night life. He drove us for about ½ hr through town to the night club where he goes dancing. It was a really cool place and it was packed. There was a bar in the middle of the place with all kinds of seating around and then a smallish dance floor on the other end of the bar area. There were several people out dancing and he grabbed a partner and was on the floor soon after introducing us to a couple friends. We sat and watched trying not to fall asleep. The people were a variety of nationalities and ages. It was fun watching the people and seeing them dancing. I was more focused on trying adjust to the stifling dry heat of Mali and not falling asleep to care much after awhile. I certainly haven’t seen anyone salsa dancing here, though I admit I’m not one for the nightlife here. The people were very friendly but not pushy and were just doing their thing, not minding us much. Kind of a nice change. Gorel got Abby out on the dance floor once. Abby likes to dance but doesn’t know how to salsa but had fun anyway. There was no way I was going out there!! These people know how to salsa!! And I don’t. We were so tired and wanted to leave. We went out with him on the condition we would leave at 11:30pm. Should have known that wasn’t gonna happen. It was around midnight before we left, slightly irritated that we had to ask to leave, and didn’t get back to the house for another ½ hr. Then trying to sleep was another challenge. They put us in a room in the house which was entirely too hot for sleeping. The fan barely ran and there was no ventilation to move the hot air around. We tried sleeping on the queen size bed without touching anything. It was a very difficult thing, trying to sleep when you are that hot and uncomfortable. I got some sleep but not much.
The next morning we got up around 7am, had some breakfast of bread with honey or cheese if you wanted. They often drink this Milo drink which is kind of like a powder you mix with hot water, powdered milk and sugar as you like. Its supposed to have some protein and such in it. I find it odd to drink for breakfast as I’m not in the habit of drinking hot chocolate type drinks for breakfast. Still, you take what you are offered here cuz you never know when you might get something else. We were planning on doing some sightseeing after getting our flight taken care of and finding an atm that might work. We found an atm and Abby was able to get some money but my stupid MasterCard rarely works here, even in Ghana. Thankfully, there is one bank in Ghana that has a branch right by our dorm where it works. No such luck in Mali. What a frustrating thing since I hadn’t brought too much money with me and the money I brought was in Ghana cedis. We got that exchanged but it wasn’t much. We thought we’d have more time that day to find more banks to try so we weren’t too worried about it.
We went to the travel agency where they had made flight reservations for us to get to Timbuktu from Bamako but, of course, when we got there, the reservations were not . . . well . . . reserved or something. Not sure why they hadn’t kept the reservations for us but they hadn’t. Not a hopeful start to the day. They weren’t able to get us on the flight but said we could go to the airport when the flight was scheduled and see if anyone didn’t show up. Hmm. Not exactly a good plan in my mind since we weren’t likely to get on the flight and would have wasted time waiting for it when we could have been doing something productive. So we decided we would take the bus that day, Friday, and not bother with trying to get on the flight. That left us with only a couple hours rather than the whole day we had tentatively planned. If we hadn’t left until Sat. morning we were going to take a short tour around Bamako and see some sights, maybe do some shopping, go to a museum and see the Niger river which runs through Bamako. I can’t say I was disappointed to miss the museum but it would have been nice to some of Bamako. However, we were glad to be on our way to Timbuktu, at least until we got on the bus.
We sat at the ‘station’/parking lot waiting for the bus for an hour or more and we were only ½ hr late heading out. It took a great deal of maneuvering to get everyone’s luggage and such loaded onto the bus. Not sure how they got it all on or if they did but we finally left. The bus was similar to an STC bus that we are used to riding, like what I imagine a shabby Greyhound bus might be like, though I’ve never been on a Greyhound bus before. They are nicer than the deathtraps that are the trotros usually. This one was nicer, too, but there was no a/c and hardly any ventilation or windows that could be opened. This was not looking good. It was at least a 13 hr ride and the thought of sitting on this suffocating bus with 50+/- other people was less than unpleasant. We had no idea how bad it would be until the end of the trip. Mali is much hotter than Ghana and is a dry heat which seems to make us much thirstier than we usually are. It can get up to 110degrees F in Mali and I think it was in the hundreds when we were there. At least, it sure felt like it. Complete misery for me. Made me question why on earth I thought this was a good idea. I think I’m still pondering that . . .
