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On the evening of Sunday 26th January my best mate, Mark, drove me from London to the port of Felixstowe, where I was scheduled to begin my 9 month Trans Africa expedition! I entered the P&O Passenger Terminal and eagerly scanned the terminal for a likely looking crowd, sure enough there was a small group with backpacks and sun hats! Our boat was due to set sail for Zeebrugge, Belgium at 11.00pm, so I spent some time getting to know the group. It felt strange to think I would be traveling with this group for 20 weeks overland from England to Kenya! We boarded the ship and after a brief chat everyone decided to bed down. I soon realized the tone of the trip when I discovered that our 'cabin' was actually the floor of the lounge!
1992 Diary - Africa (Part 1)
Gjcmcclurg2005-12-23 14:19:09
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instructions of the trip leader Paula and I headed into the city to try an organize flights down to Mali. There was a definite tension in the air with a significant army presence and tanks on some streets. Paula, however, was intent on photographing the architecture and for this we ended up getting arrested for suspected espionage! Apparently there were army snipers etc. in some of the building that Paula had decided to photograph. We were hauled into a police station and questioned about our motives, luckily they believed us and we even got to keep the role of film!
On Monday 9th March Paula an I flew from Algiers to Bamako, the capital of Mali. We had arranged to keep in touch with the progress of the overland tour via telex, with the aim of rejoining the group in Nigeria. We both felt pretty nervous as the plane touched down in Bamako, we were on our own now! Mali is one of the poorest nations in the world. It was dark as we rode a cab into the city center, all we could see were small groups of people huddled around fires lit beside the road. There seemed to be no high rise blocks in this city only shanty type buildings. We managed to find a very basic hotel which was quite obviously a local brothel - but still it was expensive!
The prices in Mali seemed to be a complete anomaly, as the people were exceptionally poor but the prices seemed to be at an international level. The unrealistic prices were the product of the artificial pegging of the currency to the French Franc, also many people seemed not to be using currency but instead a bartering system! We had now left behind the Arab world of North Africa and were beginning our exploration of Black Africa. The saleswomen of the Grand Marché were a blaze of color with their coordinated body wraps and head scarves, the atmosphere at the market was very different to the souks of Morocco and Algeria. The climate here was also quite a contrast reaching a scorching
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See photographs from:
Togo Gallery
,
Morocco Gallery
,
Mali Gallery
,
Ghana Gallery
,
Burkina Faso Gallery
,
Benin Gallery
,
Algeria Gallery
Michal, 2006-05-09 12:35:21