Paul's Travel Blog

Village of Banani, off of the falaise

As a rule, we don’t like taking guided tours. We generally find that guides lack much knowledge (or perhaps we can’t afford the high quality guides), destroy any sense of discovery or serenity by leading you around like a dog and talking incessantly (perhaps some tourists feel they are getting their money’s worth the more their guide says, however useless and uninformative), cramp spontaneity and flexibility, and take you to shops and restaurants based largely on the kickbacks offered to him for bringing you. In an ideal world, of course having a guide could provide tremendous value and insight–but most guides are far from ideal. In place of a guide, I much prefer the more accurate and specialized information provided by a book. Besides, I love route finding and logistics–some might even argue that that’s what I like best about travel–and guides would steal from me that role!

Anyway, there are some trips in the world for which a guide, or even joining a guided group (for sake of economy), is necessary. Off of the top of my mind, hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, exploring the Salar de Uyuni and southwestern Bolivia in a jeep, African safaris and our trip to Iran, where Americans must be guided, come to mind. And, truth be told, we end up really enjoying most of these trips, if not due to our guide then to the fellow travelers with whom we are sharing the experience. Still, we do avoid guides and groups whenever we can.

Which is why we were somewhat stressed by our trip to the Pays Dogon, or Dogon Country, of Mali. The Dogon Country is a region of Mali where a unique ethnic/lnguistic group known as the Dogon make their home. Believed to have arrived at their current homeland in medieval times, the Dogon are famous for their animist faith, in particular its convoluted cosmology (of Robert Temple’s Sirius Mystery fame), their mask dances and their architecture, including the yet older architecture of the tellem people who preceded them in their current home. Located along a cliff known as the Bandiagara Escarpment, the Dogon Country is on anyone’s list of the highlights of Mali for travelers, and a 2 to 10 day tour, with guide, is considered an essential part of a Mali trip.

But, oh! how to choose the right guide and route?

Mali is, believe it or not, a fairly touristy country, one in which there is a well-established tourist circuit with all of its attendant conveniences and hassles. One of the most persistent of the hassles is the constant presence of would-be guides. Like most African countries Mali has many different ethnic groups, but almost all guides who approach you claim to be one of the two which add the greatest amount of value for the tourist: In and around Timbuktu, all of the young men who approach you are “Tuareg from the desert,” all the better to pitch to you desert trips (or, if that fails, “Tuareg jewelry from my village”). In the rest of the country, including in Bamako, all would-be guides announce themselves as Dogon, and thus well-equipped to take you on a tour of the Dogon Country.

Now, of course, there aren’t even all that many Dogon (less than a million), and certainly some of the would-be guides not only are not Dogon but neither speak Dogon nor know much about Dogon Country. Guidebooks warn that such guides will actually contract an actual Dogon guide upon arrival in Dogon Country–which means not only that you picked the wrong guide to start with but that you paid much too much. And so, we were extremely wary of the entire situation, and very anxious about finding the right person, someone who was not only actually Dogon and knowledgeable but also a person with whom we would actually enjoy spending four or more uninterrupted days.

Our first opportunity to hire a guide came, as with most tourists, in the capital city of Bamako. As a foreign tourist walking around Bamako, it is assured that you will have at least a handful of young men approach you, telling you that they are Dogon and trying to arrange for you a Dogon tour. Of course, being extremely distrustful of the whole situation (every guidebook tells you not to arrange Dogon tours in Bamako, to wait for cities closer to Dogon Country), we ignored all those who approached us, even though one young man in particular seemed knowledgeable and sympathetic (more on him below). The bottom line is that we had just arrived in the country and needed to get a better feel before we made any commitments. Although one of the guides we met might not have been a bad choice, as we figured out later, we think that this is generally sound advice–a Dutch couple we met in Timbuktu told us that they had arranged their Dogon trip in Bamako, and had a mediocre experience, with very little actual trekking (2-3 kilometers/day) along a poorly planned itinerary with little scenic or cultural variety.

Djenne was the next big hub of guide activity, but we found the would-be guides there far too aggressive. We met some Peace Corps volunteers who had a great experience (at an even better price) with a guide, but he was booked solid with other Peace Corps folk, and so unavailable. Eventually, we decided that we should head up to Timbuktu for Tabaski (see post of 12.08), and defer our guide selection for our return.

We took a boat to Timbuktu (see post of 12.07), but took a jeep back, through the city of Douentza. A French couple with whom we were sharing the jeep arranged a three day trip starting in Douentza and approaching Dogon Country from the northwest, a recommended itinerary, but we did not join them as 1) we wanted a greater selection of guides (particularly important because English language ability is scarce in Mali relative to French) and 2) we wanted to go on a longer trip.