So we set off, oblivious to our impending misery. We soon realized why it takes 13hrs to get to Douenza, the stop we needed where we would meet a driver to take us the rest of the way to Timbuktu. They were stopping at least 1x every half hour and sometimes more often to pick people up, drop them off, and who knows what else. Ok. Fine. If you have to then whatever. But the problem was they seemed to think every stop was an opportunity to get off and buy food or ‘visit the bush,’ which can also be called ‘sending a fax’ or just to stretch. Ok. I get that. I got some water and snacks on one or two occasions but NOT EVERY TIME THEY STOPPED!!!! No one needs to be eating that much food!!! Every time they stopped it would be for 10 minutes or more. Oh the madness of it all!! I wish I had counted how many times we stopped on that wretched journey. Actually, its probly best I didn’t. We couldn’t have known how it would go so we just dealt with it by trying not to go completely insane.
The vendors were selling many things from water and drinks to fruit like papaya and apples and such to varieties of breads, ‘biscuits’ or cookies to yams and sometimes souvenirs like fans. If it was a shorter stop they would come on the bus and sell their stuff. Of course, when they saw us with our white skin they thought we needed at least 12 of everything when in reality we didn’t want any most of the time. Water was a necessity and we stocked up on that when we needed to.
The people on the bus were fairly friendly, with a few exceptions. Did I mention they speak French in Mali?? Oh yes. Not many English speakers, we found. I knew it was going in but I thought there’d be more people who spoke English at least passably. Nope. I got to use my poorly remembered French which was actually kind of fun at times, trying to see how much I could understand and how much I could speak. I did ok. Abby doesn’t know any French so it was on me to try and communicate with our contacts who didn’t know English. It was quite a challenge but part of the trip I actually enjoyed some. On the way there we talked some with a few of the people on the bus, just small conversations as that was all we could manage between my limited French and their limited English. We were the only white people not surprisingly. Tourist season seems to be when its cooler there which is from November to January I think. Many of the people were dressed in head scarves or wraps and traditional clothing like long smocks on some of the men, what you picture for Muslim people I guess. But there were also people dressed in Western style clothing. Not all the women wore scarves like Muslims do but more in the African style which is quite common even in Ghana.
Side note. I have discovered that here they refer to white people as anyone who is not African which includes Asians, Native Americans, Italians, Arabs, and anyone else that we might categorize differently, basically anyone with lighter skin than Africans. I was surprised by that. Just an interesting side note.
On and on the bus ride went. We tried sleeping which was generally an exercise in futility due to our discomfort and on my part, due to the kid/teenager who kept poking me. Let me tell you how happy that made me. This guy, a young Arab man, was at the bus stop with us and we knew he was talking with his friends about us as they were not very subtle about it. Subtlety here is not a concept many people grasp. Anyways, we weren’t too bothered by it until I was sitting on the aisle seat trying to sleep and this kid who was sitting a row back to my left would poke me. Oohh I got mad!! I told him to stop more than once but obviously he didn’t understand me or didn’t care enough to stop. How rude!! I mean seriously, who does that??? You aren’t a 5 year old child!! He must have finally fell asleep himself because it stopped. I didn’t get sleep after though. Too uncomfortable. On the bus, people just through garbage of all kinds on the floor - bottles, banana peals, biscuit wrappers, eggshells, spit. You name it, it was on that floor. And you thought the floors in movie theaters were bad. Wow!! So gross. Plus, because there was no room for our backpacks, we had them either on the floor in front of us leaving us little leg room or in the aisle for people to trip over or use as a footrest. I didn’t even think about having them cram my bag in the luggage bay at the bottom of the bus. No way!!
We left at 1:30pm from Bamako and got to Douenza at 2:30am. One of the guys we talked small small with, Mustaf, was very nice and helpful. At one point during the heat of the day, one of the vendors was selling these fans made from maybe palm leaves or something, not sure what its called or made from really, we wanted to know how much it was and he ended up buying 4! Two for us, one for him and one for the guy sitting next to him. That was so nice!! It couldn’t have been very much but it was a nice gesture. When we got to Douenza and met our driver, he made sure to check and see that we were ok and this was the right guy. I certainly appreciated that. Don’t worry, Mom, we knew the whole time what the plan was. Our driver was a young guy, MC, and he called the hotel where we were going just to verify that he was in fact the guy who was going to take us to Timbuktu. How would we have known who this guy was and where he was going to take us? Even after talking to Shindouk and him reassuring us in broken English and French that this was the guy and it was ok to go with him. Hmmmm…. At 2:30am I was just glad to be off that awful bus for a while and be able to have some ventilation for a while. Goodbye miserable bus and rude kid poking me half the time!!
