Wallah...Down the Rabat hole

Sunday, January 17, 2010
Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso


December 28 2009 - January 16 2010

Route Traveled

MOROCCO

Rabat - Tan Tan - Gueguarat -

MAURITANIA

Nouakchott - Ayoun el- Atrous

MALI

Bamako - Mopti - Niafunke - small village on Niger River - Timbuktu - Mopti - Dogon Country - Mopti -

BURKINA FASO

Bobo-Dioulasso

    This leg of the journey can only start in one place... the border between Morocco and Mauritania back on december 24th. When i arrived at the border I was a bit certain that i wouldnt be able to cross without a visa. To make sure i found the first whtie guy i could find and asked him if he had a visa. He told me no, but he had driven this route many times and had never needed one. His name is Clauss from Holland. He as driving from Holland to Ghana by car with his friend Woult who also had his own car. After i had got turned away from Mauritania i passed Clauss and Woult who were still attempting to enter and i told them it is impossible to enter without a visa. In parting Clauss told me jokingly that he hoped he never sees me again, because he was hoping to enter the country and i was going the other way. Flash forward to December 28th, i arrived at the Mauritanian embassy in Rabat at around 8 am. There were maybe about 6 people there waiting for it didnt open until 9. So i thought that i would be one of the first people to enter and give the money for my visa. As i waited i met first a girl from Croatia that travels with no money and she told me that she lives off the people. I also met a guy from Poland that has a punk band named Upside Down. A little bit later wouldnt you know i saw Clauss from Holland...he had driven back up as well but left Woult by the border; and came to get a visa for the both of them. We shook hands and i told him i thought you hoped you would never see me again. he chuckled. So there is a door for the visas that opens and only lets about 10 people in at once. Instead of waiting in line like i was all the people just made a compacted arch around the door. when the door opened every started to push and jab each other to get inside. everytime i seemed to get a little closer but never in the door. it was an ugly site to say the least. the people became animals fighting to get inside this tiny door and i was being passive and getting pushed around but i refused to sink to their levels to get inside. so after one guy starting really pushing me hard onetime while i had my hands in the air showing that i had no control of the people pushing me i decided to bow out of the ruckus and wait until all the rest of the people got inside. i sat back relaxed and then a guy came out of the embassy and started handing out numbers. when the dust settled i had number 42. so after being the 6th person there in the morning i was probably the 95th person to get inside the door. Clauss was the same way, and at about 2 oclock we got in and applied. the funny thing was onone would get their visas until 11pm that night.


While waiting for our visas i talked with Clauss about his trip and found out he was driving straight to Ghana via Bamako. Bamako, Mali was the place that i was trying to get to as soon as possible in order to meet my friend Eric Riger who was flying in from the US to go with me to the festival au desert. I had told eric that if i didnt make it by the 2nd to go on without me and i would meet him in Timbuktu a few days later. Anyway i asked Clauss if he would drive me to Bamako with him; and to my huge delight he said ok. He also said that he only sleeps in his car while on the road and that i might have to sleep outside. i agreed just happy enough that i had this ride. Clauss has a 1991 Isuzu Trooper with 2 front seats and a huge back where he put a mattress to sleep and a 300 liter tank of gasoline. He also had a huge bag of gifts to hand out to children as he drives south to Ghana. Clauss is a shipyard owner with 7 kids and a third wife. He owns a house somewhere in Thailand where he goes about 5 times a year and has been making the drive to Ghana every year for about the last 20 years or so.

We end up getting our visas at about 11pm that night and i went to sleep in a hotel and agree to meet Clauss at 7am the next morning. I arrive on time and the journey south begins. My plan for the trip was to be as agreeable as possible and every time Clauss asks me what i want i would tell him do as you would normally do as if i wasnt even here.

I told him that i really wanted to get to Bamako by the 2nd and he told me it might be possible but of course he didnt really know. T.I.A. This is Africa of course and anything can happen while on the road. We had to meet Woult who was waiting down by the border for us. In Morocco there are many police checkpoint and at most of the them they ask for a kudou which is a present, i mean they want anything and everything that u will give to them. and everytime we get to one they take about 5- 10 minutes to get us through. The first day we make it to Tan Tan which is a city that i had slept in on my way down south the last time. Clauss decides to go to a hotel and we each get a room. have dinner together and get a good night rest after driving for about 13 hours. each day that i drive with Clauss he drives about 12-14 hours per day and he never seemed to get tired. I would just sit back and watch the countryside go by peacefully. in his car he had about 6 tapes with 1 old american country tape and the rest in dutch. we listen to those and after a while i get out my mp3 player and play way better music. On the 2nd day at around sunset we get to where Woult is waiting and we give him his visa, have dinner and drive to the border where we must park in line because the border closes at sunset and doesnt open until 9am. i sleep in the border hotel and clauss and woult sleep in their cars. Woult has a Nissan Sunny with the same set up as Clauss with a bed in the back. All day we had been driving through the desert and the scenery is surreal. we see almost no people and pass very small villages. The air is dry but it isnt to hot.

