Golden

I'm kind of stumped. I've never been shy in my use of superlatives on this trip, and I've certainly been in place after place that deserved every one of them. It leaves me with a bit of a challenge, albeit a jolly one: how exactly to get my head or my keyboard around the amazingness of the last month?

Perhaps it's best to start with the basics. If I try real hard, perhaps I can summarize the month's agenda in a paragraph. Here goes.

I arrived in Bamako a few days before Lauren, who landed on the 30th of December minus only her backpack (which would appear a couple days later). We partied it up in Bamako for the New Years weekend, then piled our tuckered-out selves onto a bus and a pickup truck to make the amazing town of Djenne for it's famous Monday market. From Djenne it was off to Mopti for a night, after which we piled into a crowded 4WD for the long drive up to Timbuktu, arriving the night before the start of the amazing Festival au Desert. After 3 days sitting in the dunes until 4 AM, we spent a little while exploring Timbuktu and camel-tripping out into the desert for a night at a Tuareg camp. We then hopped on a pinasse (small motorized riverboat) with 6 other tourists for the 3-day gorgeous journey back to Mopti along the Niger river, camping along the banks for the nights. After catching our breath in Mopti, it was out to the Dogon Country to hike for a couple days and nights through ancient animist villages along an incredible cliffside. From there it was back to Mopti once more, then off to finish the trip with a couple lazy days by the riverside in Segou. On the 22nd, we busted it back to Bamako, did our last minute running around, and Lauren was away to gay Paris and then home. I spent another couple nights there, then took off back down the road to Mopti (again!) and from there onward to do some amazing hiking around the mesas of Hombori, and then to Gao in Mali's far far east, where I start to write this post before leaving for Niger. Whew.

Okay, so that was a long paragraph. It also left no space for the joys of 2 AM patisserie runs in Bamako, of dance floors packed with people from 4 to 50, for curling up on a mattress under the stars on the outskirts of Timbuktu, for wrapping up in sweaters and scarves and sipping hot coffee on our pinasse as the sun rose over the Niger. My paragraph was also severely lacking in the endless parade of insanely cute children, honestly friendly adults, and women never ruffled from their regal dignity by long uncomfortable trips. Then there's the amazing mud architecture, seemingly drenched 24/7 in glorious golden sunlight. There's the music. Oh, the music. Where the labels "traditional" and "modern" stop making sense and people smile, no, grin while they play. Where master bandleaders and famous stars are content to sit in the background and set up a jam, to play in a little garden bar for no cover, or to travel 1000kms to play 2 songs to a spellbound crowd.

Then there's the sound of Dogon villages waking at dawn underneath the towering cliffs. There are all the incredibly strange noises donkeys seem to enjoy making at all hours. There are the games of "child or goat" played when we hear screeching coming over the neighbourhood (and let me tell you, it's often not an easy guess). There's the buzz of ancient engines somehow still dragging buses and trucks and pinasses vastly overladen with people.

Mali was even better than I expected. And I expected a lot. It was dreams of coming there that started off the idea of West Africa in my head years ago. Some places, Djenne especially, I had wanted to see since before I had a clear idea of where they were. I'd also had my expectations tampered a bit along the road by tourists who grumped about the level of hassle and headaches that the tourist industry brings to the place. When I got there, and found myself rarely troubled by a hint of hustle, it seemed even more miraculous.

Miraculous. Like standing at the airport in the cool Malian December night waiting for your love to step off a plane. Like busting past security to find her awaiting her lost bag at baggage claim. Like being able to converse in something other than ten-minute snippets where a day's full of beauty tries to squeeze down the phone line. Eight months was hard. But how better to end it?

The perfection started early. By leaps and bounds, Bamako is the best party town in West Africa. Dakar devotees may argue, but Bamako is smaller, friendlier, and a lot more sensibly laid out for nights on the town without piles of money spent on taxis. Our hotel helped, being outside of the centre but smack dab in the middle of the entertainment district. We had a glorious garden to drink wine in and a pool to jump around in and the comfiest room I've had the whole trip long. Within a short scurry afoot or by clanking cheap minibus were found nightclubs and music venues aplenty. We had a good day of exploring the town (Bamako is surprisingly walkable if you know which routes to take), bought some sweet duds to replace Lauren's still MIA fashionables, and hit the town for New Years, with an amazing dinner of fancified Malian food, then huge beers (and at 4 bucks for a litre mug, cheap ones) were the only price we paid to ring in the New Year with Toumani Diabate, master of the kora, and his band - L'Orchestre Symmetrique.

Effing amazing. The crowd was a mix, from tourists to Malian functionaries and their families to local cool cats. Everyone smiling and dancing in the warm night air. You wouldn't think a band centred around what is basically an upright harp could rock, but they did. I was blissing out. The following nights we took in the Bamako club scene (posh!) and caught a stadium show by the Ivorian master of super-political reggae, Tiken Jah Fakoly (whose music has followed me all over the continent). Glorious. Not a lot of sleep, that weekend. We were both a bit worse for wear, and Lauren rather ill of tummy, when we piled onto a Sunday morning bus out of Bamako.

We went Sunday so to catch the Monday market in Djenne, and with some luck with connections (waiting 20 minutes as opposed to 2 hours for a pickup to fill from the bus turnoff), we were there Sunday evening. The market itself was glorious, people from all over the region plopped down in front of Djenne's main mosque. It got pretty frenetic, but we could and did just duck into the dusty backstreets full of amazingly ornate mud houses whenever we felt overwhelmed. The whole city has a wonderful feel of being someplace completely detached from anywhere where people live and work in steel and glass.

