He Says – The third bed was just right!

16 - 18 October
I was exhausted we road for about 60k and I was dead. We went to Sevare with the intention of finding a place to crash for a couple of days. As we entered town it every hotel sign advertised internet. Excellent, a hotel with wi-fi is perfect! We checked the first, it had wi-fi, but it was not free and they would not let me park the bike inside. The second would let me park the bike inside but internet was down “due to the birds”- what ever that means.

The third was not to hot not to cold it was just right. Oh sorry slipped in to a drug induced illusion about 3 bears. All kidding aside it was perfect. It was a B&B run by a German woman, the bike came in side the compound the wi-fi was free, and breakfast was included. We even decided to take the more expensive room with its own bath to make things even more chilled.

I played on the net in the cool of our A/C retreat leaving the hotel only long enough to get lunch and back. I spent the afternoon on the net looking for a fix for Mapsource. After unsuccessfully trying to download a new copy from Garmin themselves I finally found a 4x4 forum that gave the instructions .. it took 3 seconds all it was a bad registry. For those that have the Mapsource error program 3579 the site’s url is here http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=34019 good luck!

Later that night we went to a restaurant owned by the same woman. She met up with us there, and bought me my first beer in two months. Our retreat was magic. We struck gold as there was to be a live band playing that night.

The band played an interesting mix of traditional Malian, blues, and jazz jamming. It was a strange at times but cool. We did not stay too late and headed back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep. However, neither of us slept well.

The next day we barely left the hotel. We spent the day writing blogs emails and generally being lazy. It was wonderful. I was feeling better it was not the Lariam after all, just plain old fatigue.

We pack up and moved on late. But we only had 30 minutes to driving to get to the trekking starting point. We found a place to stay that was run by a Rastafarian, called Auberge Kensaye. As we pulled up I found out that the bolt holding the swing arm of Anubis together had stripped and lost it’s nut and was about ½ out. This could have been deadly. It was a lucky find.

Bouba the rasta hotel owner introduced us to a guide (actually official one). He was much better, did not ooze slime and was also much cheaper then his Djenne counter part. We agreed to a 3 night 4 day trek. Our guide Tiemoko Togo even ran out and got me a new bolt! It took me about 3 minutes to fix. We did little else that day save having the best tasting lunch we had had in months at a little café called “La Petit” and prepared for our trek.

At about 1900h we headed down for dinner in the restaurant at the Auberge , Bouba, called me over and asked if I would be happy to put the bike in the main hotel for the duration of our trek. I was happy to do this but it required me getting the 300kg bike up an uneven flight of 4 stairs. It was a challenge. I said we can only try and I fired up Anubis.

The first pass told me that the brut force of Anubis’s engine would not work. As my front tyre hit the first step the loose gravel that was the street just started to fly and I was digging in. We needed a ramp. This turned out to be no issue the 4x4 parked next to me had a couple of steel sand boards. We grabbed them and tried again. We started to climb but quickly my feet were too far off the ground for me to ride up. Then out of nowhere a pack of guys showed up and we lifted the bike in. It was easy with that many hands. As soon as it was done the men disappeared as fast as they arrived. I thanked the ones that I could see/find but most disappeared into the ether. My only regret was that there were no cameras there to record the spectacle. Tomorrow we trek into Dogon territory.