Our next opportunity to hire a guide was in the city of Sevare, the city closest to Bandiagara, which is the most common starting point of a Dogon trip. In Sevare we stayed at Mac’s Refuge, a slightly overpriced but very comfortable hotel whose principal appeal is the affable Mac, an American former Christian missionary turned innkeeper who holds court every evening over delicious home-cooked dinners, one of the best meals we had in Mali. Mac offered us a list of English-speaking guides. While he told us that this was a “screened” list, it also seemed clear that he wanted no part in mediating the transaction–he was not running a travel agency and did not want to take responsibility for our choice. The morning after, we had a few of Mac’s suggested guides over for little interviews, but none seemed right. The first started at an overly high price, especially for transport (we didn’t really want our guide profiting from our jeep transfers), the second seemed lethargic and unenthusiastic and the third seemed to think, bizarrely, that our proposed itinerary, which we had arrived at after conversations with Mac and the first two guides, was simply not feasible in the time we proposed–perhaps he just didn’t want us as clients.

Around noon, after the failed negotiations with the Sevare-based guides, we headed to the share taxi stop for Bandiagara, hoping to maybe catch onward transit to Sanga for its market day, and sort out the guide situation there. Getting from Sevare to Bandiagara ended up being a mini-fiasco.

We arrived at the share taxi stop to find that a taxi had just left, and that seven more people (paying 1600 CFA or USD 3.20 each) would be needed to fill our car. The driver flatly refused any amount less than the full fare for all nine seats. Unwilling to pay that amount to go the short distance on the paved road, we crossed the street and attempted to hitchhike. There were almost no vehicles, but we figured that one tourist vehicle would be enough. While we were waiting, several people annoyingly walked up to tell us that we should pay for all nine sea
ts of a share taxi, it’s unclear what their stake was in the situation but they clearly had one.

After a bit more than an hour, a green Mercedes pulled up with heavy bass thumping out American rap. We asked through the window if the car was going to Bandiagara, and a reasonably well-dressed man asked us what our plans were, whether we had a guide for the Dogon already, etc. He explained that he owned the Hotel de la Falaise in Bandiagara, and said that he could drive us there, if we stayed at the hotel and considered using one of his guides for our trek. The hotel being reviewed quite positively in the Rough Guide, we thought this a good plan. As we were putting our bags in the car, however, we were interrupted by a number of people associated with the share taxi business, who came up to complain that we were rightfully their customers and that the hotel owner could not provide us transportation, which is their line of work (as if they had some sort of monopoly on all travelers on this road). The argument quickly escalated, with people yelling at each other tussling over our bags and generally getting in each others’ faces. Some money was exchanged, from the hotel-owner to the taxi drivers, but apparently not enough. Eventually, we grabbed our bags and told the hotel owner in English (which only he among the group understood) that we would walk up the street and wait for him there.

A few minutes later, the Mercedes passed us, with the driver yelling out the window for us to go to the Hotel Flandres, which we knew to be a good 20-25 minutes away by foot. Having all of our luggage on us, and it being mid-day, we were uncertain whether to follow these instructions for what might not even end up being a good situation. Nonetheless, since we were offered a free ride (and there was a good chance that there was no other ride available at all that day, especially since we had just gotten into a fight with the share taxi cartel), and because the driver seemed so confident, we headed over. At the town’s main intersection, a blue van drove up and lectured to us, in French, that we should take the transportation offered by the cartel. We ignored him, but the van continued to follow us. About mid-way to the Hotel Flandres, when we had briefly stopped to check on a Wi-Fi connection, a man we recognized as one of the passengers in the Mercedes came up to us and told us that he had come to make sure that we got to the Hotel Flandres. We proceeded, the blue van following all along at a distance of maybe twenty-five yards. (No doubt we would have been charged a fortune for a taxi ride that distance, let alone in a big van, but here he was wasting his fuel just to enforce the transportation cartel’s monopoly.)

We waited at the Flandres for the hotel owner to come with his Mercedes. Fifteen minutes later, he arrived and said it was time to go. When we took our bags to the car, however, we saw that the blue van had blocked us into the driveway, and that quite an active dispute was underway over our ride. After more arguments, the hotel owner somehow prevailed, and with a little fancy driving to get around the van we were on our way.