From Djenne it was off to Mopti, the crossroads river port that is at the centre of Mali's tourist industry. I had been warned to expect hassle, but we found little - just a very pleasant city with lots of riverside sitting, a fun harbour, an old quarter, and a super comfy budget hotel with a glorious pool. Not bad. Mopti is the jumping off point for the road to Timbuktu, and after dallying with the idea of hiring a tourist 4x4 for the trip, we decided to skimp a bit on cash and comfort, and all piled into an old land rover (17 of us, counting driver, roof riders, and 13 in the back!) for the surprisingly easy (if ass-numbing drive). Arriving at the river ferry the night before the festival, we found a line of cars that would have to wait until morning to get across, so we abandoned our ride, grabbed our bags, and walked onto the ferry. An hour and a free ride later we were eating a delicious dinner under the stars in the sand yard of our guesthouse, run by a lovely Cape Bretoner lady and her Tuareg chief husband.

The guesthouse, happily, was only a short walk across the dunes to the area where the festival was held, so we could save cash and have a room to stagger back to each night. Stagger we did - 3 nights in a row ended around 4 AM, with the temperatures around 4 degrees! Oh, was it worth it, though... An incredible festival of incredible music. Lots of bands from Mali's north, many of the country's international stars, West African stars, and guests all piled on the stage in a big pile of joyous musicking. It was disorganized, sometimes disjointed, always awesome. We wiggled our toes into the sand still warm from the sun of the day, or cuddled around fires built in braziers around the grounds, buying snacks and tea and beers from wandering vendors and dancing when the spirit took us. Gorgeous.

We took some time over those days to explore Timbuktu itself, which is a charming place. Many travellers romanticise what they will find there, and are disappointed by its lack of grandeur, but we were simply impressed by the nice people, the lovely old buildings, and the sands drifting down the backstreets. It does feel quite far from anywhere, though I feel bad for all those who used to risk life and limb to reach it.

The festival over, we piled into a pinasse (motorized riverboat) for the 3 day trip back along the Niger to Mopti. It was perfect. After some really busy days, we had nothing to do but sit, and eat, and read, and watch the life of the river go by. We camped on the riverside each night and ate under the stars, leaving before dawn in the mornings. Lauren managed to take a tumble into the river (albeit in the shallows - she was washing my shoes, heh), her luggage got a good soaking, and we were both mighty chilly at times, but I should think that the amazing serenity was well worth it.

After charging batteries in Mopti, it was off for the final "big thing", a 3 day trek in the Pays Dogon, a region centred on the Bandiagara escarpment that is legendary for undisturbed animist culture and amazing scenery. Legends well-deserved. Even I who had been hearing how amazing it was from other travellers for months was bowled over by the loveliness. We were fed to bursting, walked to exhaustion, and beered to cheerfulness each day before snoozing under the stars as soon as it got dark. We took a guide, a young Dogon named Kara, who managed to keep us from committing any horrible cultural faux pas, and dictated who rated enough in the priority structure to warrant a gift of kola nuts, the traditional gesture of respect (and stimulants with a good kick - I was pretty jazzed after chewing one). The villages were amazing - one of the last relics of a past long gone. They themselves were often the second or third villages there, the cliffs being previously inhabited by the Tellem, who built houses in caves hundreds of feet up. The Dogon believed they could fly and use black magic to get themselves and their supplies up there each day.

After a return once more to Mopti, we finished our trip in Segou, an old town with a pile of colonial architecture, a lovely riverside, good music, and no organized activities whatsoever, which was a very nice way to wind down. It was from there that we embarked on the last day to get Lauren to the airport for her night flight, and so it was that after 3 and a half weeks of amazingness, I was back to soloing it.

The next couple days were mighty hard, let me tell you. I gradually found my travel groove again, setting out along the long road to Niger. One last stop in Mopti (mostly to sit by the pool, I won't lie) and then it was off to Hombori on a night bus through the moonlit cliffs. Arriving at 3 am, I grabbed a short night's sleep and then set out with a couple German hippies-on-bicycles for an amazing hike around the cliffs. We hitched our way 10 kms from town and then hiked up and around the Main de Fatima, a series of towers that lure rock climbers from all around the world. We took the low path, being sandalled and all.

From Hombori, it was a short ride to Gao, the old capital of the Songhai empire, city far from everywhere, lovely riverside stop, and sad, sad place due to the death of the tourist industry brought about by the extension of travel warnings to the whole region. I was the only tourist in town, sad since the town itself is quite safe - though I wouldn't go rolling through the bush north of there in a 4WD full of tourists right now. That wasn't on my agenda anyway, so I just enjoyed the incredible Songhai food (lots of cinnamon and sausages), a few cold beers and river sunsets, and a trip to climb a giant glowing pink sand dune with the reputation of being somewhat of a convention centre for sorcerors. Lovely. It was from there that I caught my bus down the (lovely) road through what is, in theory, bandit country to the Niger border and on to Niamey, the capital. It's there that I'm sitting as I write this, amongst friendly people, treelined streets, and even more riverside prettiness. My mom will arrive tomorrow for 3 weeks of adventures, including a safari in West Africa's best wildlife reserve and a trip to the deserts around Agadez. I can't wait.
Peace
Josh