Visiting Northern Mali is still hard. I was travelling by myself and as a woman I was a bit nervous about security. When I arrived at the airport I paid a huge some for a taxi to take me right to a hotel that was listed in the guide book it was more expensive than I would have like to pay but I didn’t want to be wandering around Bamako at night. The next day I took the bus up to Mopti. I was bombarded by guides claiming to be Dogon and offering me a trip around the Dogon Company. many of them smelled like beer and even appeared drunk although it was only 6pm. I was hoping to find a cheep place to stay and this one guy said he knew of a place that was cheep. I followed him through the back streets to some hotel. He talked with the guy who showed me a room with two beds. the guide who took me there sat down on one and the hotel guy left us alone the guide offered to pay for the night and said we’d share the room. NO WAY. I was freaked out I left with out even trying to find a room for myself. The guy trailed after telling me to wait up. I walked faster back to the lighted main part of town and got a room in the first hotel I saw.
The next morning I went to see about a pinnace up the river to Timbuktu. I got a different story from several people there weren’t any right a way there was one leaving that day. Why didn’t I go to Dogon and there would be one ready to go when I got back. I also had several guide tell me horror stories about bandits on the route to Timbuktu and that the Tuaregs were dangerous. One guy tried to convince me to leave my stuff at his house where it would be “safe” till I got back. Including my passport and most of my money. I finally got discouraged with all of it and went to the gare routiere to try and find out what cars were going where that I could arrange myself. I found it and there were 4x4 going to Timbuktu they were waiting to fill up with passengers so I bought a ticket.
Late morning we headed off. Part of the road was paved but then after a lunch stop we turned off the paved road and went bumping over this rough gravel and sand road. the little sign said 190km to Timbuktu but it took five hours. We got to the ferry and it was another wait to cross, and another 15 or 20 minutes into town. I consulted my guide book for a place to stay and decided the Sahara Passion was the best option for my budget. I got the driver to drop me off there for and extra 2000 francs. I thought it a lot but I have since discovered that Transport is really expensive in the area and since there are no taxi’s transporters can charge whatever they want.
The driver dropped me off in front of this place that was called hotel de la paix or something like that I said no I wanted sahara passion. The guy that came up said it was Sahara Passion. I said no your sign says something else. He insisted it was the same thing that they had just changed the name. I was about to go inside when a young man that had come up to see the car said Sahara Passion has moved it wasn’t far. he would show me. The guy at the hotel seemed to get mad and the argued in some local language. The young man then took me around the corner to where this big monument was and up to the other end of the block. He said the guy was just the gaurdian of that place and he was not a good person because he was lying and saying that was still sahara passion when it wasn’t it was just that guy trying to rent out rooms in the building that had been vacated by them and profit from their cliental,
I started to wonder if everybody wasn’t liars and cheats trying to profit however they could from the tourists. But there was a new looking building with a sign outfront saying Sahara Passion. I went in and was pleasantly surprised to find a young woman running it. It made me feel at ease. She was Canadian/American and had been living in Timbuktu with her husband for two years already. She gave me lots of advise about what to see in town and offered services of one of the guides recommended by the hotel if I wanted to have someone to show me the way and explain the history or if I would rather go on my own she would be happy to sketch me a map of how to get into town and find the principle sights.
While we were talking, her husband showed up. He turned out to be a Tuareg whose family has been doing the salt caravans for the last 2000 years or so. She was about to go home for dinner and they invited me along. They live farther north the last real house on the edge of town with an excellent view of the dunes and the tow from their roof top (I discovered later when I was there in the day) They were both amazing. The man (his name is Shindouk and hers is Miranda) talked about the desert and philosophy and politics and sounded like he was a university professor, but he’s never been to school he’s self-educated and with his income from tourisme and help from clients turned friends he has built a school in the desert for his community. He had a whole box full of books and news papers and journals that sited him either as a guide or a historian or the first Tuareg to have an email address the first guy to send email from Timbuktu. It was fascinating.
He is a guide as well as partner in the Sahara Passion hotel and he arranged of one of his cousins to accompany me around town, it was a great no pressure tour that let me look at what I wanted to see and the young man kept the hustlers at bay. He arranged for me to spend a night in the desert at a tuareg camp where the people were very kind and friendly. He took me to meet the neighbourhood smith who is not in tourism to speak of and just lives in a little straw hut on a dune nearby, I got to see him at work his kids pumping the bellows.
I mentioned to Miranda having wanted to take a pinnace on the river and maybe see Dogon and my problems in Mopti with all the hustlers. She was understanding and offered to call the port authority guy or river transport syndicate guy or something like that who could find me a place on a boat going down to mopti and make sure I got on it and all. She said her husband know some Dogon guides that were trustworthy He could give me the contact info. In fact he called one guy up who’s father is Dogon and mother is from Timbuktu and he goes back and forth He came over and we arranged everything, he would accompany me on the pinnace but I didn’t have to pay his transport and then he would arrange transport from Mopti to the start of Dogon country and two nights in villages. And he’d see to it that I got on the bus back to Bamako.
Shindouk and Miranda also contacted a friend of theirs in Bamako, another partner in the Sahara Passion and asked him to come get me at the bus station when I arrived and I could stay at his house for the duration of my time in Bamako and he’d take me to the airport when I was going to leave. I felt more safe and comfortable in the north than I had in the south. Shindouk was so kind an paternal seeing to my well being. And Miranda was great, speaking English explaining about cultural differences and taboos. They called the guide in Dogon to make sure everything went well there too. And it did their friend was excellent, polite, one of the few young men not to ask to marry me. Willing to admit when he didn’t know something instead of making up stories.
It turned my trip around from one of suspicion and uncertainly to a great learning experience. When I told them about the warning of danger in the north they just laughed. The foreign services are obliged to put up warnings on their web sites to protect themselves from liability and the southern people try to profit sometimes to keep the tourist and their money down there. In fact there was nothing to be afraid of in the north. I was inclined to agree, I felt safer in the north than with all the drunk hustlers in Mopti or the huge city of Bamako its streets teaming with motorcycles zooming past and around the other traffic. It is amazing how the people you meet can make or break a trip. This is one I will never forget.