About five minutes into our ride, the hotel owner first instructed us, if the police were to ask, to say that we had hired him to drive us to Bandiagara, at a cost of 20,000 CFA. After more discussion with his friend, he told us instead to say that we had a hotel reservation and so were being driven over. All this suggested that the checkpoint would be, um, sympathetic to the interests of the cartel. However, the police at the checkpoint seemed quite content with the bag of baguettes that was handed over by the driver and required no other explanation, and our host seemed quite happy with himself for getting through without a hitch.

The Hotel de la Falaise is certainly a pretty smooth operation. The rooms are comfortable and good value, the food tasty and well-prepared and the setup for hooking up tourists with Dogon itineraries and guides very efficient. After we had lunch and made clear that we were ready to discuss our Dogon trip, a smartly dressed man sat down with us. We explained what we wanted, and he elaborated our itinerary, filling in one more town he thought worthwhile (but which we previously had thought too distant). He said that our itinerary would cost a little more than alternative ones, but the price quoted (20,000 CFA or USD 40/person/day) was still lower than anything else we had been offered as a “first price,” and well within the range of the prices suggested by guidebooks (15-30,000 CFA or USD 30-60/person/day). The man introduced us to our guide, who we were assured was a qualified guide from the guide association, and wrote out a contract with our routing and a list of everything included in the price (guide fees, transport, food, lodging, village taxes, etc.). We chatted with our guide some, found him amiable enough, and agreed to leave at 7 AM the next morning.

Tellem buildings near village of Ireli. The Tellem were the predecessors of the Dogon in their current home, and traditional beliefs of the Dogon ascribe all sorts of mysterious properties and powers to the Tellem, such as dwarfism and the ability to climb the rock walls like mini Spider-Men to reach their mysterious homes or granaries built into the cliffsides. To American eyes, there is a resemblance to the Puebloan villages of the Southwest, such as those at Mesa Verde.

Tellem architecture near Youga Dogourou

I am sorry to report that we were not, in the end, very pleased with our trip. While our guide was friendly enough, he was too passive and did not assure that we received the standard of food that we felt we should at campements en route (other tourists seemed to be getting better at the same establishments, and at one point even he received a visibly better meal than we, which I found incredibly irritating). Around mid-day, he would get a bit lazy, and suggest shortening routings or longer breaks than were really necessary. Explanations were overly succinct, and, while I believe he had a good understanding of Dogon culture (he certainly was Dogon himself), I did not feel that we received very good “guiding.” Finally, his familiarity with the route was not 100%, as at one point he hired another man to help lead us (and carry his bag–thus our guide had a porter, though not we). I don’t think these faults would apply to all guides represented by the Hotel de la Falaise, but it certainly did not work out as the foolproof method of finding the right guide that we hoped it would.

So what should you do? Well, you could try your shot at the Hotel de la Falaise–just be very clear (even to the point of rudeness, like asking how long lunch breaks will be, how many meals will come with meat) exactly what you are expecting from your guide and trip. Depending on the luck of the draw, you may still have to be somewhat aggressive with your guide, as we felt we had to be, in order to have the trip you expected. But perhaps your luck will be better than ours, or your expectations lower.

Or, you can try contacting one of the these two guides:

Pebelou Dolo, 7 408 33 07, dolobelou@yahoo.fr

Seck Dolo, 7 874 78 43, seckdolo@yahoo.fr  (the phone actually belongs to a friend of Seck’s named Toube, but he can locate Seck)

The first is a man we met in Sanga, within Dogon Country proper. Of all of the guides we talked to on our Dogon trip, he seemed to have one of the best commands of English and also a very sophisticated worldview, suggesting that he would probably give good explanations and be otherwise agreeable on a long trip. The second is the guide we met in Bamako. At the end of our Mali trip, we were back in Bamako, and ran across the young man who had followed us around the first day suggesting that we hire him for our Dogon trip. We explai
ned what had happened on our Dogon trip, and he recognized the various problems, and assured us that, had we gone with him, things would have been better. Now having been to the Dogon, it was clear to us that Seck really was quite knowledgeable, and we had always had confidence in his language ability and general demeanor. Seck also assured that he could arrange affordable transport from Bamako to the Dogon (using public transportation as desired), or arrange to meet him there, and that his clock could start ticking once the trek started, not from Bamako. And so we think that both of these guides would be worth checking out. (If you try either, please let me know how your experience was so we can add it to this blog entry. Or, if you’d like to offer a plug for another good guide, please let me know.)

