Africa-trip 2012 Mali

One of the once beautiful houses of the colonial era

We had to cross a dry river bed to enter Malian soil. The Mali side of the border was called Malgue as well. Customs was in town which was actually great. They made the “laissez passer” on the spot which saved me time of going to customs in Kayes. One of the guys working at customs was not very nice. He was very pushy, like he was waiting for me to make a mistake to give him a reason to take the car apart. And he was observing me very close all the time. Maybe he thought I will get nervous. After the documents were stamped they searched the car. One of the guys was climbing up the roof to have a look in the roof-box. He didn't feel very comfortable but he had to do so cause the unpleasant guy was the boss. Melgue behind us we still had a three hours drive to Kayes. Finally we arrived in Kayes, I remembered the town and we went to the Auberge de Jeunesse opposite the train-station. It looked like all the people were glad to see me. And Clément was in town. He is the guy leading the project at the Chutes de Gouina. But first of all we went to change money and for a cold beer. I only wanted to spend one night in Kayes. Kayes is the hottest or second hottest town on the planet. In Janurary the temperatures are still ok. Not more than maybe 37ºC in the afternoon. The next day we went into town to do some shopping and afterwards we left to go to the Chutes de Gouina. I was surprised again. I thought I took the wrong turn when we were finding ourselves on a new road. It seemed like they were building many roads in Africa. Only the part around Diamou was not finished yet. From Diamou to Gouina it is only a 20km distance but it always takes more or less an hour. It was nice to arrive in Gouina. It was our first destiny. (This is how it started last year).We didn't do much the same day, we were just looking for a good place close to the river to park the car. I like this place very much, both, the project and the surroundings. I like the sound of the near-by waterfalls the same than the very nice temperatures. In the morning it was mostly around 18ºC and in the afternoon it was climbing up to 33-37ºC. Only there was a period of maybe five days with very strange weather. It started with a hot wind which turned out to be the Sirocco. The next day it looked like fog with a view not more than 200meters,but what it was was dust blown into the air by the wind. It made breathing not very easy. Finally after five days the sky was clear again. There were bad news from Bamako coming in. Very bad news. Somehow the Nomads or the Arabs were fighting against the Malian military force. We didn't hear much about it. The news were just coming through drop by drop. The next we heard was the market in Bamako was closed and the roads into Bamako were blocked off by armed forces. People from Mauritania were leaving at night etc. Some people were talking about a coup d'etat. We were hoping at this stage the situation might clear up. I was checking already the map to see how if necessary we could as fast as possible leave the country. A couple of days later we heard the situation had cleared out. We spent four weeks at the Chutes de Gouina. I was actually working hard most of the days. There are so many things to do. But they really did a good job. The garden for example, they fenced in a part of the surroundings close to the river and planted Mango and Banana-trees. Next to them they created a vegetable garden. All very nicely done. The problem I remember from being there last year was the water. The water pressure from the tube they put close to the falls was not strong enough. To go the whole hog they bought a diesel water pump which is placed next to the river. There was only one problem with this pump. It was made in India and for that reason it was not very reliable. In the four weeks I spent at the falls the pump had to be repaired three times. Back to the garden. The water is pumped up into a basin. One filling is enough to irrigate the garden between three and four days. A second pipe is heading straight up to the buildings to get water for the kitchen, the cleaning and for the construction site. The reconstruction of the buildings was getting ahead as well. Some walls were already rebuilt. The blocks were all made on the spot. The electricity is now powered with three 150Watts solar-panels. Only the capacity of the batteries is not high enough to have a constant flow of electicity during the night. 6-8 people were employed at the place constantly. Most of them doing construction work at the moment, and the cook. She was doing her best to feed up to 20people every day. Outside the garden they built 6 Koulou-Koulous. These are the traditional

Three of the new built Koulou-Koulous

round little houses which are located in every village in north-west Africa. Very well done and they look very beautiful. They were built to host what ever people are passing by. Sometimes people pass by to visit the falls and stay only overnight and some of the guys like a french couple were staying at long term. The place looked already so much more lively than last year. And it gives some families already a regulary money income. But still there are so many more things to do. The list is endless. But one day it might be a nice independent little village. I gave a hand where ever I could. I was

