You can subscribe to Geoff's Travel Mailing list to receive copies of my travel notes while I'm on the road, as well as notification of updates to the website. Click on the link below to subscribe or unsubscribe from the mailing list.
Travel notes from Bamako 1
Hi Everyone,
Sorry I haven't been in touch for a while, my last email failed due to problems with Malian telecommunications.
After spending a couple of days in Serekunda I started my long journey overland to Accra in Ghana. The first destination was Georgetown about halfway up the Gambian river. The journey didn't start well, I had missed all the early morning busses and the next express bus had broken down in the depot. I waited four hours for it to be fixed and then they decided to send out an old bus instead as they were unsure whether their mechanical repairs were good enough.
The bus had hard wooden seats and wasn't the most comfortable, but at least the engine was working. It was dark by the time the bus dropped me off at the ferry crossing for Georgetown. The town is on McCarthy Island in the Gambian river. The ferry could only carry a couple of cars at a time. I boarded as a foot passenger and earned free passage by helping to haul the ferry across the river with a cable as the engine had broken.
A minibus was waiting on the other side and took us the couple of kilometres into town. The place was dark as there was no street lighting and I had no idea of what kind of town I had arrived in. A local boy showed me the way through the dark to the Baobolong Camp on the edge of town. A Dutch couple who were on the same bus had just arrived before me.
The next day, in daylight, the three of us went out and explored the town. It wasn't what I expected; the main street was lined with a few rusty corrugated iron shacks and there were some old warehouses, from colonial times, decaying and being overgrown with vegetation by the riverside. We hired a boat to take us down the river for a couple of hours, just down to the end of the island and back again, to look at the bird and wild life. We saw many birds but the elusive hippos remained just that, elusive.
Georgetown is selling itself as the up country town to go bird watching and to take river trips. Many tourists from the Atlantic resort strip make it up here for a couple of days.
The next day I crossed back to the mainland and took a bush taxi up to Basse Santa Su, the largest town in the far east of the country. The trip didn't take too long; the road on the southern side of the river is paved, although badly potholed in places, which slowed down our progress.
I checked into the Jem Hotel and went for a wander around town. The town is on the southern banks of the river and is much larger and busier than Georgetown. It was market day and the place was lively. On my walk around town I wasn't hassled or bothered by anyone, it was a peaceful place. In the evening I went down to the waterfront to an old warehouse called Traditions that is a craft centre. I sat on the balcony with a cup of tea watching the evening bird life and the numerous small boats crossing the river.
After spending a day in Basse Santa Su I made an early start to cross the border to Senegal. I found a bush taxi, which was doing the journey to Velingara in Senegal. It was the most decrepit vehicle I have ever travelled in. It took half an hour pushing the car up and down the main street of Basse to get it started. When it did start, more smoke came from under the bonnet than the exhaust pipe. There were a couple from Slovenia in the taxi that were also heading to Tambacounda.
The condition of the road to Senegal soon explained the state of the car. The road was little more than a badly rutted dirt track. The border crossing went smoothly, there were just a few huts and a couple of border guards sleeping under a tree. By some miracle the car made it to Velingara. The two Slovenians and myself jumped into another taxi for the trip across town to pick up another bush taxi to Tambacounda. We arrived about lunchtime after about four or five hours travelling.
We checked into Chez Desert on the edge of town. It was a small and friendly guesthouse. The woman who ran it had a larger than life personality and invited me to have lunch with the family. I arrived in Tambacounda on Friday, on Saturday I would have to start my long journey to Bamako in Mali to meet Joanna on Sunday as we had arranged.
The journey from Tambacounda to Bamako was probably the toughest journey I have done in ten years of travelling. I left Tambacounda at seven on Saturday morning and took a taxi across town to find a bush taxi to take me to the border town of Kidira. That leg of the trip went well, the road was well paved and the vehicle reliable. After about two hours I was dropped off at the police station in Kidira where my passport was stamped. I took a taxi across the bridge over the Senegal River to the Malian border town of Diboli.
The taxi driver just dropped me off in the middle of town and I was left looking for the border post to get my passport stamped. In the end I asked a local boy who led through town to the railway line where some border guards were sitting around waiting for the weekly train to arrive. After completing the formalities I went and waited for a bush taxi to take me to Kayes.
After three hours we finally had enough passengers, 20 of us, in a battered old covered pick up truck. About 5km out of town we picked up our first puncture. The spare wasn't looking too good so we turned around and went back into town to pick up a new wheel. Four hours after arriving in Mali I was finally on the road again. On the trip I made friends with some of my fellow passengers; three guys from Senegal, Nigeria and Cameroon. The four of us were all heading for Bamako and were all strangers in a foreign land.
We stopped every half an hour or so to top up the radiator and check the oil. We were making slow progress down a very rough dirt road. Finally at 20.00 when we were in the middle of nowhere and it was dark, our vehicle broke down leaving us stranded. Ten minutes later we saw some headlights coming down the road and an empty van pulled up. We all quickly loaded our luggage and ourselves into the van and hitched a ride into Kayes. It took 45 mins to get through the police roadblock at the edge of town and when we finally got going again we ran out of fuel.
We pushed the van along the road until we found a gas station. By then we also picked up a puncture and had to change a wheel. It took twenty minutes to push start the van but we finally got going and made it to Kayes. The three guys and myself shared a taxi up to the railway station on the other side of town. It was 23.00, we had made it. We slept out in the street outside the station with about 150 other people waiting for the train, which was due in at 07.00 on Sunday morning. There was a shower in the station and we took it in turn to look after the luggage while the others would wash or go and find something to eat.
I woke at 05.00 on Sunday morning, it wasn't the most comfortable of nights sleep. The train was running late and didn't arrive until 14.00 that afternoon. It was a very hot day but it was good to be finally moving again. We had no lights in our carriage and as night fell we rattled along in darkness. The trip took 14 hours to Bamako and I arrived at 04.00 on Monday morning. I went to the Lac Debo hotel in the centre of town and as planned found Joanna who arrived from London on Saturday evening.
Regards
Geoff.
| 