Carvings on the toguna, or case a palabres, the main meeting place for the men of a Dogon village, Kundu

The problem with our Dogon trip was not with our guide alone. To be honest, we were disappointed by the experience as a whole, including especially with the reception of tourists by the Dogon themselves. This may sound somewhat harsh to read, but we find that some peoples seem to take to tourism (or to being touristed) better than others; I would not place the Dogon at the top of this list. Compared to other places that are heavily touristed, Dogon Country, I would say, is more “ruined” than most, with relatively few opportunities for genuine and meaningful interaction (as opposed to, say, trying to be sold things) and a lack, on the part of the Dogon, of reciprocal curiosity and friendliness. Some concrete tips so that your experience is better than ours:

– Buy extra food. While there is no shortage of campements offering tourists food and lodging along the main routes, the standard of food is surprisingly low. Part of this was due to passivity on the part of our guide, but part is also due to lack of cooking skills and ingredients. Even though food is likely included in the price of your tour, you should supplement generously. Taking along a can of tuna or sardines (those red cans sardines are really quite tasty) for each meal will augment it tremendously, far better than the super-scrawny chicken, some of the thinnest and stringiest in the world, that is on offer in the Dogon. As in other parts of the former French colonial world, La Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow) processed cheese is also widely available, and tasty on a trek. Conveniently, such items can be purchased in the bigger Dogon villages themselves, as well as at the trailheads.

– The trail from Sanga to the town of Banani, using the staircase, is strikingly beautiful and should not be missed. One of our greatest annoyances with our guide was that he did not indicate this path to us.

– The three Yougas are definitely worthwhile. Youga Na, in particular, was, to me, the most beautiful of the villages that we visited and boasted the very best campement, with ice cold drinks and almost “boutique” decor, established with the assistance of the French (though oddly the food was horrible). If I were to suggest an itinerary, for someone in a reasonable state of fitness, I would suggest basing out of Youga Na, taking one day to get there from Sanga through Banani, another day to do a loop through the other two Yougas and then the third day stopping by Yendouma and Tiogou on your way back to Sanga. This is basically what we did, except that we hiked through Ireli on the way to Banani and slept in Banani, and also slept in Yendouma on the way out.

– In Sanga proper, which you can visit quite well without a guide at all, the Hotel Kastor is quite comfortable and good value, and offers great meals.

– Do not plan on taking a lot of pictures. The Dogon seem to be under the mistaken impression that photographs of them are highly marketable and valuable, and so treat the taking of photographs something like petty larceny. Now, we’ve encountered pay-for-photo regimes in the past, including most notably with the tribal people in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, but the truth is that the Dogon people, as a visual matter, are not all that interesting, generally not a people Derek would pay to take pictures of. When women start demanding money because they happened to get into a picture you were taking of a building, or when children who are clearly not in the picture (five feet to the right of you when your camera is pointing straight ahead) start yelling, “No! No! No!” it gets pretty irritating. (Older men generally do not mind, especially if bribed with a few kola nuts, post to come.) Dogon Country is simply the worst place in the world we have been, for ease of photo taking.

View of Youga Na

We made it–to Timbuktu. In a sense it was inevitable–Timbuktu is the sort of place that most travelers aspire to have on their travel resume; even if there were nothing to see, tourists would flock here for the sheer cachet of its name alone. Timbuktu is a byword for distant, for remote, for that place to which, if you have been, perhaps you have been everywhere else as well. As a souvenir t-shirt on sale here puts it, “I’ve been to Timbuktu and back”–no other destination sounds like such an achievement. It is one of those places, like Zanzibar or Samarkand, that everyone has heard of, even if they’re not sure whether it really exists and don’t know its location. Well, the legendary city of the Mali empire, the city of Mansa Musa, the city so long closed to Western explorers, does exist, even if it has seen better days, deep in the Malian Sahel, a few miles from the Niger River.

But there are a couple of ugly truths about Timbuktu. The first is that, in some respects, it’s not so remote at all. Few places in this day and age are all that remote, and this is true even for Timbuktu, as infamous as it is for its remoteness. Timbuktu has an airport with regular flights to the city of Mopti, the second biggest city in Mali, and, believe it or not, Mopti has direct flights to Paris (not to mention connecting fights through Mali’s capital Bamako to various other destinations). I don’t know the actual schedules, or how good the connections are, but possibly you can fly in from Paris in the morning, change planes once, and be in Timbuktu by the afternoon. If you’re willing to fly, Timbuktu is just hours away, however unadventurous that may be. (Flying to Timbuktu, in my opinion, largely defeats the purpose of going.)

