Niamey

I have been stalling my post in the hope anything interesting would happen I could write about. No such luck and if I do not write now, the danger exists my blog will die a quiet death. With nothing to write about that might happen anyway of course, but what is a death of a blog? Enough of the babbling let's start with the nothing.

Although Niamey was described to me as a dump, I was impressed by its looks. Not that it is beautiful or has (many) touristic sites, but it looks relatively well organized, has a lot of asphalt roads and even some tall buildings and places with street lightings. I believe in the seventies uranium was found in the north of Niger and with prices sky high, money was available in abundance. From these times stem the fancy looking big buildings. When uranium price plummeted the country all of a sudden was poor as a church rat. I wonder what the country would have looked like if they had spent their money on education and irrigation projects?

Still Niamey has friendly inhabitants and I have enjoyed myself, I wish it would be a little bit less hot, today temperature rose to 47 Celsius, they said. I staid in the case de passage of the Deutsche Entwicklung Dienst(?)(DED). The previous week there had been a gathering of all DED staff in Niger. Thorsten, still was there, awaiting the arrival of his girl-friend and 2 friends. Thorsten was so nice to take me to good spots to eat in the evening and took me with him when visiting his friends in Niamey. He even arranged a place for me to stay in Agadez with a colleague, Anne. In Niamey a lot of Embassies are present so I made an embassy tour to find out my options for traveling further. Lybia only gave visa to local people; Algeria said their consulate in Agadez managed overland border crossings into Algeria and maybe they would allow me one; Chad was no problem but on the same day a civil war broke out! I did not want to go south so my only option was to go north to Agadez.

Timbuctu, just a name?

Early in the morning I managed to arrange a ride with an aid of a businessman. The price was rather high, but an eighth of yesterdays price, so relatively ok. At the moment of departure the businessman did not want to take me on his car as he said he was not public transport. Fortunately one of the boatworkers knew him and managed to convince him I was good people. His reluctance to take me, I was not able to overcome and he dropped me at the ultimate south of the city. Although it was before 7 it already started to warm up. I wanted to see the city anyway and now I was forced to, so what am I complaining about? The city was crowded with police, army and predominantly white 4x4 cars. Timbuctu happened to host a big African summit. Khadaffi also was giving acte the presence, which apparantly was felt as a big thing. Everywhere in the city were posters with Khadaffi, banners welcoming him as the great African leader. Loads of people were wearing t-shirts with a picture of Khadaffi and many children had Lybian banknotes, which the Lybians had been handing out.
Another consequence of the summit was that much of the accomodation was taken, also the one I had planned to visit. Fortunately I met someone who happened to be at hotel Sahara Passion and, what a coincidence, still had a room available. At that time I already had been roaming through the famous city for 3 hours, because no one had known my prefered sleeping place, so I agreed to go with him. The place was actualy quite nice. I decided to stay for a night and decide further the next day. First I took a short but much needed shower, it had been more than a week since I took one. As my money supply was in desparate need of replanishment, I textmessaged my brother if he could send me some money via Western Union. Taco came quick to the rescue and after some messages back and forth all was arranged. When I arrived at the bank, at the very south of the town, it should have been closed for a couple of hours already. This time the African way was to my advantage. I managed to retrieve my much needed cfas in the dying seconds of the extended opening hours. Later that day, when the sun was a little bit less hot, I managed to find some energy to explore more of the city, but most I had already seen in the morning. The city did not succeed in enchanting me, it is like mopti, djenne and all those little villages we passed on the river a lot of mud stacked up. In Timbuctu even the people are less friendly, they are realy accustomed to tourists. Especcialy the children are very anoying. Their standard reportoire goes like this: Monsieur, cava? Donne m'un cadeau. The best reaction is no reaction, then they will usually go away in 1 minute. When you feel you can't be so blunt and do respond, it can happen they will only go away when you go into a shop for a while.