We climbed into the land rover type vehicle and set off over the sand dunes toward Timbuktu. I was so tired and just wanted to sleep finally. The ‘road’, if you can call it that, was rather . . . umm . . . well . . . more of a part time road I’d say. Part of the way it looked like a road that was kind of like a paved road and part of the time, the larger part, it was more like a pothole or multiple potholes and lack of pavement. When the road was impassable we drove off road through the sand which was nicer actually as the sand is much less jarring than torn up roads. I figured my brothers who like to go Jeeping would have had a grand time on such a trip. Somehow I was able to sleep some between the jarring and jostling and the suffocating heat and dust. Abby sat up front for part of the trip. By the time the sun was coming up or it was just getting light I gave up fighting for sleep. It was another useless attempt at this point. The dust was so thick and suffocating. I tried using my scarf to cover my mouth and nose as much as possible to keep out some of the dust. That helped a little. The car and everything in it including each of us were covered in a not thin layer of reddish dirt/sand mix by the time we arrived. I don’t recall ever being that dirty in any recent memory.
It was mesmerizing watching the driver navigate the ‘roads’/dunes. He would drive really fast when he could and then slowed way down when we came to potholes or missing parts of the road. He’d make split-second decisions about which way to go to avoid a huge impact with the hole in the road. Left or right? Quick! And he’d choose and we’d climb the sand dunes on whichever side he chose. There were usually paths through the sand and brush where others had made a path but not always. I was very impressed with the driver and how he managed that vehicle and the trip. I suppose he is used to it so its nothing but still, its impressive. There were shrubs and trees and baobab trees which I find particularly creepy and disturbing and ugly and yet fascinating somehow. They remind me of a creepy tree in the movie “Fern Gully,” and I don’t like them. They are rather strange if you’ve never seen them. There were goats and sheep, taller and skinnier than the ones I’m used to in Ghana, eating leaves from shrubs and lower trees. Being taller they were able to almost stand on their hind legs to reach higher branches with leaves on them. Interesting. There were camels, too, and cattle and donkeys. Oh, the donkeys are so funny. They couldn’t care less how large of a vehicle you are driving nor how fast you are going, they just stand there in the road, not moving, not looking directly at you, just sort of spaced out it seems. So funny. Why are they inclined to risk their lives in such a way. They were all along the trip and the same in Timbuktu. They just crack me up, they way they stand or lay directly in the middle of the road and aren’t bothered by anything. I’m pretty sure I’d get out of the way if I saw a large object barreling toward me at a high speed. In fact, I do that regularly in Ghana. They have no regard for pedestrians and will run you down right quick.
So we drove on, going around donkeys and potholes, slowing down for cattle crossing the road, watching the sun come up slowly. The sunrise was not spectacular in display, sadly. It just sorta came up and it just got warmer and pretty soon hot. When we were getting close to Timbuktu we had to take a small ferry, kinda like the one at Keller Ferry, to cross the Niger River. It is really low right now and only took about 5-10 minutes to cross. I guess it can take a really long time when the river level is up. This is not tourist season so we were certainly noticeable.
Despite our inability to be inconspicuous because of our skin and hair color, people here in Mali seemed to be less intrusive and offensive with their attention for the most part. They didn’t mind staring and probly talking and pointing but that was about it. In Ghana, they do that and then try talking to you and are very pushy about stuff. Here, they just seemed to be like, “Hmmm. White people. Ok. Cool/Nice/Blast it (or any number of other reactions)!! Meh . . I’ve got groceries to buy,” and then went on their way. We were nothing special and not worth their time to bother it seemed which was a welcome change and a relief. In Ghana, its more like, “OBRUNIS!!!! Come! COME!!! Give me all your money and let me cheat you out of any that I can and then ask for more!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE NOT RELATED TO BILL GATES???? Are you or are you not a walking dollar sign?? Yes, we think you are,” and they don’t let up until you walk away and even then sometimes they keep at it. Well, that’s what it feels like anyway. They are much more pushy in your face here. So in that respect, Mali was a nice change. Even the kids who were begging in Mali didn’t put much effort into bothering you. If you said no or shooed them away they would go. That is not the way it is in Ghana. Even shopping in Mali was more relaxed as prices seemed to be more set and not so much up for negotion for every little thing. Such a relief!! I still am not a fan of having to bargain for everything from souvenirs to food to toilet paper. Just give me a fair price please.
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