For that matter, we didn’t even have to get on a plane to arrive at Timbuktu in an unusually (for Africa) carefree and comfortable manner–we took a cruise. Well, perhaps cruise slightly overstates the situation, but COMANAV, Mali’s state boat company, operates a weekly boat service up and down the Niger, from Mali’s capital Bamako, through Mopti, Timbuktu and Gao, in the far east of the country, and back. The boat’s not a sure thing–it runs only when the river level is high enough and is sometimes subject to serious delays–but it offers a level of comfort that one doesn’t find too often in West African transport, let alone for a destination as exotic as Timbuktu. The fares are not cheap (about USD 100 from Mopti to Timbuktu, a 36 or so hour run, in a first class cabin for two with sink but shared bath), but the ride allows one to enjoy the traditional route to Timbuktu from the south–the Niger River–while maintaining a sense of journey and adventure and without having to shell out for a private pinasse (up to USD 1000) or suffering the conditions on a public pinasse (see post of 12.04).

There are many classes of service on the boat, but the most luxurious (which we did not take) includes your own spacious cabin with air conditioning, mini-fridge and bath, while a few of the classes include decent meals served in a basic but spacious dining room, complete with karaoke machine. A second class cabin, with four bunks.

And quite a journey the COMANAV is. Even if your immediate surroundings are almost luxurious, and out of keeping with general conditions in West Africa, I can think of few better ways to witness life on the Niger than from the comfortable deck of the COMANAV ship.

With ample deck space–the boat was surprisingly uncrowded, especially considering that fourth class tickets are actually quite affordable–you can peacefully survey the natural beauty of the Niger, as it expands into its inland delta and then contracts toward the top of its bend.

Villages passed en route provide glimpses of traditional Sudanese mud-brick architecture, with its elaborate ornamentations and textures. At some stops, there was enough time to take a short walk into town. Following the route on our map, we found ourselves chuckling as we described ports as “halfway to Timbuktu” or “three quarters of the way to Timbuktu.”

The voyage is especially notable for the amount of commerce that it facilitates. The first picture shows villagers selling prepared food to the passengers on board. While meals of decent local food were included in second class and above (the classes that most foreign tourists take), those in third and fourth classes either prepared their own food or bought food from ladies who rowed pirogues up to the boat with plates of (usually) dried or fried fish. We even saw a few live chickens change hands, but it was unclear whether passengers were actually slaughtering and cooking them onboard. The second picture shows a procession of women departing the ship with baskets of produce. The boat acts as a sort of moving market, and these women seemed to be riding not to go anywhere but to sell merchandise. At each stop, regardless of time of day (or night), the boat would play loud dance music, letting people know that the boat had arrived, and the ladies would set up a sort of market right in front of the boat, selling produce to the villagers. The third picture shows a sort of convenience store set up on the lower level of the boat. Apparently, in addition to certain fruits and vegetables, the villagers on the boat’s route lack pomades, matches, cigarettes, candy and toothpaste (some of these items may also have been for sale to the boat’s passengers). Villagers would board the ship, when in dock, to purchase items from these onboard stores.

When going to a destination such as Timbuktu, the journey should be at least half the fun, and our COMANAV trip did not disappoint. We arrived well-rested and well-entertained, having enjoyed the scenery, interactions on board and brief village stops, and even having gotten a little work done (as there was electricity on board).

What is the second ugly truth about Timbuktu? As the guidebooks warn you, there is actually very little here. The state of Timbuktu of today speaks more to its remote location and less to its past glory as the great city of a fabulously wealthy empire. Back in the 14th century, Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire, was so rich from the gold mines of West Africa that on the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, his spendings depreciated gold prices in Cairo for over a decade. It was starting from those times that Timbuktu became, in the eyes of much of the rest of the world, a city of great exoticism and allure. Now? Yes, there are some ancient mosques, which have been lovingly restored and are fine examples of Sudanese mosque architecture, but the Great Mosque of Djenne [post to come] is far more impressive and, like the Djenne mosque, the mosques of Timbuktu are closed to non-Muslim tourists. Yes, there is something like an old city, but it is nothing compared to dozens of other old cities we have seen, and certainly far smaller and less interesting than, again, Djenne. How about the desert? Well, as any world atlas can tell you, Timbuktu is not located in the truth Sahara, but in the Sahel transition zone, a sandy area yes, but one with regular hardy vegetation and not too many of the high dunes of one’s childhood fantasies. Just as one would not go to Timbuktu for its architecture or a tangible sense of history, one would not go to Timbuktu solely for the desert scenery.

Foremost among the sights of Timbuktu are three ancient mosques (the Djingarey Berre mosque is pictured below), “explore
rs’ houses” said to be the buildings in which the first European explorers to Timbuktu stayed (that of Rene Caillie is pictured below)and libraries holding the medieval manuscripts for which Timbuktu is famous (the Ahmed Baba Institute is pictured below).

