Mali - Bamako, Segou, Djenne, Savare, Mopti

26th - 30th March 2008

Touring Mali

Bamako. We intended to spend our last night in Bamako in extravagant luxury in the grand, Grand Hotel; one night became an even more extravagant two when Liz went down with the dreaded food poisoning bug. Yes, Frankie, Egypt revisited!! But what better way to recuperate though than in the comfort of an air conditioned room and in an oversized and wonderfully comfortable bed. The extended stay also meant that we avoided being caught in some heavy and persistent rain. Rain and our first reminder of England since January. The locals call these unpredictable downpours that come at this time of year, the ‘mango rains’. It is the mango season and everywhere you look there are mangos either for sale (at less than 10p ) on a make shift roadside stall or ripening on the mango trees that seem to line every street and square. The mango rain is said to wash off weeks of dust just before harvesting.

 

Segou. With Liz fully recovered, but rolling her eyes at any mention of fish sauce, we left the capital early on the 26th March and headed east towards the Niger delta, driving through a flat unending Sahel landscape that once would have been covered with trees, but now, and alas all too common in Mali, was a scene of devastation caused by deforestation. All that remained of the trees that once did so much to hold back the spread of desertification were stumps no more than a foot high, those that had been spared the axe stood gaunt and heavily pollarded. Here in Mali, unlike Mauritania where there are few trees and bottled gas is used, wood is the only fuel available for cooking. Donkey carts, weaving their way along the road as we passed by, were piled high with bits of wood bound for the next village where they would be stacked in neat rows for sale to all and sundry. The Baobab tree is able to survive this onslaught, benefiting from both the superstition that surrounds it and the fact that its bark is used for rope making.

 

After about 4 hours we reached Segou, a onetime French regional administrative capital on the southern bank of the River Bani and, in places, its streets still lined with the trees and dilapidated mansions that now stand as ghostly reminders of that colonial past. We stayed for two nights in this riverside town, one night each at one of the two hotels run by a couple of Lebanese brothers. Both had a swimming pool, a rarity in Mali, and Liz enjoyed the pleasure of a cool early morning dip and some exercise at each. We took a morning walk along the riverbank where the women of the town had gathered to wash their clothes, whilst the men tended their crops of vegetables growing in riverside gardens.

 

Later on we hired a small boat, called a pinasse, and took a very windy and choppy ten minute ride to the other side of the Bani to a small Bozo fishing village. We walked around the collection of ramshackle huts, meeting some of the impoverished inhabitants. One woman and her daughter were pounding millet using an enormous wooden pestle. Thinking that it looked rather easy, Peter tried his hand at this and, much to the amusement of the onlookers, completely failed to get right either the pounding or the chant sung whilst doing it.

 

We returned to Segou for lunch and then met our guide for a tour of the nearby village of old Segou, Segoukoro. Now a small village, it was here some 200 years ago that a kingdom was founded that would stretch for thousands of miles across West Africa. It was necessary for us first to see the village chief, a descendent of the founder, and obtain his agreement to our visit; that having been done and a ‘visitor’s tax’ paid, we spent a fascinating afternoon walking around , seeing village life, visiting the ancient mosques and other historical monuments and throughout followed by an ever increasing gaggle of children.

 

Djenne. We left Segou on March 28 and drove further into the delta to visit Djenne, a World Heritage Site and famous both for its beautiful mosque, the largest mud built structure in the world, and unique architecture.

 

We wanted to spend a quiet hour or so here showing ourselves around with the help of our Bradt guidebook. Well that’s what we thought; little did we know that the arrival of two tourists out of season would create pandemonium. We parked in front of the mosque on the main square, a large sandy area about the size of a football pitch, empty apart from the odd goat and a cart minus its donkey. In a matter of seconds and absolutely out of nowhere, a hoard of tourist starved guides, hawkers, car minders and ‘del boys’ immediately surrounded us. The guides were the worst, each outdoing the other in the volume and implausibility of their claim upon us and our money. All seemed to be a brother of the ‘chief’, to have the exclusive right to be our guide and when we continued to maintain our independent Bradt based intentions, they turned on each other as disappointment led to anger. A slanging match nearly became a fist fight! At the time we found all this to be intimidating and it made our visit fraught and rather rushed. Nevertheless we did manage to see the best examples of Djenne’s architectural heritage and then walked around the outside walls of the mosque. After which and as it was Friday prayers, we paid to gain access to a nearby rooftop from where we saw the faithful emerge from the inner doors of the mosque, an interesting and colourful sight.

 

Savare and Mopti. Exhausted by the experience we left Djenne looking forward to a relaxing night’s sleep, bush camping on the way to Savare. We found the idyllic spot and Liz prepared, as always, a great meal after which an early night. Then the horror started. At about 10pm, snugly tucked up and in the land of nod, we were woken by the roar of rushing wind. Oh lors, the Harmattan was back and this time with a new twist, blow torch heat! The inside of the tent became a dust filled furnace and we felt we were being burnt alive. It was unbearable! We couldn’t sleep and the only thing that helped was taking cold water out of the fridge and then soaking our towels until they were literally dripping wet and laying them over our bodies. This worked a treat, but we had to repeat this process every half an hour- the towels dried out that quickly in the super heated wind. It was certainly a night to remember and we hope never to be repeated! By dawn the wind had abated, but the temperature was still close to 40C.

 

We pulled ourselves together and mustered the energy to continue on to Sevare where fortunately we quickly found a wonderful place to stay; the B&B, a green oasis of cool tranquillity, was called Mankan Te (roughly translates as: ‘no noise and no trouble’) and was run by Jutta, a most charming German lady who instantly refreshed us with cool, homemade ginger and hibiscus drinks. Jutta was a mine of information, having lived in the area for the past 15 years, and sent us off with a map to Mopti, Mali’s second city and major port on the southern bank of the Bani River. It took us no more than 10 minutes to get there and as Jutta had told us exactly where to go, what to see and better still, where to find a good lunch, we had a lovely afternoon. As in Segou, the riverbank was a hive of activity, here including a flourishing car wash business with the vehicles parked in the river!

 

The cramped and crowded market area was a fascinating, colourful collection of stalls of all shapes and sizes; some selling premium (white) salt blocks from the mines north of Timbuktu, another area was given over to the processing and selling of all types and sizes of smoked fish. Everywhere was the hubbub of commercial activity and the inviting smell of food cooking over an open fire. Everywhere too were reminders of the poverty of the Malian people; gaunt, small, malnourished children begging for food and with tattered rags for clothes; polio victims hauling themselves along the ground, dragging their inert and useless legs behind them; starving beggars, exhausted and almost zombie like, lying on the ground and in their late 30’s but looking twice that age.