Mali - laiM on the road, but then again, not so.

Six weeks of intensive, gruelling travel on public transport through West Africa and I think it is fair to say I now know a thing or two about bus services in this continent. I know, for instance, that a country with tar roads running throughout it should mean that you will get places quicker and smoother. It will also mean less wear and tear on smoother roads, dramatically reducing your chances of breaking down. I also know that western style long coaches, particularly those that look shiny and new, advertise air conditioning and run to a vague timetable rather than the usual African “leave once we are full” timetable, all suggest a more joyous, comfortable and reliable travel experience. Mali, we heard, had all of these features and how we were looking forward to utilising them.

How wrong we were…

24 hours our first journey took. To get 600km. Straight. On tar. Those astute mathematicians amongst you will have calculated that at an average speed of 25 kph. Christ. The causes for these delays were plentiful: breakdowns, police checkpoints, said police at checkpoints watching a football match, the driver stopping to sleep, the driver stopping to chat to his mates, the driver stopping to have a cup of coffee, and another. The list goes on. Despite my experiences of the past few weeks, and knowing how painfully long seemingly simple journeys take in Africa, this one just wrangled that little bit more. Rose managed to stay sane, mostly by laughing at my growing impatience, irritation and irrationalization. Which helped.


In spite of this start and a couple of shorter trips evolving almost seamlessly into medium sized ones, I still failed to believe the information that it would take 48 hours to go from Bamako to Dakar. How was that possible? Yes the first journey took 24, but that was on a pretty rickety vehicle from a border town to a second town. This new journey was a different league – capital to capital, on a coach I had seen with my own eyes and had greyhound/national express proportions. Surely this was gonna be a breeze? Surely fate was going to deliver us a merciful final leg for me and not throw up any unplanned deviations into the jungle, no unexpected 15km treks with our baggage, no rebels, no overzealous border guards, no loss of baggage, life or plot. Surely just a simple and smooth departure of Mali, straightforward crossing into Senegal followed by a mellow cruise to Dakar. What could be easier? Surely? Surely not…

The first hour went well. I won’t prattle on with the full 56 hours of the journey soon to become known as this effing journey. Suffice to say the two guys in front of us who were smuggling whatever they were smuggling eventually managed to pay enough to the police that they didn’t spend too long around their baggage, the driver did eventually realize that yes: 17 breakdowns in the first five hours is sufficient justification to get a new coach, I ascertained a number of times that no: I’m definitely not from Algeria and, woo hoo, we finally made it to Dakar.

Mali itself was pretty good. I posted some Mail, ate some meat that was particularly laMi and did not get il, Ma. Apologies, couldn’t resist – laiM I know.

It proved the first opportunity to do proper, proper tourist things. And mix with proper, proper tourists. Even of they didn’t especially want to mix with us. The thing with travellers in these sort of places – slightly off the beaten track, but still a bit touristy, is that everyone wants to discover their own thing in their own space and get away from home. Having not seen many other people for a couple of months, all Rose and I wanted to do was discover these things with other people and talk about home. What we did do was take a breathtaking 2 day trek through the dogon country – where houses are built into the cliff sides, outpacing our guide on a number of occasions, and also visit the mud mosque at Djenne, with market to boot – quite simply, quite stunning.

Nigeria

The Lonely Planet guide to Africa says that Nigeria "has a bad reputtion". The only two people we have met so far on our travels who had come through Nigeria effectively told us to "run like the wind and not look back".

Exactly four days after entering Nigeria in Calabar, on the South East Cost, we were stood at the border with Benin on the West, alive, well and unscathed.

In our haste to cross the country in record time (and avoid being mistaken for oil workers), we saw only two cities - Calabar and Lagos - and the countryside which whizzed by inbetween. That doesn't give a huge opportuntiy to get a well rounded, balanced view of the country. But since when have I ever been well rounded or balanced?

My findings on Nigeria can be nicely analoginalized (is this the verb for making an analogy? If not, why not?) in our bus journey between the two cities. Firstly, we got there. There were times on that journey where that seemed a distint unlikelyhood, but we did arrive safely in Lagos. As we did on the other side of Nigeria.

The journey started well. We were organised into our seats according to our ticket numbers. Imagine. Six weeks spent in free-for-all mode and suddenly we were lining up, single file, to board. Nigeria, it seemed, was trying to organise the unorganisable. And then our first taste of air conditioning. Crammed in like sardines we may have been, but Nigeria was making stifled attempts to add a bit of class. Driving out of Calabar, the Christian preaching commenced - songs, sermons and individual thanksgiving time. This echoed Southern Nigeria to a tee. Religious paraphanalia is everywhere. Whether it is exaggerated because of the muslim dominated north, or whether Nigerian people have taken Evangelicalism to new levels simply out of their own choice, I don`t know. The prayers on the bus asking God to aid the driver to take us safely to Lagos did seem to get heard, however. I can only say it must have been divine intervention which delivered us in Lagos, because the roads were chaos. Dual carriageway most of the way, there has clearly been a great deal of infrastructure planning building done here. Alas, the roads have all but disintegrated and now drivers weave inbetween potholes at upwards of 120kph. On either side of the carriageway. Yep. The central reservation has been knocked down at all to frequent intervals and cars will merrily cross from one side to the other to choose the "path of least resistance".

Yet, the underlying positive in all of this were the people. Nigerians, I would say, have been the warmest nd most welcoming of all the people on the trip so far. Beaming smiles, open handshakes and gentle inquisitiveness, thesewere not the people I was expecting and it was a wonderfully welcome surprise.

Lagos itself proved the smog-filled, chaos were were expecting, though did throw in a couple of nice surprises - The new Bond film and a "White House Pancake Breakfast Extravaganza"; and a couple of reminders that all is not pearly white - overzealous officials and a nights stay in a brothel.

All in all Nigeria had proven eventful, some might say fruitful, and I was left with the niggling feeling that I may just have missed out on something good.