Mali (1)

	We crossed the border into Mali a few days early, and with little difficulty, since the official was so busy trying to extort cash from us he didn’t notice the dates on our visa’s were wrong. As we crossed the border we immediately started to notice subtle changes in the landscape, like trees. The architecture of the houses changed almost immediately from the stone and corrugated tin structures of Mauritania, to the classic mud brick that Mali is so famous for. It was also nice to have someone come up to the window of the truck and say ‘Hello, have a nice day’ without an outstretched hand asking for a present.

	The road to the capital Bamako was mainly tarmac and by the looks of it will soon all be tarmac, but where it was missing, sandy corrugations rocked the truck. It was not possible to travel quickly enough to neutralise the effect of driving on a washboard as we had severely compromised our suspension on the last piste. As we descended the last escarpment into Bamako you could see a large expanse of water. I said to Jools, “look there’s a large lake down there”, but it then dawned on me that this was actually the great river Niger. Only then, did the full realisation hit me that we were actually in the middle of the deep dark continent of Africa. Morocco is really not far from Europe, and Mauritania is really a big chunk of Saharan desert, with both countries largely Arabic in influence. However in Mali, you really feel like you’ve arrived in Africa. It’s got Baobab trees and everything.


			In Bamako we found the biggest, posh hotel and parked in their car park before heading into town in search of an overnight camp. Outside the catholic mission we bumped into Suleiman, a Rastafarian looking chap who managed to employ himself as a tourist guide, and still turned out to be a nice bloke. We picked his brains for a while about Bamako before enlisting the help of his friend and guide Omar Tembele for a couple of days, as we had a few things to sort out in town.

	We finally opted to camp at Hotel Jeliba (N12˚ 36.585’ W08˚00.567’) because it was cheap and it had a pool. Since the hotel was situated on the southern banks of the Niger we spent the first two nights in an endless battle keeping the mozzies out of the truck and got so depressed that we thought we would need to jack the whole trip in if we couldn’t prevent Jools getting bitten. Eventually, with a few modifications (involving endless rolls of mosquito netting and permethrin) and added protocols we finally cracked it and slept as well as we could at 40 degrees.


		To decide where our future course lay, we applied for visa’s at the Nigerian Embassy. To be refused would mean a long detour around Niger and Chad, in order to get into Cameroon. The application would take a week, so we used the time to carry out some further repairs to the truck, catch up on the web, and have some well-needed rest from driving.




							Bamako has a lot to offer if you’re willing to delve into the heart of the market place. It certainly has a similar feel to the medina at Fez and similarly, having a guide reduced the hassle factor.

	In the evenings I managed to join in with a basketball game outside the hotel. I haven’t played in years and was soon coughing up my guts and heaving for air, but by the second night it all came flooding back, evenings in St. Thomas Moores gym being sweated on by older men in tight nylon shorts.


					At the hotel we were joined by two other overlanders, Tom and Laura in the ‘Saving Grace Foundation’ Nissan Patrol from Holland, and Roger and Severine in the ready-to-go Landy from Switzerland.

	On one evening Omar led us all to a club in town for live music and dancing. The music was led by the traditional Cora and the band was very tight, the singers came from various countries and all sang ad-hock in a kind of make-it-up-as-you-go-along Karaoke, like Goof (my bro). There was a good mix of ethnicities in the crowd and obviously people meeting each other that possibly shouldn’t have been, as the owner slung me out for taking photos. Thankfully Omar was on hand to smooth things over and explain we were only interested in photographing the musicians, not the clientele. Jools and I had a cracking dance and even with the little bump starting to show, she still moved like a diva.

			During the week we were staying in Bamako there was an international football match in the African Cup between Mali and Benin. We arrived outside the grounds of the stadium and got separated from Tom and Laura (who were with our Nigerian guide) and we were ticket-less and clue-less. There appeared to be 50,000 people inside the stadium, and another 50,000 people outside, just watching the scoreboard. Touts with tickets could be identified by a crowd of people jostling round, whilst a new owner of a ticket could be identified running away pursued by half of the said crowd. I gravitated towards the centre of a thronging mass and managed to buy two tickets for £5 (original price £2), and headed toward the gate. Entrance involved a strange ritual of walking between lines of riot police waving said tickets in the air.

	We spent most of the match watching the crowd but the game still had its moments. The best being the incident when the Malian stretcher-bearers dropped an injured Benin player roughly onto the stretcher because they felt he was time-wasting. I’m not sure about the official FIFA regulations, but the stretcher was manned by Malian soldiers who started a playground-like scrap with the Benin players.


	We opted to leave 10mins before full-time to avoid the rush, but then found ourselves pushed up against a line of police barring the exit. As the crowd built-up behind us there was a brief moment where we thought we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the surge pushed through and we were all clear, heading for the gate. Mali people (and Bamako city) has a great welcoming, friendly and relaxed attitude and even walking through this mass of people late at night, we never felt unsafe.