Day 10 - Tuesday, July 27th, 2004

Breakfast was a bit earlier today, at 7:00. It has been served for us every day at a table to one side of the central courtyard but we have had a problem every day with the enormous number of flies that seem to crawl over everything as we are trying to eat.

Heading back to the middle of town we got to Chris and Sue's hotel only to find that they were not there. Sitting down, eventually they indicated that we were to catch a bâchée from the main square. It is difficult getting out of Djenné because there are not many people come and go (other than tourists) so the best time to do this is around the market day which is why we had timed things the way we have – coming to Djenné late in the week then leaving first thing on Tuesday morning, the day after the market. I purchased all of our tickets then we eventually all climbed in and were squished together in the effort of the owners to get more passengers on board. I was sitting at the far end, sitting on the bench immediately behind the cab of the truck with my back shoved into the corner (my back is still giving me a bit of problem). A few tourists including an American couple joined us. During the crush of people being forced onto the bâchée was too much for the wife who started screaming that she wanted to get off and could not bear it any longer. Her husband quieted her down but more than one person on-board looked at her in astonishment. It was quite a strange situation. Eventually 15 of us were crammed in including one or two in the middle sitting on the spare tire. Health and safety does not seem to be much of an issue here.

We were on our way. Through the village and over the bridge we eventually came to the small river where we all waded in to meet the ferry (the American woman stayed on board) as I managed to get a number of pictures (impossible in the dark of the other evening) of our party crossing. There were a number of children trying to sell things to us while we waited to cross including small hand-made cars and bâchées. A number of aid organisation (NGO) vehicles joined the ferry as well before we eventually crossed.

Wading Back from Ferry

We passed through a number of small villages before we eventually reached the main highway and turned left towards Mopti. The American couple left us at this point as they were staying in Sévaré (which is on the main road) with their large number of bags they argued with some local people about how to get to their hotel which was something like 200 m away (eventually they took a taxi).

Village Beside Road to Mopti

Cramped Conditions on the Bâchée

The rock formations as we got closer to Mopti were quite spectacular but eventually we pulled off the main road and into Mopti where we had a bit of hassle as we took our bags down of people trying to get us to take tours or buy one thing or another. Eventually we made our way just down the road to the local Campement (“Le Campement”) where we were able to sit for a few minutes to collect ourselves and have something to eat/drink. I ordered “Cantonese-Style Couscous” which was actually quite good: eggs, meat, onions and couscous, fried. A few of us looked into the rooms here but we thought they were a bit overpriced for what you got and not terribly clean (which is very important to me, personally).

We headed down to the riverside where we wanted to find out about our options to get to Timbuktu. A man from Djenné had followed us to Mopti who was offering us a particular price for a three-day trip up the Niger to Timbuktu but we wanted to make sure it was correct by checking with other tour operators.

In the river the tourist ferries were obviously not running as they were moored up alongside each other looking abandoned. This was confirmed when we had a long chat with a man in a local tourist agency. He told us of all the various options including the hiring of a pinasse directly (the whole thing) but that would cost about 300,000 CFA and would not include food or a driver. We could also take a public boat (pinasse) but they only left on Tuesdays (which we missed) and Fridays. Eventually we agreed that maybe our friend Aski from Djenné had the best option so we asked for directions to the hotel we were thinking of staying in. The man from the agency was very helpful as he knew the owner who just happened to be around the corner doing some shopping so we all piled into his vehicle and he took us to the hotel. We travelled down a tree-line road beside the river eventually turning off down a block then along a side road to the hotel (Le Fleuve) which is actually two new buildings very much laid out like houses with rooms in no particular order on two floors. 10,000 CFA for a room (two people sharing) was a good bargain particularly concerning the fact that it was clean, had fans in every room (along with mosquito nets on each bed), and had a television with satellite in the common room (which also had a bar and served food!).

Le Fleuve - Hotel in Mopti

The most expensive hotel in Mopti is right next door, Kanaga (50,000 CFA a night!). Evidently that is where Michael Palin stayed when he was filming his “Sahara” series of travel programs. A lot of what we have done or what we have seen is based upon his adventures and we have mentioned this series a lot in our conversations. Of course, we are not planning to go out into the deep dessert as he did but we are planning to duplicate at least a bit of what he did.