Typical Timbuktu street scene: more sewage than romance

So why go to Timbuktu at all? Is it even worthwhile? Well, our stay in Timbuktu was greatly enriched, perhaps even redeemed, by our choice of lodging: Sahara Passion (link). We saw the two proprietors, the unlikely husband-wife team of somewhat grizzly Touareg Shindouk and youthful Canadian Miranda Dodd, advertising their hotel at Timbuktu’s port when we arrived into town. They were embarrassed at trolling for customers at the port but due to recent and confusing changes in location, they needed the additional visibility despite being recommended in multiple guidebooks. The two drove us to their guesthouse-cum-family home, located on the northern outskirts of town. On the way there, we were afraid that the location might be inconvenient, as it was located a good kilometer or more from the “old city,” and at first sight we were concerned about the relatively spartan conditions (e.g., the city’s power grid does not reach their home, posing difficulties for travelers as electronically dependent as we (see post of 8.20), though they do have solar power for smaller items and can charge larger items in their town office on request). But if the charm of the two hosts and the insights they offered into life in Timbuktu weren’t enough, and they would have been (we were especially impressed by Shindouk’s wise and cosmopolitan worldview), we soon realized that their location was also a tremendous benefit, for it helped us to understand and appreciate what is special about Timbuktu.

Shindouk

The edge of town–to the north, the wilderness and the way to the Maghrib

As I mentioned in my post of 12.04, much of the strategic significance of Mali, the reason it played such an important role in medieval African history, is the bend in the Niger River, which facilitated communication between Arab/Berber North Africa and black sub-Saharan Africa. The swoop of the Niger northward to Timbuktu allowed for camel caravans to relatively easily cross the Sahara to a sub-Saharan port, with access to goods such as gold, ivory and slaves. Timbuktu is, in other words, the gateway between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. From Sahara Passion, this is demonstrated more clearly, more plainly, than I thought possible.

Just south of us is Timbuktu, largely an African city, not dissimilar from the mudbrick town of Old Djenne or others in Mali. The residents are mostly black and dressed in colorful clothes, their markets (and behavior) also colorful. The heart of the city is surprisingly dense, crowded in the way that African cities can be.

To the north? Still the Sahel, yes, but mainly sandy desert, a wilderness of emptiness. We were told that a day’s drive away there were some settlements, but even there encampments are said to be scattered a great distance apart, so that there is essentially nothing in the way of dense neighborhoods. And the residents? Almost all Touareg, a fiercely independent and historically nomadic North African Berber group, in skin color tan and not black at all.

Nomad-style encampments on the edge of town. These were mostly populated by people who were ethnically/racially black but culturally Touareg, presumably the former (some would say current) slaves of the Touareg.

Touareg camel caravan on its way out of town

Even if the history of Timbuktu is not palpable in the city’s remaining monuments, the significance of its location, the role it has played as a transition or pivot point between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, is still very much tangible, especially from the northern edge of town. Topography, ecology, mode of living, race–everything seems to shift from the few miles south to the few miles north of Timbuktu, and the city, just as it has often switched hands from black African powers (the Mali Empire and the current state of Mali) to North African ones (the Touareg and the Moroccans), is truly halfway between the worlds of sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa.

Two of the many shades of TImbuktu’s residents

There are many other interesting points of interest surrounding Timbuktu, which make it a place far more fascinating than it superficially appears. One of the most intriguing is the 40-day salt camel caravan, which brings mined salt from Taoudenni in the Sahara to Timbuktu to be sold in other parts of Mali and beyond. Another is the status of the former slaves of the Touareg, black Africans who have been culturally integrated into Touareg society, with some clinging on to a familial/employee role, if not still outright chattel. We were told that, to this day, the people working at the Saharan salt mines are black in skin color. Then there are the famous manuscripts, thousands of volumes bearing evidence of Timbuktu’s past history as a center of education and culture (however hard it seems now to believe). But my knowledge on these topics is limited, and many websites touch on them, and so I encourage you to use google to learn more.

We know we haven’t seen it all, but we’ve seen a lot, and so when we see something that qualitatively or quantitatively stands out compared to things we’ve seen before, we are all the more impressed and astonished. Such a place is the port of Mopti.