The next day I decided I had seen enough of the once great and powerfull city and would leave for Gao. I was lucky and met a guy who would take me, we only had to wait a few moments for the wife of the boss as she was doing some last minute shopping. Ofcourse this was not done in a few minutes, women are the same everywhere, give them some money and they will not return in hours. When finally the woman returned with her hard bargained newly acquired stuff, again the boss of the car did not want to take me and this time there was no one to convince him otherwise. This was particularly bad as by the time the wife returned several hours had passed and many of the 4x4's had already left Timbuctu. My only chance was the bus station. To my luck they assured me that definitely a car would leave for Gao, departure time unknown. Nothing to do but wait until enough people showed up to go. After 4 hours the guy came back to me, to excuse him, the car would not leave today. If I wanted I could go in the back of a truck on top of the cargo. The truck would go to Douentza. From an old geezer sitting next to me I learned that was not a bad direction as it was on the road from Bamako to Gao. I climbed on the truck to find about 10 fellow travellers. At first is was quite comfortable, but after about 20 km the truck was filled up with empty oil drums, which are much less soft then ricebags, we were previously sitting on. The drums were not the worst though, it was the big spare truckradiator bumping to the back of my head with every hole in the road that got to me. Halfway Douentza something in the steeringhouse of the truck broke. If it was because we hit a concrete pole or that we hit it after it broke, fact was that we had to stop. Chauffeurs are quite resourceful in Africa and after half an hour the problem was solved and we could move again. After an hour something had to be tighted on the steering, but we did not run in any problems afterwards. At 1:30 we arrived at Douentza, where I tried to sleep by the road until one of the busses arrived. I did not catch any sleep as the first bus arrived within the hour. They still had plenty of place, although it has by definition more space than a bus of the same size in Holland. E.g. in one row are 5 chairs, 3 left and 2 right from the aisle. At 9 in the morning we arrived in Gao.

The truckbus to Niamey was to leave the same day in just one hour. I decided to take it, who knows when the next one would go. I had been in crowded transports before, but this was definite a new personal record. The compartment was long full when they kept on pooring passengers in. The strategy was, see a spot that is not a head and let your self down until you touch something hard. I thought I had taken a good spot at the door, at least some space for my legs and a window I could stick my arm through. Before we left, my legspace was annihilated with cans with water and my armspace turned out to be annoying as I now had no way of resting my had anywhere.

At the beginning we were making good progress and I hoped I would be in Niamey in the evening. This changed dramatically when we reached Labaganza. There the piste ended and the driver had to find his own way to the Malinese side of the border. Average speed dropped to about 20 km/h. The Nigerien side was even worse, often at a speed below walking pace we conquered holes and bumps. I was the only white guy on the bus, consequently the whole bus had to wait for me at the Nigerien side of the border. Local people do not need a visa, I do. Although I already had mine and the driver tried to speed things up with the customs it took a considerable amount of time. The people did not seem to mind though, time is something they have plenty of. After second passport control the road improved, I should say there was a road again and at 4:00 we arrived in Niamey. I decided to sleep in the street, I had no clue where I was and where I should go.

