Mali!

I forgot that I promised you an entry on my vacation to Mali. 5 months and a military coup later, here is my post with plenty of photos!

My adventure to Mali with Cara and Geoff began after a whirlwind 2 weeks of all volunteer conference, WAIST, and COS conference. We left for Tamba immediately after COS conference and caught a ride with Pap, the best PC staff person ever, to the Senegalese border town. We walked across the border into Mali and got the last three seats in a car to Bamako. We underestimated the size of Mali-it's really big, and we didn't arrive in Bamako until late in the night. Thank goodness we had a name of a place to stay! We spent the next day exploring Bamako. Having spent countless hours in cars, we decided to walk around and stretch our legs. We wandered and stumbled upon a free concert that was happening that night, blocks away from our hostel- awesome! Coming from Senegal, we couldn't help compare Bamako to Dakar. In our experience, people in Dakar are a lot more pushy and aggressive. It may be that we weren't in high tourist areas or we still had our vacation goggles on, but we liked Bamako a lot more.   

The morning after the concert, we hopped aboard a bus bound for Sevare, where we were to meet our tour guide, Hassime. It took somewhere between 12-14 hours to get there (thank goodness we had our iPods, travel Scrabble, and plenty of snacks). We stayed at our guide's house and prepared ourselves for our three day hike.

Early the next morning, we hopped into Hassime's car and off we went! It was January, so it was still relatively cool (aka not burning hot) for our hike. I was immediately entranced by Dogon Country. There were hills, people had terraced gardens, and irrigation pipes crisscrossed fields! Day one we saw and hiked to houses imbedded in the cliff-side. The three of us took so many pictures throughout our hike, we probably have a combined total of 700 photos. Once we reached certain areas, Hassime would tell us about the history and the meaning behind symbols, shapes, and buildings. He also answered all our questions, regardless of their relevance or silliness. The morning of day two was shopping! Dogon is known for producing mud cloth and indigo, so of course we had to buy some. I bought a beautiful mud cloth tapestry and a tightly woven cotton cloth brilliantly dyed. Geoff, who would make fun of Cara and I for our fabric obsession, ended up buying the most out of the three of us. Later that day, we hiked up a cliff. We held guns, saw a pet monkey, and watched the sun set from a perch at the edge of the cliff. Day three was amazing and terrifying at the same time. We saw traditional dancers in full headdress come down from the mountains, which was a surprise. After touring two towns, we made our way down the cliff. It was a terrifying, but exhilarating trek with ladders and chasms, but thankfully we all made it. I wanted one more day in Dogon, but alas our trip was over. There's so much history and beauty that I didn't want to leave yet. I definitely didn't do Dogon justice in this paragraph, but hopefully these pictures will give you a better idea. Oh and look... it's number three on top ten treks in the world!

After another night at Hassime's in Sevare, we decided to change our itinerary and spend two days in Segou. Segou is a beautiful town on the Niger river and home to an annual music festival. It was so relaxing and we recuperated by playing scrabble, napping, and meandering around town. We also took a sunset boat ride on the Niger, which was beautiful. I wish I could return to Segou for the music festival. It was time to wrap up our journey and return to Senegal.

The trek home was a nightmare. It involved spending two nights at garages (where it was freezing- I wore my skinny jeans OVER my leggings!), yelling at people in Pulaar about how they weren't good, and yearning to be back in Senegal. We were so frustrated at the end of our trip and our rose colored vacation glasses weren't so rosy anymore, that I ended up with tears of frustration at a garage (they definitely didn't know how to handles that one). We finally made it home to Kolda and that was that. Despite the ending, we had a fantastic time and it was an amazing trip!

We went at the right time. Not long after our trip, there was a military coup. Peace Corps evacuated it's volunteers from Mali and we are no longer allowed to travel there. Hopefully the conflict is resolved soon and people can once again visit.

Peace