Mopti is a medium-sized city on the banks of the Bani and Niger rivers, halfway between Bamako, Mali’s capital, and the legendary city of Timbuktu. The Niger River is the lifeblood of Mali–as the country is located at the edge of the Sahara, largely in the transition zone known as the Sahel, the river is an essential source of water, food and transport in the country, a sustainer of life and commerce. The northward horseshoe turn of the Niger River in particular, known as the “bend” of the Niger, has acted for centuries as a conduit for communication and trade between “Arab” North Africa and the savannah and jungle of sub-Saharan “black” Africa, helping now Mali become a center of several empires. Timbuktu is at the northernmost part of this bend; Mopti can be seen as its westernmost point, the base from which trips to or from the north and east started or ended.

Link to map of Mali at the Perry-Castañeda Library
Map Collection

Mali’s river ports have the same significance today that they had in the past. Much of the population lives along the Bani and Niger Rivers, and given Mali’s relatively primitive road infrastructure, river travel is still competitive in time and cost, and the choice for many, making the Port of Mopti one of the busiest, most hectic centers of river transport we have ever seen. On market day, the level of frenetic activity is comparable to that of transportation centers in urban India and the lack of development and filth comparable to Indian cities or, what came to our mind, the watery slums of Jakarta–but what makes Mopti stand out is that, compared to similar hubbubs in India or scenes in Indonesia, the setting is more rustic and the conditions more primitive, making Mopti altogether more overwhelming, especially given the relatively small size of the city compared to those of urban Asia.

Walking around Mopti’s harbor, especially on market day, is an unforgettable experience. The harbor is shaped something like a square, open to the Bani River on one side with boat access by paved ramps all along the other three. The heart of the city lies on one of those three sides, and market districts on the other two. Starting from the city corner, it is an easy walk around the three sides of the square to the refuge of bar/restaurant Bar Bozo on the fourth corner, a ramble that can take anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours, to take in the diversity and energy of the many activities of the harbor.

Primary and most important is the loading and unloading of cargo and passengers from the many pinasses that travel up- and downriver. As I mentioned above, given Mali’s relatively poor road infrastructure, river transport is an essential means of getting around, and getting goods around, the country. Given the high cost of fuel and the poverty of the country, unsurprisingly Malians try to maximize the utility of any transport run. We had become accustomed to the fact that minivans and buses in Mali generally do not run until absolutely full, and that any vacant space is used for passengers or cargo. For example, on one minivan ride, our driver insisted on stopping for every single opportunity to carry extra freight, whether it was a sheep or a bunch of wood waiting at the side of the road, and squeezing passengers into every available space, with some sharing the floor with an adorable tiny lamb. We were still incredulous, however, at the extent to which the pinasses of Mopti are loaded, well beyond any reasonable capacity.

When a boat can no longer be filled at shore, because the weight of the load makes it sink into the mud in the shallow of the harbor, it is floated to the middle of the harbor, and loaded further.

Two thoughts immediately come to mind. The first is safety. An overloaded car or bus may be uncomfortable, yes, but at least there isn’t the danger of sinking. With the boats crammed so full that they float just inches above the water, and with cargo and passengers sitting on top of their roofs, it is all too easy to picture the boats tipping over, with the passengers left to swim to shore or drown (it goes without saying that there are no lifejackets on board).

The second is the overwhelming discomfort of a long pinasse journey. A typical pinasse ride from Mopti can take anywhere from 6 to 36 hours–destinations and fares are often painted on the boat–and it is hard to imagine the physical discomfort of such a journey, given that each passenger has barely enough room to sit, let alone sleep. The trips grow even longer if the ships, overloaded, run aground in shallows, in which case the ship has to be unloaded, freed to deeper waters, and then reloaded, a process that can means additional hours of delay. Hardier backpackers than we opt to take such public pinasses from Mopti to Timbuktu–we opted for the big COMANAV ship, with our own private cabin.

Smaller pirogues for intracity journeys. Some of these are clearly lived-in, like the floating homes of Vietnam or southern China.

There are many more activities, however, than just the loading and unloading of ships. On one side of the harbor, salt is sold. Now, this is not just any salt, but salt from the Sahara, brought by camel caravans some fifteen or so days from Taoudenni to Timbuktu, and then by river to Mopti, to be cut and sold to Fulani herders. The salt trade is an ancient one, and one of the principal commodities North Africans offered in exchange for gold and slaves. It is simply amazing that this trade still lives on, that this is still the most economical means of obtaining salt in Mali.

On another side of the harbor, fish is dried and sold. Entire clans, it seems, from elder to juvenile, are involved in the preparation and sale of river fish, dried or smoked to an unappetizing black. Fish is an essential source of calories and protein for Malians.