River cruise

When we finally left, the Irish were not totally comfortable. They would have to be in Accra next sunday. Seemed like a lot of time but the prognosed travel time by the captain was 4 nights and already we had a delay of 1 day. After sailing 800 meters we stopped for about an hour, no clue why, then we sailed another km and stopped again. The Irish had enough of it and wanted to get to shore and take a 4x4 to Timbuctu. Just at that time we left and the Irish would have to wait with disembarking. Now the plan was to do this at niafounke the next big village on the route, which we should reach in the evening the next day. It seemed that now we really got going, but we had loads of problems with the water level. Constantly we had to search for the least shallow parts to motor through. Often we were grounded and the boats (alongside the biggest pinasse, with the motor, was a slightly smaller piroque without a motor) had to be pushed.
The next day we leave at 8:00, rather late and have rice for breakfast (every meal turns out to be rice) This day we manage to cover I think only 10 km. We get stuck at every bend and the boats have to be untied and separatly pushed through the shallow waters. At 12 we got stuck so bad it takes the rest of the day to pass. Also the 3 toubabs do their best to get the boats through and their help is much appreciated. For the Irish very frustrating, they are pressed for time, but for me fun to do, although I would not have minded this was our last day of kirikiri (moving the boat back and forth, front to the left, rear to the right and viceversa to get the boat afloat again)
This time an early start 5:30, but after 500 meters we are stuck, all people, except the kids, women and elderly, help out and after a good hours work we are moving again. I helped pushing the first boat and decide not to go back to push the bigger boat. Instead I go ashore to see what a village looks like from ashore. At that time I thought I better should not miss the boat, because life could be rather difficult in only my boxershorts and t)shirt. I returned to the river and swim to back to the little piroque. Unfortunately there is no shade on this boat and I am rather sunburnt when the the pinasse joins us. We get our hopes up of finally having overcome the last difficulty but this turned out in vain. Before lac Debo, some of our cargo is offloaded in two sailing piroques as the lake is even more shallow than the river. This does ofcourse help, but not enough. We have to push the 2 boats one after the other for large parts of the lake. After the lake we load back the earlier offloaded cargo and even get some extra from another ship. This really annoys us, as we already were heavy loaded. After this we start sailing again and there is hope we will sail on through the night, again idle hope, we are not allowed, we have no light. This time I try to sleep on the shore, I slept even worse than on the boat, so that I will not try again. In the morning we get stuck right away, the toubabs do not help as they are angry that the boat was loaded with extra cargo, while they knew the boats were already lying deep in the water. Without the help of the white the job gets done, so it is apparent that you can just do as well without them. Rest of the day no huge problems only stuck a few times. We see our first hippo, that is to say, a small part of his head and loads of birds. At night the toubabs go to a little village to see if they can buy some food, to eat something other than rice. We find no food but we are invited to sit with the locals. Tadhg gets even a little baby on his lap, that throws up over him and his bag. Soon after we decide to leave to another hut. There they have a radio that plays some music and I dance a while with a few girls and women. Afterwards we secretly eat pears from a can the Irish brought, delishes, a welcome change to the rice dishes. On Saturday we finally reach niafounke and the Irish go from board, I get all the remaining drinking water, as it is hard to predict how long the trip will take. At the same time a lamp is bought to enable night travelling. A new phenomenon appears, after an hour we have to stop because of to much wind. The wind creates waves and they collide with the side of the big pinasse and from there go into the lower piroque. I cover a large part of the gap between the boats at the front with a sleeping mat left behind by the Irish, to prevent the water from coming in over the side. The boat people do not think much of it and we keep on waiting. After an hour although the wind is still the same, but the water that comes in is less because of my litle screen. Gozou the guy in charge of the engine wants me to send a picture I took of him to his address, when I ask what his address is he does not know it. I am now the only toubab aboard and the boatpeople are involving me more in their affairs. I now get served tea when they have some, Seckou, who almost knows the alphabet wants me to teach him to read. I try to come up with easy French words but that is not that simple. Many are pronounced differently then they are written. Still it makes a lot of fun. I let Ba the son of the captain and his burkinese friend play with my fotocamera and they love it. I also take pictures of the crew and promise to send it to them. The 8 of them know of only 1 address I can send it to, but that ofcourse is enough.

On the last day of our voyage we encounter high winds causing our little piroque almost to sink. Again I covered the gap between the pinasse and the prioque again with the sleeping mat and an old blanket that was not used only the engine guy Gozu helped me as he desperately wanted to return to Mopti. After four hours of waiting we got going again although the wind had not seriously deminished. Still water was falling into the boat, but considerable less than before. At one stage the two boats had to be separated because tied together they could not pass the shallowness. When we left again with the boats next to each other, but without my screen a lot of water splashed in the piroque, making all the grainsacs wet. Then I had my greatest moment of the day. The captain ordered the other guys to make a screen as I had done. They left some space open at the front and when I wanted to cover that as well I got loads of help and was complemented on my work. I am curious if they will also use it in situations in the future aswell?
Finally late in the evening (Monday) we reached the harbour of Timbuctu, it is to late for me to go to Timbuctu and I decide to sleep one last night on the ship.

