He Says – Bamako Shamako

11 – 12 October 2009
The road from Nioro du Sahel to Bamako could have been part paved (199k) part piste (159k) or all piste or all paved depending on what map you were looking at. Despite the mornings melt down we headed off just after 0800h hopping to miss the some of the heat. Well the road turned out to be 458k of good (for Africa) paved road. It was actually kinda of disappointing I wanted some piste. It was hot (39° + C) and had some amazing things to see, my arm got tired from all the waving to the people we passed. We ate omelettes at a roadside hole-in-the wall, where we were hassled by kids asking for presents and bon-bons. But the adults, kept shooing them away (to no avail) but eventually the kids just stood there starring at us and listening to the chef asking us if we could fit 3 on the bike and if we would take him home to Aus with us.

Refreshed we headed out for the remaining 150k the temp was about 45°C now. We arrived in Bamako almost without warning. We luckily (still don’t know how) arrived on the road that we wanted to find. We looked for a hotel that was in the “officially dubbed worst guide book ever” but could not find it and at least 20 locals did not know it either. We then drove to the other side of town and with relative ease found one that was in the book. It turned out not to be what we wanted (no parking for example), but the manager told us about and took us to another hotel that had “inside the compound parking”. He like all the rest just smiled and left after doing us this favour. The new hotel had a park like feel (although it was a bar) with little islands of tables under straw huts. It was the 3rd cheapest one we knew existed too. We checked in with little discussion and I collapsed. I was hot, dripping with sweat and hungry. I was not a pretty sight or smell. But a shower and some clean and dry cloths later I was ready to hit the streets.

We ended up eating Chinese food for dinner as there is little in the way of Malian dinner restaurants, they tend to eat a big late lunch. We returned to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Our first day in Bamako was kind of a bust, we were here mainly to see if we can get a Burkina Faso visa, but it was Sunday. Unlike Mauritania, which runs on a Sunday to Thursday week, everything was closed (okay not everything but lots). I slept very badly that night. I am not sure why but I tossed and turned all night. When I did get up. The first thing I did was attack Anubis with a knife. I have cut an even bigger air vent over the electronics in order to stop them over heating.

We decided, as everything is closed anyway, to just have a wander and find the embassy. According to the “officially worst guide book ever” it was only about 3k from our hotel. We figured that it was a destination to head for and we would see a bit of the city at the same time. Well the “officially worst guide book ever” was wrong (again) we walked around for several hours and it was not there. We even asked several people including the ambassador to France (okay well maybe not the ambassador but the couple were French and did say that they worked in the embassy). We were now hot and pissed off and started to get snappy at each other. Tam was wilting fast. So we stopped in a cyber café and googled it, the “officially worst guide book ever” was off by basically the entire city. It had moved (BTW) but not from where the book said it was and it had moved two (2) years before publication (fact checking people it is important for a GUIDE BOOK).

We got some lunch and headed back to the hotel. Tam spent much of the afternoon sleeping as I read a really bad Tom Clancy book. Venturing out only again for dinner we found that most places were still closed. We wandered the streets for a while, found a street vendor selling mini sweet pancakes. We ordered 5 got 10 and paid 0.20€ for the lot. They were amazing but so light that we needed more food, unfortunately we ended up in the same café as we did for lunch. This time however when we went to pay the waiter hung around as if expecting a tip. We were embarrassed and did not know what to do. I pulled out the “officially worst guide book ever” to see if in Mali you should tip and it said nothing. We left with out tipping but are not sure if we did the correct thing.

I slept very badly again, but we got up early to get to the visa office. We decided to catch a cab for the first half of the trip, and this is where Bamako started to go bad.

The French embassy workers told us that the cab should cost no more then 1000CFA, he charged us 2000CFA, but I was tired and did not care at that moment. He got us to the ½ point in short order and we started to walk to the Burkina Faso embassy. About 300 metres later a guy approached us, he spoke very good English and said he was from Ghana. He had a story about needing to make a phone call to get some a number from western union, and that his French is not good and is struggling. My alarm bells went off, but we decided to see how this was going to play out.