While walking along, it can be difficult to take pictures because at any given moment, in any given frame, the camera is likely to catch a man, woman or child squatting (urinating or defecating) at the water’s edge. The amount of garbage and general filth is depressing, and it is heartbreaking to see those responsible for the port’s upkeep.

Finally, starting just above the water’s edge and stretching several blocks inland, there are markets, with a wide range of goods being sold, urban goods for those boarding ships and products from the countryside unloaded off ships and sold to the residents of the city.

The pinasse pictured here seemed to be traveling back with a tremendous stack of empty containers, which presumably brought goods for sale at the market.

Tourism is a big industry in Mali, and many try to make a living through dealings with tourists. One of our walks around the harbor w
as nearly ruined by a young man who we think must have been on drugs, and rattled on incessantly about absolutely nothing (including about how black Africans are now free, and get paid to have sex with white women), eventually becoming quite belligerent when we asked to be left alone. (A while later, he came back to apologize.) Other times, men would come up to us announcing themselves as “captain pinasse,” saying that they have a “big pinasse” and asking if we wanted to ride–no pun intended, but nonetheless inducing much giggling on our part. Derek’s favorite was the boat tout who approached saying, “I have a big pinasse with two tourists on it, but I need two more.”

At the end of the walk, at the corner most distant from town, lies Bar Bozo, a neo-colonial perch of foreigners seated to watch the sunset and the endless show of the port, located next to a workshop for the repair of pinasses and pirogues. As the sun sets, one can see not only the activity of the harbor but the relative calm of the river just beyond, with fishermen bringing in their nets.

We’re not that big on holidays. Maybe it’s because I grew up in an immigrant household, in the awkward place of not really being able to fully appreciate the holidays of our origin, for lack of public acknowledgement and others with whom to celebrate, nor those of our new home, which were foreign and unfamiliar to us (I think every immigrant family must have a story involving its first Halloween). Or maybe it’s because from college to law school to clerkship to working abroad, we’ve moved around so much, and often been far from our family and friends with whom we would wish to commemorate a special day. Whatever the cause, routinely we see holidays come and go, marked only by an office function, perhaps, or a day off and an excuse to get out of town. Thanksgiving for us for a few years meant a time to go up to Canada for the weekend, where things would be open. This year, the time of Thanksgiving dinner passes on a bus, bound from the Malian border with Senegal to Mali’s capital, Bamako.

Thanksgiving on the road

Our Thanksgiving lunch (no Thanksgiving dinner)

For what am I thankful? However contemptible I feel for feeling it, and however nonsensical it is, while traveling in Sub-saharan Africa, it’s easy to feel a sense of relief for not having been born here. The conditions on this continent can be so challenging, that to my spoiled first world eyes, they seem almost impossible to endure. To live in 40 degree Celsius weather with no accessible place air-conditioned, to be constantly pestered by flies and mosquitoes that in addition to causing the usual itchiness carry disease, to have to keep myself and my clothes clean without water much less hot water on demand, to have to work so hard for so little and be appreciative for having any job at all… Of course, had I been born here, or were I really forced to live it, I am sure that I would adapt and make do. But I was not, and I am not.

Backpacking is, from the most cynical perspective, a voyeuristic “slumming it.” Backpackers travel to countries that are, generally, cheaper and poorer than the places we come from. In doing so, we sleep in airports and train stations, in hotel-cum-brothels, in dorms with shared bath; ride in minibuses, share-taxis and boats crammed full with freight and humanity; grow disheveled, with scruffy faces, patched and dirty clothes and grungy backpacks; exert ourselves, carrying our loads on our backs, taking 24-hour bus rides and hiking hours between villages. Why do we do this? Why not just travel in the developed world? In part it’s cost, but it’s also because we want to see the less developed world, in part because it is less developed, to see things that no longer exist (never existed?) back home. The contrast between places such as Africa or India and the world we come from, whether New York or Hong Kong or Paris, is so great that it is almost unbelievable that such disparate places exist at the same time in the same world.

So I am thankful for the incredible privilege of seeing it all. For the ability to travel from Venice to Dakar in 24 hours, at an expense that is manageable for me. For having a job back home that allows me sufficient money, and time, to do what I am doing. At no point in the history of the world has travel been so easy, so accessible, to so many (though of course still only a tiny sliver of the world population). With the advent of discount airlines, the proliferation of guidebooks, the rise of English as an international lingua franca and the ubiquity of the internet and ATM machines, with a bit of money and time almost no destination is beyond reach. And despite the homogenization and globalization of the last fifty years, fascinating differences, truly exotic (to us) locales, still exist. To experience more than it seems one person has a right to experience, for that I am thankful today.