Djenne and Mopti a lot of mud

Up early to catch an early bus to Djenne to arrive before it gets dark. I am lucky and get a ride from a scooter to the busstation and he even does not want money for it, I am surprised and give him some anyway. I let me convince me to buy a ticket to Djenne at one office before the bus has arrived. This proved a stupid thing to do, as loads of busses of other companies arrived, but none for mine. After 4 hours my transport arrived, I deliberately do not say bus as it is a mercedes van. I had asked explicitly if it would be a bus and had pointed to one and they had confirmed. I am very angry and refuse to get in. After a long argument with not to many words, my knowledge of the French language is still very limited, I finally get in the van, but I am allowed to sit next to the driver, still I have to share my seat with a women with her child. I am sitting at the window, so I can stick my arm out of the window and catch some fresh hot air. The problem with the taxi vans is that they stop everywhere. If someone waves at the side of the road, the van stops and tries to get the person and/or his luggage aboard. My van is no exception to this rule and we stop often and long. We transported people, upto 24, wood for boats, aluminium roof parts, bags of rice, potatos and of course the normal luggage. They tried to let me pay extra for my bag but I refused and said I would carry it on my lap. Not to convenient, but this was a matter of princeples, after half an hour the driver allows me to put my bag on the roof free of charge, a little victory that increased comort as well. Still I could not enjoy the ride. Of course we arrived late at the destination, which was not Djenne, but Djenne carrefour, 30 km from Djenne. At 8 I could not find a taxi driver to bring me to Djenne unless I found 8 other people to join me to fill the peugeot 504. I arranged with a guy who had little shop in a shack that I could sleep there if I would not find a ride to Djenne. At 11 a taxi van arrived who went to Djenne and would drop me off at chez baba, the place I wanted to stay. For CFA2500 I got a place on the roof with view on the famous mosque and large other parts of the town. There were poles to tie my mosquito net to, so all was perfect.


Next day I walked through town, initially trailed by a guide. After a quarter of an hour I finnaly could make clear to him I did not want his services and would definitely not pay him. After the guy left I finally could enjoy the city. Around midday I had seen what was to be seen and tried to find a taxi out. In the central square I wrote down my name on a paper with a fellow coordinating the taxis and they would fetch me at chez baba when the taxi would be filled and ready to go. In chez baba I was invited to join a guy to have a great view of the mosque when the friday prayers were done. I went with him to the central square where he tried to arrange a place on one of the buildings facing the mosque. They owners would not let him and I said I did not want it anyway, expecting I would have to pay him in the end. I took some pictures from the mosque from ground level, when he told me that I had to pay CFA 500, because I had taken pictures of the mosque on a friday. I asked him to whom I should pay this and he pointed to an old man, just sitting on the square. I laughed at the guy and said he was telling nonsense and even the little boy sitting next to me he said he was lying. I returned to chez baba and waited the rest of the 3 hours, before we left to Mopti.


It took only 15 minutes before the engine broke down. The vehicules are not to modern, making repairs to it relatively simple and after half an hour we were moving again. Until Mopti we only had to stop twice more, once for another repair job on the engine. The other time was when we all had to get out of the car to cross the river on foot. Te car with only the driver was able to make it aswell. Before nightfall I was able to find mission catholique. Again I had chosen to stay with the catholiques as the previous stay with them pretty ok. Also this time I had to wait a long whil for the sisters, now they were all at mass.

Mopti like Djenne has many mudbricked buildings and I think the old town of Mopti is not much different then Djenne. I was happy that I had visited Djenne first or else it most likely would have been a disappointment.
In the mission Imet 2 nice German girls who had worked on an orphanage in Bamako for a month and had stayed with a local family. They had just visited Dogon country as a sort of holiday before going home. They were very nice company, unfortunately they went south again to visit Djenne, with the last of their money. This was the reason that they moved to an other hotel as that one was CFA 2000 cheaper a night and that was the difference for them to having diner or not. I regretted that, because I would not have mind to spent some more time with them. They left and to Irish guys came in. They wanted to go to Timbuctu by boat, like me. We decided to travel to gether and found one cargo pinasse who would take us. It set us back more than expected, but at least we would go. The boat would leave on monday at 10 in the morning. That ofcourse did not happen. It turned out that it only left the next day at that time, leaving Tony, one of the Irish, and me enough time to bring another visit to the local bar and have some beers (of 1 liter). I decided to sleep on the ship, Tadgh, the other Irish and Tony stayed for the night at the mission. Which was also good for me as I could shower there and get some fresh water.

