Journal Entry 49

May 19th, 2005

"Toubab in Timbuktu"

 

Last reported from Bamako, Mali. I was stranded there waiting nearly a week for a visa which no longer exists, but which, regardless, I managed to obtain.

Passed the days keeping current on laundry, taking trips to the market (including one with shriveled not-quite-dry animal heads and quills and bottles of mysterious fluids). All the rice and couscous in the city seems to be infused with tiny stones, at no extra charge. Hot hot hot in that city. I have a thermometer so I can verify that nights in the room were 95deg (35C) and days were 110deg (44C). Every night was a series of 2-hr naps, then shifting to a dry part of the bed and repeating. I've never sweat so much (well, until my hike later)! A bonus is that this city is built above a network of small canals 3' (1m) down, filled with a murky milky gray liquid. The sickly-sweet smell of Bamako after dark is something I'll never forget.

In the end, I missed my bus to Timbuktu by 10 minutes because my visa was 28 hrs late, but it ended up okay because I joined up with Yoshi, a Japanese dude, and we spent the next 2.5 weeks adventuring together. Our first stop was Djenne, evidently the site of the world's largest mud-brick structure (where's the competition?), the Grand Mosque. Big. Nice. Mud. Good market too. My highlight though? These orange-headed purple lizards that run around from place to place doing pushups all day long. No shit! I could watch them all day. Anyway, time to move on.

Next few days were spent hiking in 'Dogon Country'. This is a mighty weird place. Just for background, the Dogon believe that Amma (God) created the earth by throwing clay into space. He subsequently tried to have sex with it, in the process tearing out its clitoris which is a termite mound. The earth got pregnant and gave birth to a jackal which later raped it. My guidebook states outright that it's too hot to trek here in May and that a guide is almost essential, so Yoshi and I decide to squeeze a 6-7 day trek (Sanga to Kani-Kombole) into 3 days, and to do it alone. A cunning plan.

The landscape and villages are nothing short of alien, other-worldly. The Dogon live at the bottom of a 70-mile (120km) long, 1000' (300m) cliff. Dropping off the red plateau for the first time is amazing itself, and then you come to your first village...a 3-D place, little crooked winding stone lanes, fetishes, forbidden zones, skinny leaning clay granaries with thatch roofs that make them look witch-like. Carved posts and meeting centers and weirdness...I'd say medieval, but that doesn't do it justice. If that wasn't enough, above many of the villages, impossibly carved into the cliffs, are the Tellum houses, dwellings of a mysterious old pygmie people that lived here until 500 years ago. Fucked up.

We managed to get lost more than once, but really had a great time scrambling around in the blazing heat, and seeking refuge with people we met during the day's hottest hours. In general, most hiking was done along sandy tracks amid the occasional baobab tree...even these are great, they look like a tree that's been plugged into an electrical socket.

But the heat and distance got to us a bit, and our final day we joined a Swiss couple and rode 10 miles (16km) in a cart pulled by a big cow. Final destination was Kani-Kombole, where there's another mud mosque. And it was market day which meant mangos and tubs of bubbling konjo (hot millet beer) and lotsa dudes wearing the red Vietnamesque pointed hats typical here.

Stopped in the city of Mopti on the Niger River for a day of chaos, then found a truck heading to Timbuktu. I've mentioned before places that I need to go to just because of the name (i.e. Mongolia, Tasmania, Tibet), and here's another. Long trip, slept in the desert en route. The city? Nothing really. A big mess of roads and alleys made of sand, connecting mud houses framed with old wooden doors. A couple of mosques, mud of course (Mali itself is constructed only from mud and thatch I believe). Clay ovens in the alleys where women make bread in the morning. Blue-robed Tuarag desert people trying to rip you off. Dusty market, little street food, 3" long little red birds, donkeys and carts, strong tea laced with fresh basil.

There were more crazy and cross-eyed people in Timbuktu than I've seen anywhere. I don't know what conclusion to draw from this, so I won't try. Did I mention that this town really IS in the middle of nowhere?

Leaving Timbuktu was a mess. We boarded a huge transport vehicle. Actually a big wooden box mounted on the the rear axles of a semi, and 7 seats across. First day en route we spent 4 hrs driving and 18 hrs stopped. Slept on the ground in a village. Arrive in 'civilization' two days later at 4am. Wait 9 more hours, and then 8 hrs more on a bus puts us in Burkina Faso. I get into an argument with a border official over a 'fee' he's charging and the bus driver threatens to dump my luggage off the bus and go, as all the other passengers were through customs.

First stop in Burkina Faso was Bobo-Dioulasso. Nice city. Big yellow mud mosque. Next stop, Gaoua. Small. Filled with harassing individuals. See a chicken sacrificing site. Meet some Slovenian girls. Go to a 'cabaret'--the local pub, where you sit around drinking chapolo (hot millet beer) out of calabash bowls. Next stop, Ouagadougou, the capital. What do I do in capitals? I get visas.

On first glance, I thought I fell asleep on the bus and woke up in hell. At 5pm on a Sunday afternoon, the streets were empty and a wreck and full of unsavoury characters. Ultimately the city redeemed itself, in large part because I spent a lot of time in the American Cultural Center's air-conditioned library reading books and current-events magazines. I saw more hopelessness in Burkina than I've seen yet in an African country, evidence of a country that's continually been betrayed by its leaders.

I left Burkina Faso yesterday. One bus, two taxis, and one van later I was in Tamale, in northern Ghana (the 'Gold Coast'). Nice landscape with these unique circular family compounds of clay walls and huts. Today I moved to Kumasi, about 2/3 of the way to the coast. I'm alone again. It's greener here that I've seen in a long time. This city, in particular, feels almost Asian: it's crowded, filled with 3-story shop buildings and markets and little lanes and lots of traffic.

I'm still learning to deal with the fact that Ghanians speak English. My mind has learned to associate Africans with French. Every border crossing is like crossing into another world. Sometimes it's glaringly obvious, sometimes subtle, but it's always there. Burkina to Ghana was one of the obvious ones: more order and more infrastructure here that I've seen in months, not to mention the change in the language.

===========================================================

Little of interest to note in the food category. I'll sum it up by quoting a billboard, that to me, says what's wrong with African cooking: 'Maggi: Le secret de la bonne cuisine'. (Maggi is a little bouillion cube that they add to everything.) Mali's only redemption is its mangos. And djiminta, a concoction made from honey, ginger, ground nuts, and rice flour. Delicious snack!

Lots of Africans wear watches. Fewer than half work. No one yet has figured out that on ones with metal bands, you're supposed to remove some links to make it actually fit.

Rainy season approaches. It's hot and dry but you get the feeling that one of these days the sky's gonna break and it's gonna piss out for months.

Yoshi are I are the kind of travellers that annoy the money-hungry among the locals: we sleep in the cheapest places (on the roof when available), we learn and buy street food at local prices, no restaurants, no guides, no museums, no souvenirs. We've been told we're bad people for this. But in the end, I do what I enjoy: walk around, have a look.

Oh, and 'toubab' is whitey in a lot of local dialects. I've been called it hundreds of times.

===========================================================

Maybe I should add a 'Cravings' section to my emails. This time, it's cold cuts. A big glass platter filled with slices of meats and cheeses, and buttered bread to put 'em on!

Every day has a lesson, I'm convinced. Extracting it is what's tough sometimes.

'And he deliberately did not think beyond that moment, if it could be engineered, and what would happen subsequently; all his efforts would be directed simply to bringing it about, after that chance, destiny, fate would have to determine what happened next.' (William Boyd) :p>

 

All rights reserved

Away Awhile is hosted by Josh Trutwin.