Alex, the man with the boat who is a friend of Aski, then offered to show us his boat. It turns out that there are five others that want to join the boat so the six of us basically fills it. The five others are also staying in this hotel. The boat is moored just on the river close to the hotel so we went on board to see what it looked like. It is quite large with a series of seats made of timber with foam mattresses (with garish fabric covering the foam) with the “kitchen” behind the seats then the motor then at the very back is the “toilet” which is a seat having a hole in the middle that opens directly to the water below. Breezy. The whole boat is quite long but a bit wider than the pirogues common in The Gambia (and Senegal) and covered with a curved roof made of matting the whole length of the boat. Alex told us that nightly accommodation was to be in tents pitched beside the river that they had on board.

As we sat on the boat to see how comfortable it was we noticed a number of other tourist pinasses around as well as some pinasses going up the river heavily laden with goods and people. We could always do that…

We asked for a bit of time to discuss whether or not we wanted to do this so we got into another boat for a bit of privacy. We agreed to ask for 45,000 CFA (each) and brought back Alex. A bit of negotiation later (including a bit of a plea from Ebrima about not having a lot of money – perfectly true for all of us, being volunteers) we settled on 46,000 CFA (he wanted a lot more than that at first, something like 60,000 CFA each!). We agreed to pay 30,000 CFA up front and agreed to pay the balance later in the trip. Alex indicated he would come by later this evening to draw up a contract for us to sign.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped by a small stall beside the road to ask about water. On the boat they supply food but not water so we have to buy all of our water for the trip in advance and bring it with us onto the boat. The stall owner was only too happy to agree to have a few boxes for us to pick up the following day. For some reason I think he has done this before…A box of six for each person should be more than adequate, we feel, for three days (not even three days, really, more like 2 1/2 by the time you take into account when we leave and when we arrive, according to Alex).

Later that afternoon we were relaxing when we saw the rain clouds come in. It was amazing to see the rain as it came at us across the fields out the back of the hotel. Boy, did it ever rain hard for a while there!

Sunset on the Niger in Mopti

Anne and I, after waiting for the rain to stop, headed into town to go to the supermarket. Along the way (a long walk) we managed to grab some of the tasteless deep-fried “dough balls” before realising we could not find the supermarket despite asking directions (we learned later this evening that it was really just a large shop in the middle of town, not much different, except in size, from the other shops around it). We walked all the way through to the old area of the town (where the market is) before realising we must have missed it. Asking directions, we were unsuccessful in our search. Giving up our search I quickly went into a local pharmacy to purchase some medication for my back (with the suggested treatment told to me by Diana) after which we stopped at a local Internet café to check our e-mail. It was a simple shop with the front room containing a television that the owner was watching with a small room at the back with three computers and a laptop hooked up on a network. I had to wait for a few minutes as two of our fellow boat travellers (they are all French except one who has spent some time living in England who speaks very good English, the others all speak French) were using the other machines while Anne used the only free one. It was very hot in there with no ventilation at all and an extremely slow connection.

Returning in the dark we managed to stumble back to the hotel where we grabbed a drink in the bar and waited for Alex to show up. I was able to get one of the guys from the hotel to change the channels on the television (as it was satellite, he had to do this from the other room where they, wisely, kept the controls) until we eventually settled on watching the Cartoon Network – in French. We were hopping for a news channel but I did not want to press my luck.

Eventually Chris and Sue joined us then Alex along with the man he said would be piloting the boat. When Alex started going over the arrangements he had made some changes to what we had agreed earlier in the afternoon which caused us a bit of concern including a later departure and a bigger boat (though the bigger boat was, of course, better for us). The biggest concern, however, was the fact that he wanted ALL of the remaining money up front to purchase fuel (ignoring the fact that with that amount of money you would have no where to store the amount fuel it would buy on the boat!). This was of great concern to me because if we did this we would have no incentive left for him to keep his end of the bargain so we eventually agreed to giving him 50% of the remaining amount for whatever purposes he REALLY wanted the money for then pay the final 50% on the last day of our trip. He completed the contract in front of us although we also requested a copy for ourselves that he agreed to provide tomorrow before we left. It was a bit of a tense moment but I was very concerned about getting ripped off though I know that this is Africa and things are done a bit differently I tend to be a bit cautious particularly when we are talking about these large amounts of money (even in pounds it is a lot of money – about £45 each with six people in our group and five more, adds up to a lot!).

I shall be glad tomorrow to finally be on our way to Timbuktu. Timbuktu has always been to us a place to work towards, a goal, where we could enjoy things along the way. Really, an excuse to travel the length of the country. We shall see how things turn out tomorrow.

⇒ Continue to Day 11 - Wednesday, July 28th, 2004


In Mopti, Steve stayed at:

  • Hôtel Le Fleuve - Telephone: (+223) 2431 167 - Mobile: (+223) 6 72 68 00