I have always heard about people helping people like him out and making a life long friend. He seemed very stress and as Tam said he should have gotten an oscar for his performance. We said that we would lend him the money for the call all 50p of it. We started to follow him to a telephone centre (there is usually one every 2 buildings) but we could not find one. Eventually he ask a guy to use his mobile phone. He even had me dial the number. The call ended up costing 6600CFA, we paid it. I was worried at this stage, as his French was too good. He also seemed to know his way around too well. He now wanted us to pay a cab for all three of us to go to the Ghana embassy to get his passport from a friend. ALARM!! No way we walk! He started to play the stressed card again. At this stage I knew we had been had and I was not going to walk into part two of the trap/scam. I said we are leaving. He begged us to meet him later and even gave us the code number that he made the phone call to get. He kept saying things like “you loose that number I’ll kill you” we agreed to meet 2 hours later at the French embassy.

We walked to the Burkina Faso embassy as the heat and humidity increased with every step. We found it with no problem but were both wet by the time we got there. The “officially worst guide book ever”, said that there is a central Africa visa that will cover several of the countries that we want to visit. It also said that the embassies will often try to say they don’t know what you are talking about. Well Burkina Faso did acknowledge it did existed but that it was no longer valid. So our options were now pay 30,000cfa for a visa now or 20,000cfa for one on the border… hmmmm you do the maths. We left empty handed.

Tam was also convinced that the guy was a con-man but she was willing to go to the embassy to see if he showed up. I said it was a waste of time. I knew that he would not be there. He wasn’t. If he was so desperate he would not be late. We waited 15 minutes. He did not show. We left feeling like idiots, I was hopping to make a friend I took a chance and it did not payoff. I have not felt like we connect with the people of the countries that we pass though. I was sick of always being on guard. I was wrong. Every time we travel, we never take chances like this and we never get stung, but we never make the amazing friends that some people do. First time we risk it we got stung. I know this will affect the way I try again, if I try again.

We spent the day avoiding touts, we went though the markets and was hassled every 3 feet, one would stop one would start. We entered the fetish market, which is not as you sickos are imagining it is the African medicine and magic market. It is stalls of dead animals in various stages of decomposition. I could not resist and asked an old man if I could take his photo full well expecting to pay him for it. He wanted nothing but a young man came up saying that it was his stall and I have to pay him. I gave him 25CFA, he spat on the ground and threw it on the ground I picked it up and walked away. He was not in the photo, the old man was the subject,,, how much did he think I would pay.. Asshole.. We left the market to find some food. The nearest restaurant that we knew about as it was listed in the “officially worst guide book ever” was closed and had been for 2 years according to the woman out front selling peanuts. (The book published in 2008). We wandered on and saw a street food seller. We went over, we ordered two plates of the brown stuff with meat stuff and other stuff. It was really very good, the brown stuff was a peanut sauce (simular to satay), the meat well we still don’t really know, but Tam’s guess was intestines, mine was tongue, the other stuff was a very nice fish meatball. The meal cost us about 1£ and was the nicest I have had in a while. That and some of the pancakes from the night before and I would be in heaven. A person started begging from us as we got up to leave but I ignored him and Tam said something that made him leave. As I turned around a man approached us, he asked if we spoke English, his English was perfect. He started off only asking us how far the airport was. He said he was from Jamaica. He did not have a Jamaican accent. The con was on again. He used many of the same lines: Oh no one speaks English here. I am stressed. I am a musician, blah blah, the new one was he was robbed last night and hates Mali. His non-Jamaican accent slipped a few times and he slipped in a couple of French words. I played with him for a while and tried to get him to walk across town with us to the Canadian embassy (As they will help out any other commonwealth member citizen and it is near our hotel). But he would not bite. I was hopping to use him to stop the other touts from bugging us, as they seem to leave you alone if you are with one of them. He left empty handed, we left with out a tout shield. We where only hassled a couple of times on the way back, and I was rude every time we where. I will no longer be polite to this type of scum. Bamako is not endearing itself to me, Mali as of now is not being painted with the same brush, but I am not so willing to forgive or forget. Out of the big smoke it will hopefully return to the nice people we met yesterday. If not we will leave early and they will lose even more money. I came here with no expectations and yet I am not happy with ½ of what I have seen. I write this in a very bad mood and I will see what I keep and don’t during the edits.