Concert, swimming, football

At the station in Bamako we tried to arrange a taxi for the six westeners to the hotel, Mission Catholique. Of course it was not possible to have more than 3 passengers in 1 taxi, while normally they trie to cram 6 to 9 persons into 1 taxi, but ok. After a lot of negotiating, I arranged that 2 taxis would bring us for CFA 2000 per taxi. The high price was not a garantee for service. Our drivers had no clue of where the mission was, although they had admitted at the station, that they knew where it was. The wanted to drop us at the catholique church, I asked him if he expected us to pray at 2:30 in the night? They wanted to go no further and we did not want to pay. After investigation from us with local people we found out the directions and we were finally brought to our destination. We soon found out the mission only was open from 7 in the morning, so we decided to set up camp on a terrace in front of a bar opposite the mission. A neighbour borrowed us a mat to sit on and we shared our last food, before attempting a short sleep. I did not succeed in that, as I had to much trouble with the mosquitos. At 6:30 the Austrians returned to the station to fetch their bikes and all their other stuff as that had been in a cargo wagon and at night they would not open those, even a lot of complaining did not help. Although the mission opened at 7 we were only to check in at 11 as the sisters were in morning prayers and they were not to happy that the 2 girls slept with the guys. Eventually they made an exeption for us.

The next day at the evening we visited a concert in the national football stadium. Entry ticket was only CFA 1000 not much even for the Malinese, so no surprise it was crowded at the gates. One of Pauls new found friends guided us past the huge queues. I felt a little embarassed, but did not complain. At the gate we bribed a police officer with CFA 1000 to let us in. Unfortunately his superior did not allow us to enter this way and sent us back. The young officer felt obliged to perform for his money and forcefully made a hole in the queue for us. We got some angry looks, but we were in the stadium in no time. Inside the big stadium it became clear that the sound system would only be sufficiently strong enough for a middle sized bar. Which meant that when the 20,000 people were quiet we were able to hear a distant bass high up in the stadium. For me the music was not the entertaining part, but the crowd.They were great to watch, singing and dancing with teh playbacked music. Soon after we arrived the stadium ws full, but still a lot of people were waiting to get in. For a short while the police opened the gates to the ground terrain, causing a run for the gate. After half a minute they closed it again allowing only about 200 people to the pitch. Loads of people were hanging in the fences and gates ready to climb over when the right opportubity rose. The first people who climbed over were violently chased and beaten by the police, but did gave oppurtunity to others to climb over and quickly mix with the crowd aleady on the pitch. This game went on for the whole length of the event and was great to watch. Once in a while people were carried away to the ambulance to be brought to hospital. The ambulance would only start after being pushed for a fex meters. In due course thousands of people were on the pitch randomly attacked by police officers. Sometimes one officer had to be stopped by his colleagues, because he would not stop beating up a victim. At 12 at the the hight of the concert, with finally some live music, which we still could not hear, we left an ecstatic crowd of 30,000 spectators behind us. A great show! The last day in Bamako, the Austrians and I really spoiled ourselves with visiting a pool at a big hotel. The pool was nothing fancy, but it was nice to have a fresh dive and some lazy hours at the pool.

The next day by bus to Segou. I did not see much of the city. I had a short visit to the river Niger to watch the local women do the dishes half naked in the river and after that managed to get in a football game on a beautiful green grass pitch. I scored the first 3 goals and for those who know my goalscoring skills, they know the defence must have been pretty lousy. Despite the fact that we lossed, I was invited to join them for a game the next day. I did not accept, because I had planned to go to Djenne.

