It was a long driving day but at 5.30pm I went into Bamako. I wanted to stay at a different place. I heard something about a camp site called the sleeping camel. It was not easy to find. But after asking some people I was at the door.
One guy I asked was even calling the place to ask how to find them. And another guy on a moped was leading me at the end to the place. I was quite tired. Normal I reckon after almost 12 hours in the car. The sleeping camel was a very nice place. The best place so far. A little bit pricy but it is worth it. Many people were passing by. From a dutch couple for example I learned it is possible to get a laissez passer here in Bamako in the senegales Embassy. I couldn´t quite believe it. Everybody kept on telling me, Senegal without a carnet de passages is impossible. I gave it a try and voilá after one hour I had a laissez passer for one month for Senegal. The second important thing I had to do was the visa. At the border they just gave me a stemp but no visa, but they charged for it. So I had to go to immigrations to get the visa which was no problem at all. Bring in the passporte one morning and pick it up the next afternoon. 
The polution in Bamako was not as bad as the last time or maybe I am getting used to it. But like the last time I enjoyed moving into town by foot. The sleeping camel was on the other side of the Niger so every time I went into town I had to cross the river. It was quite a long walk every time, but I still liked it. Only when I went to pick up my passporte I was a little bit late and I was in a rush. It is not a good idea by I don´t know how many degrees to rush into town. When I arrived I had to cool down for quite a while. Next lesson learned. Always take your time. The next problem was my bank card. The card was not working since the last time I was in Bamako. The card doesn´t even slip into the ATM. I tried several ATM´s at different banks but it was the same every where. It looked like the card itself was broken. So the only chance I had was using Western Union to have some money sent over. At the sleeping camel was an interesting mix of people. The owner was from Australia. A place which I can recommend.
I left the next morning which was a Saturday. I got up quite early and first I went to a Western Union place to pick up the money which was sent over. This seems to work very well. I just don´t know yet how much they charged for their service. Anyway I went out of town through Kati towards Kita. I expected a dirt track but it was a paved road. So it was an easy ride. In Kita the paved road ended. I was asking my way through town and at the end two kids were sitting in my car leading me. At the city limits I had to pay 1000CFA for some sort of I don´t know charge for passing the city. I found that very wierd. How ever, the first 100 km of the track were not too bad. Some of the road was still under construction. It ended in Oualia. All of a sudden the track turned into a donkey trail. The speed was dropping to maybe 10-20km/h. I didn´t even get to Bafoulabé were I had to cross the river. I was passing through same villages and asked everybody to make sure I was still on the right road. Just before nightfall I had my first bush camp and it was great. I just drove maybe 100yards of the track and stopped. I saw the most beautiful moonrise ever. I just stood there open mouthed. You have to imagine a country site totally quite, listening to nothing else but the sound of silence, and all of a sudden you spot a red light behind the trees which was the upper curve of a big, red full moon rising. Stunning. The whole night there was not one single soul approaching my car. Only once I heard this noise of footsteps coming closer, and I still haven´t figured it out if it was a animal or a human being. I was looking for the noise with a tourch but couldn´t find the source and than the footsteps turned into a different direction. I left early the next morning.
I had to get out of the car severall times to look where it is best to pass. The older brother was telling me as well where to go and was even putting some rocks in place to make the track "smoother". I just recalled some guys I asked and they all said, it is a very bad track. When an african is telling you a track is bad it definetly is. I am still proud of my car, going uphill was murder. When the worst part was done I gave the young kid a pair of sunglasses (he had put them on earlier and he looked so cute) and the other one some CFA. The last bit to the chut the Gouina still took same time but soon I remebered the track from the last time and I was glad when Gouina came in sight. The first I did was pooring down some beer and looking for a place to park the car. It was very nice to meet some of the people again. The made quite a progress in restoring the buildings. (Look at the blog "Les chutes de Gouina"). The next day I spent on the car. The suspension mountings in the front springs was totally gone. Luckily I had some with me.It was also time for an oil change in the engine and in the overdrive. All the work done it felt good to be prepared for the next trip. But first I took it easy. The next four days I was doing some work at the project. I built a table and put three doors into place. On Friday the 25th the festival de Gouina started.
Some guys from Bamako turned up with music equipment. It was not the best festival I have seen but the atmophere was great. All the people from the nearby villages turned up. Some of them playing music themselfes. Some of the women helped in the kitchen. The first night I was helping out behind the bar. All in all I had a great time in Gouina for the second time. On Sunday morning I left and gave Fatime who was doing the kitchen as well a lift back to Kayes.
Back in Kayes which takes always three hours to get there I dropped off Fatime and went into the lodge I was in twice before already. Somehow it is nice to know a place without looking for it first. But it didn`t take long before I got bored. I decided to go to Senegal via dirt tracks and to visit the national parc of Nioloko-Koba.
I left Kayes early on Saturday morning. I took the dirt track down to Sadiola. In Sadiola the south africans are running a huge gold mine. The track was not very good. The average speed an hour turned out to be not more than 25-30km/h. Just before Sadiola I stopped in village to buy some vegetables. It was a sort of tent with lots of people inside. They thought I am working in the mines, cause they asked me what sort of service I am working for. Anyway, first they tried to overcharge me and second what I found very rude was one of the woman asking me to give her my change. I said no, why would I do that and she said to show that I am a nice person. I mean this was not a woman who looked like she was starving, she was rather big. And I told her being a nice person has nothing to do with giving money but I didn´t want to be envolved in some silly arguments and I left.I went further down towards Keniéba where I wanted to cross the border but all I could do this day was just a little bit more than 200km. We talk about 9 hours driving. Once I stopped in the shade of a big bao-bap tree. I was not thinking much when a bee was flying around my head not easy to get rid of. In fact I had to kill her. The second one was flying straight into my eye and poked me on my eye-lid. Bloody hell you know how much this hurts, and I couldn´t get rid of her neither. I was running for onions, luckily I bought some at the unpleasant lady´s place. I cut one in half and put it on my eye. In the meanwhile the bees started to attack me. This might sound funny but it wasn´t. Later I found out the bao-bap tree was hollow with a huge nest inside and the bees attacking me were the gards. I threw everything inside the car and drove off. Just maybe 300 yards. Than I kept on going putting onions on my eye-lid. After 15min the pain went down a little bit. I was always checking my eye in a rear view mirror to see if it was going to swell up. Luckily it didn´t. Thanx to the onions. The pain though stayed for the rest of the day. I drove until nightfall and turned off the track for a bush-camp. Getting up I heard the sound of bees again. This time they were in my cleaning up bowl which was placed on the right hand side wing drinking water. But it was hundreds of them. It was impossible to approach them. Finally I got a stick and threw the hole bowl off the car. Later they just disappeared. So either you go up very early or you stay in bed until they are gone. Staying longer in bed seems like a good idea to me. Keniéba was just 30km ahead. I asked myself through to find the douane to get the stamp for leaving Mali. They were mouning about the missing stamp on the laissez passer. One of them was telling me I had to go back where I crossed the border to get the stamp. I almoststarted to laugh but for sure I couldn´t. This would have meant a one weeks drive. At the end there was a superieur turning up handling everything very professionally and finally I got this silly stamp. To the border to Senegal it was only maybe 15km. They are building a new road but I still had to drive on the old track. After crossing the river Gambia I was in Senegal. 
The link underneeth will lead you to picassa photo store.
https://picasaweb.google.com/106213480355655195189/AfricaTrip20102011MaliTheSecond#
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