We arrived back at the hotel and I spent the afternoon gluing mesh over the new vents in Anubis’s side panel. It will slow the ventilation a bit but you must balance protection with cooling. There is no point in having a nice cool electronic component if it has just been smashed by a rock. It is funny you can actually see the components now.

About 1600h the skies opened up. This was a huge storm with hail, rain and thunder. The roads were no longer roads but quagmires of red sucking mud. Low levels were filled with water in minutes and people ran for shelter like it was the end of the world. Tam and I sat under a grass roofed hut in the garden of our hotel and watched it for as long as we could. We joked that the area around us was full of water confirming my original guess that these were meant to be little islands surrounded by water. Great concept except in a malaria country. What we suddenly noticed a few minutes later was that these little ponds were getting too full and our dry space under the grass roof started to flood. We made a dash for the room and dryness. The storm lasted about an hour and when the sun came back out, despite the late hour, it was like a steam bath.

Dinner was supposed to be a cheap affair the “officially worst guide book ever” suggest a Vietnamese place that was “no nonsense and fairly priced” It was close by and we were both tired. Tam was getting the shakes so we decided that it sounds like the best bet. For once the “officially worst guide book ever” was actually very accurate with directions, but it was a white tablecloth kind of establishment. We decided to eat there regardless but ordered the cheapest things off the menu. It was still one of the most expensive meals of the entire trip.

The plan for the next day was to get up early and go to the north of the city to find some rock painting. Tam has a thing for rock art. Well once again I did not sleep so I was as quick moving as a bogged Anubis in sand above the bash plate. Tam was willing to let me sleep in and go to the city in the afternoon, but I thought it best to get moving. We somehow got out of the hotel a little after 0800h and were able to get to the starting point for our rock hunt by 0900h. The “officially worst guide book ever” described these as “abandoned cave dwellings with impressive rock paintings” it described how you can walk from the national museum to a place called point G where the hospital is located.

We asked a local and he told us that you had to walk all the way to the top of the hill and then around. It was about a 3k walk. Amazingly at the top of the hill we found a sign for a tourist piste and took it. We were now walking along a cliff edge in the African forest. Although a bit daunting is was very cool at the same time. When I say very cool is was already about 35°C and 80% humidity. Both of which seemed to rise with each step. In due course we realised that we had just walked to the other side of the valley and had not even seen a single cave. We were now directly opposite from the place where we asked for directions. We just kept walking. We were closer to the city then the original starting point, with the exceptions of being 300m too high. We decided to cut cross-country to get down. It was actually easier then it looked except that is was now extremely hot (40°+C) and 100% humidity. I was dripping with sweat, nothing was evaporating, and we had found nothing.

At the bottom of the valley, and by some streak of luck or maybe our navigational skills. (Yeah right!!!) We found a sign that told us we were close. Completely wet but enthused we followed the path it led us down. The path simply ended with out warning or additional signs. We were so close! So cross country again it was. We found them!! Well we think we did. What we found was what the pictures said they should be, but these were done with a paint brush and latex paint. They were neither old nor impressive. It looks like to me the “officially worst guide book ever” fell for a scam and we fell for it as well.

By this stage though we were only 200m from the museum and so cut across the national park office to get there. On route we decided that we were hungry but there was little in the way off food. We ended up purchasing a huge watermelon and a couple of bananas. The watermelon we shared with a security guard and his mate as we talked about what it was like to live in Mali. Never before was 50p so well spent.

The rest of the day was sent walking though the museum, where the guards watched you like a hawk and up loaded long overdue blog entries. Dinner was a wonderful feast of beef curry and bread in a local tin shack restaurant. All in all it was a great day, if not a bit hard on the nose by the end of it.

We leave Bamako tomorrow. I will not be sorry to see it in the rear view mirror. I did not like it. It was a city, and every city is the same in the end. Cities are not why we came here. My only regret is that Bamako is supposed to have a great live music scene at the weekends and we missed it.