I am on it

It took a while but finally I could embark at the long awaited train. I entered in second class and I was shocked by the state the material was in. Seats fell apart, hugh gaps underneath the exit doors, everything very (very) dirty. Sometimes half of the seat was missing. Fortunately I had booked first class, I disembarked and walked to the front of the train. To my dismay things were not much better here. Though the car was devided in compartments, those still had to be shared by 8. I could stow my little bagpack overhead, but all other free space was occupied with all sorts of luggage of my fellow travelers. They took enormous amounts of luggage with them, ranging from sacks of potato to presents for the family abroad. If their strongest relative could carry it, they would take it. We were with 5 in our compartment, 2 older women who ocupied the whole other side with the 2 of them; a young woman (very good looking) with her child, occupying 3 of the 4 seats at my side and me occupying only the seat next to the isle. This was not all bad as I now could leave without trouble and, more important, stretch my legs into to hallway a bit. I had been looking forward to enjoying the views on the land while travelling through it. This could not be done by sitting in my seat, because the windows were to dirty to look through. For a view outside I had to stand in the aisle and look through the open window. I expected to catch some fresh air while standing there, this proved to be an incorrect assumption as the wind from outside was even hotter then the air inside.

The promised departure was 13:50, of course this was not met, actual departure was 17:00, so all in all a delay of 4 days and 7 hours, not bad on a lifetime. Although we left the station with an amazing speed of about 5 km per hour, I was relieved that we were finally going, I was fearing we would not leave at all. Soon our speed increased to 8 km/h and we reached Rufisque, 7 km from Dakar after one hour. This did not stay this way as we managed to reach Thies all ready after 3 hours and it lies at least 80 km from Dakar.

I tried to sleep a bit in my seat but did not succeed, to hot and to uncomfortable to sleep. At five at we stopped, because a cargo train ahead of us was derailed. When I found out at 7 I left the train to visit 2 guys from Burkina Faso, I met earlier, while waiting for the train at the station. We hung around the train in the shade and once in a while we bought some food or drinks frpm people of a nearby village, who used the occasion to earn some extra money. This was by far the best part of the traintrip. It was cool, loads of space and food, fresh drinks and nice people to share it with. Too bad we were not moving. At 12 we left, which was sooner than expected.

Later that day I found out I was not the only white guy (toubab or toubabou) on the train. I met my first non French Canadian, Paul. He was heading for Bamako to play the famous Malinese music and become a professional musician in Canada. He had taken the wise decision to to travel first class with a sleeper. He had been able to sleep well last night and only one other person was in his compartment.

At 19:00 we arrived in Tambacounda. Here 4 toubabs entered the train. Two of them ended up in my compartment, Alex and Michelle. Austrians on a 2 year bicycle journey from the north cape to the south cape. This was the first time they did not cycle to cover a distance with the exception of the boat from Sweden to Denmark. They proved very good company, but made our already full room, even more full.Since then I did not spend any time there anymore, but to get to my lukewarm water. I mainly stayed in the restaurant car. Do not think this was a luxurious place. It served a rice meal 3 times a day and you could get some cold beer and soft drinks. However it was better to get the food and drinks (cold bissap), from the local people at the stations where we stopped.

In the evening I saw 6 carriages lying upside down beside the track. Apparantly derailed once. All of a sudden more understanding for the at times excruciating low speed. During the second night someone came to fetch our pasports and put them in a plastic bag. We would have to retrieve them at the Senegalese border. Though I was sceptic about the efficiency, everything worked out smoothly. When stamped, they would call your name for s far they could pronounce it and you could collect it. The Mali customs officers came on board and checked passports while we were riding. Westeners should get their passports stamped in Keyes, the first stop in Mali. Stamping the document did not take more than 5 minutes, finding the place to get it stamped turned out more difficult. Luckily we made it back to the train before it left. Later that day I was not that lucky. I had bought an ice cold bissap and was talking with a lot of people, finishing with the guys from Burkina. When I started to look for some food, the horn of the train blew and the train set it self in motion. Before I could make it to the door of the last carriage 20 people were already hanging there to get in. I decided to run along side the train to a free door, but that was only to be found 5 carriages ahead. In full sprint I made it easily and jumped , under a loud sheer of the locals, onto the train.
The rest of the day not much happened. Although still not travelling with the speed of light, we arrived at Bamako at 2 at night.