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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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/>We hired a pirogue, dugout canoe, to visit the Bozo village down river. The pirogue was punted across the huge river by the young owner who proudly called himself 'Captain'. The Bozo village was very picturesque with the mud built houses, the mosque in the center on a hill and the palm trees. As we landed at the village we were swamped by excited children buzzing around us like bees around honey. We really couldn't imagine how the village could have been any more primitive. Just as we had finished our tour of the village and were climbing back aboard our pirogue, one of the children came running up to me with my wallet that I must of dropped. I checked the contents of my wallet and was amazed that not a penny was missing!
The next day we were off to visit Djenné, the oldest and most impressive of the trading towns on the Trans-Saharan caravan routes. We arrived at the stand to catch a pickup at 9.00am and finally caught a ride at 2.00pm - apparently a reasonable wait in Mali! After four hours of a bumpy road sitting on hard wooden benches we finally arrived in Djenné. Mamoud led us directly to the house of another relative where we would spend the night. The Grand Mosque here was even more impressive than the one in Mopti and Mamoud explained how after the rainy season the local people repaired the mud structure.
Next was our highlight of Mali, a 3 day trek to the Dogon villages around the Bandiagara cliff. The Dogon people have lived in this area since 500 BC and have retained their original animalist culture. Their mythology is the source of an abundance of sacred wood carvings, sculptures, masks and ancestral figures.
)First we had a 12km trek through scrub to the Dogon village of Teli. The village was built on the flat at the foot of the Bandiagara cliffs. Just above the village perching on the cliff face were the original houses that had been used to hide from enemies. We took a rest
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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