Afrikisurf – A surf trip to West Africa

This part of Mali is not more inhabited than what we’ve seen so far, the main difference lies in a few main tourist attractions and the river Niger, flowing gently towards Timbouctou, towards the desert and further. And this river is, altough not much current and pretty dirty after passing many towns and villages, simply magic. It is the main watersource for whole areas, feeding plantations and used for laundry, car-wash and shower as well as for fishing and trading. As for all the rivers we’ve been swimming in so far, we are still not sure what to expect. Hippos or Crocodiles? Diseases and worms? F*ck it, after another day of driving in 44 degrees temperatures we just want to cool down. One night was a bit scary as there were Hippos on the other side of the Niger, roaring angrily and we camped only two meters away from the water. For Pascal and me it’s one thing in the car, for Marc in the tent it’s already a little different. We’ve never seen as many insects as here, attracted by our spotlight we’re using for cooking. Millions of bugs going crazy around our place. Got up in the morning, about twenty people made their way through the plantations towards us, singing and all in one line. It was all boys between 10 and 13 years, lead by an old man. They wore all the same blue costumes, the same we’ve seen standing along the road over the last days, swinging some kind of wooden instrument and asking for money. Soon enough they were naked, cleaning themselves in the Niger. Then they were all together and it got quiet. They got circumcised, with a blade, some Betadine and a piece of cotton, right there at the edge of the Niger, one by one. This happens every three years in March, and from then on they are one step closer to be a man. You can see how it hurts, but they can’t show it as it would be a sign of weakness. Don’t even think what happens to the girls here, it makes you vomit and angry..
The famous mosque at Djenné is nice, the whole little town is impressive, built up of mud and with very weird architecture. But it is not nice to be here, the muddy stuff stinks, and too many people want to get some of your money. Made our way to the Dogon country, only stayed for two nights though. Far too many tourists came through here, almost none nowadays because of the crisis in Europe, the problems in northern Africa and the french attacking Lybia and getting hated for it by many Malians who support Ghadaffi. This means that occasionally someone freaks out a bit, showing his anger to the french also towards us. “If there is a french amongst you i will cut his throat” was a statement of one guy going mad at us. Marc is french.
It also means all the guides have no income, as well as the hotels, shops and everyone around them. So it is more pressure on travellers like us, getting hasseled seriously from guides or kids begging for all they can see. The Dogon culture is very interesting, the whole way of living and their believes are hard to understand as we didn’t spend much time here. The oldest man of every village becomes the Ougon, the Chef du village. He is not allowed to leave his home anymore, except for very special ceremonies. Problems and discussions are held under a low-built and open wooden construction with a meter of “Mile” on it, the local wheat. In case someone gets angry at the discussions and gets up too quick he will hit his head and calm down again. Some people’s bodies are still brought up to the cave-like houses in the walls of the Falaise de Bandiagara, a long cliff where the Dogon have built there villages along it. Woman who have their cycle leave their families for five days and stay together in a special place; before they go back they shower intensely and their whole body gets treated with a special oil. All this is one thing, the whole believe in animism is something different. We had no idea how it works but it is unique and it rules their day to day life. The whole area is very impressive, basically it is a cliff with a drop of about 150m. The lowlands are mainly sandy, the top of the cliff is rocky, with some bigger single rocks sticking out here and there, allowing good views over the area (if it’s not too dusty as in this time of the year).
From the Dogon we headed back west, all the way down to the border of western Burkina Faso where we planned to stay for ten days. Well, on the Malian side we got told something important before we got stamped out. The visa for Burkina isn’t 10′000 CFA anymore, now it costs 94′000 CFA. We called the embassy and they confimred. For the car we don’t even know, we turned around as we were not ready to pay 140 Euro each plus the car for just a couple of days. So we’ve spent some more days in southern Mali, which doesn’t see any tourists at all, not just because it’s close to the Ivory Coast but more because there isn’t that much to do here. The closer we came towards Guinée, the greener it got. Trees got bigger too, the road almost all the way either sealed or good piste. Except the last couple of kilometers where it got pretty bad, split up in many paths, all looking the same. All looked like there’s not many cars passing by. And that is the case; on the Malian side there wasn’t even a border-post, no checkpoint, nothing except a Douanier who took our Laisser-Passer for the car about fifteen kilometers before the border. Welcome to Guinée Conakry!