Building a table

building a table out of a tree trunk. This was the hardest wood I was ever cutting with a chainsaw. It took me three days to built this table and at the end we needed 10!! people to move and to turn it. Than the car, the Tata which was brought down from France last year. Surprisingly it was still alive. Only the gear-box gave up. I took it off opened it up and fixed it. It sounds easier than it was. But at the end it worked again. Than we were cutting many dead trees. Some of them were already on the ground but most of them were still upright. These trunks will be used later to build a terrace in front of one of the buildings. In one of the near-by villages, Foukara, they had the same pump than they had in Gouina. It was smoking like hell and they asked me if I could have a look. So one day we took tools and were going to Foukara which lies on an island in the river Senegal. I've been there last year already to cut some palm-trees down. The engine had an adjustment problem which was sorted in a short time. They surprised me again. They do have a very nice garden there with a working irrigation system. I was wondering who built this and after I asked they told me it was a project financed by the Malian government and was built last year. After we went back to the other side of the river a guy was turning up who was running the mill in the village. The mill was turned over by a very old diesel engine which for sure was not starting anymore. It took me 5 minutes to get it going again. I could only see one problem. The engine had no exhaust, so all the gases were just staying in the mill and by that the what ever they crush gets polluted with exhaust fumes. Towards the end of the month the preperations for the festival were starting. Just before the festival I went ill, so I can't tell anything about it. I had the typical diarrhoea fever mix. Ewa decided to stay in Gouina. She was planning to stay in one of the Koulou-Koulous. We had no arguments or anything going on, that was what she wanted to do.  On Monday morning the 27th of Februrary I said good-bye to Gouina and went to Kayes. Mainly to get an extension for my “laissez passer”. Funny enough I met Stephen an english guy we met earlier this year in Atar in Mauritania. The next morning I left early. I went towards Kenieba to catch the new paved road to Bamako. The road to Kenieba is a bad dirt-track. The average speed was around 20km/h. Stephen gave me an idea. Instead of going down to Kenieba I turned off before and went towards Manantali. There is a big artificial lake. The tracks were terrible. Finally it took me four days to get to Bamako. On one day I was only able to do 90km, but I was driving the whole day. Luckily the Landrover is a very narrow car, cause some of the tracks were donkey tracks, just wide enough to pass through. But the wooden box on the roof got damaged. And the tent. I was

One of the tracks just wide enough to pass through

hitting a big branch when I had to turn round once. The whole thing was bent. Not good, later I had a look and I found out one of the main angles was bent. I arrived at the lake on the third day. Beautiful. The road from Manantali to Kita was a bad dirt-track again, wide enough for lorries to pass, but bad. I was really glad when shortly before Kita I hit the paved road. Imagine, in three and a half days I was doing 400km and than in three hours another 200km. On Friday afternoon I arrived at the sleeping camel, a lodge almost in the center of Bamako. The first I did was checking the tent. I took the bent angle off and tried to straighten it out again.  No chance, too solid, I would have needed a wise. But I did a temporary repair. Not perfect but the tent could be used again. I spent six nights at the sleeping camel. Compared to the quite nights I had over the last weeks it was quite noisy and for that reason I was not getting too much sleep. The temperature and the humidity was slowly raising up. There were some things I had to do in Bamako. First of all I needed an insurance for the car and I had to look for another gas bottle. The two I had with me were almost both empty. I like Bamako. It is somehow caotic but it's got something. I loved walking through these colourful markets. I went into town almost every day and when it was just to get one of these tasty sandwiches from the vietnamies take-away. What I needed as well was the visa for Guinea. It was not as easy as it sounds. The embassy I was sent to was a Guinea embassy but they didn't do any visa. I had to go to the other side of town, but nobody knew the place. Sure, at the end I found. It was too far to walk the whole distance so it gave me a chance to ride with some of the total wrecked Taxis. Fantastic. The visa was very expensive, it cost me more then 70Euro. Funny enough Us citizens pay almost 100Euro. I spoke to quite a few people in town and they were all telling me about the war in the desert between the Tuareg and the Malian military forces. It sounded like a serious thing. For that reason there were only a few tousists in town. After I had all my stuff sorted I left Bamako on a Thursday morning and drove towards Guinea.

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