On the third day i awake to a very familiar site, the border, we get through just like last time to no mans land and we drive on maybe the worst road in the world. We have to tow Woult out of the sand twice with a rope but we finally get to the Mauritania side. Everything goes well and after a weeks delay i am in Mauritania. The day is new years eve and our plan was to make it to the capital by nightime. In Mauritania there are way more police checkpoints than in morocco and they ask just as much for gifts. it seems that the police dont really know how to write so i usually write down my passport info for them. Clauss had brought 30 copies of his passport and i had 5 left. we ran through those in no time. we drove all day and Clauss and Woult when they saw children would give them presents and it made the children so happy. It was really a lot of fun driving around handing out gifts. i had called Clauss...Santa Clauss earlier in the trip before i knew he had the gifts, little did i know that he really was acting as a Santa Clauss. They would also give the police sometimes small gifts like pens or a reading light and sorts like that.

It was really almost impossible to sleep while in Mauritania in the car because there was literally a checkpoint about every 30 minutes. We arrive in Nouakchott, which is a large dusty town and the capital. We find an Auberge which is a camping/hotel place. I get a bed in the dorm and they sleep outside in their cars. They could have easily just pulled off on the side of the road and slept in the bush like they normally do but they were nice enough to take me to a hotel to sleep, which i was much grateful for. For new years i buy Clauss Woult and I a huge fish dinner feast with Dorado fish and fries and salad and bread. Later we go with the guy from the restaurant to find a party but it doesnt start till much later so we decide to go back to the hotel and chill there. we drink beer and the hotel owner brings out some kind of french liqour and hash and we also drink wine and some whisky. We hang out with the hotel employees and the owner for the rest of the night having tons of laughs and taking in the new year.

I look up at the moon which had a huge orange glazed circle around it, i reflect on the past year and wonder what is to come for 2010.

Ringing in the new year in Africa was a pleasure and i thought about what all my friends and family were doing to celebrate it.

On the 4th day of our drive with Clauss and Woult i wake up a little fuzzy and take off on my first day of 2010 onward towards Mali. During our drive we have had to dodge many obstacles and the Isuzu Trooper did it with triumph. we had to dodge sheep, which when you honk at them will run really fast out of the way, donkey who just stare at you and you have to swerve around, cows, which will move but very slowly, camels who dont really care that your even there and dont move for you, and most dramatically and importantly, potholes and huge holes in the road. The roads in Mauritania were shitty to say the least but Clauss drove them like a pro, sometimes we had to off road and make an alternative road but we always made it forward. That night we got about 1 hour away from the border of Mali and i knew if nothing went wrong I would make it to Bamako in time to meet Eric the next night. .

On the 5th day we make it to the border of Mali early in the morning. The border consists of a small hut with a few police. i am welcomed very nicely by the guards and i buy a visa and we our off rather easily into Mali. We stop to register the cars and go through customs. Pass by many small villages made up mostly of mud huts and we have entered the interior of Africa. At sunset we arrive in Bamako after 5 straight days of driving we finally made it and i know can go meet Eric at the hotel we had agreed upon. To describe Bamako would be hard without visual aid but to sum it up all i can say is activity. this place is buzzing with atmosphere and life, there are people everywhere doing so many different things. the traffic is nuts and there are maybe a million motorbikes zooming all around me like bees. The pollution is so thick i can taste it and the dust blows wild. Still with Clauss who is trying to find the same hotel he always stays at here we get lost and get stuck in a large traffic jam for about an hour and i just sit back and watch all the people and Woult as he constantly jumps out of his car with his massive belly hanging out his unbuttoned shirt and his daisy duke type shorts i cant help to laugh as he asks for directions with his dutch accent, not knowing a lick of french. We eventually get to their hotel and i get out and tell them im going to find my friend and i will meet them to have some drinks later that night.

i get a taxi to the hotel where Eric was staying and as i walk in i confidently expected to see him there waiting. I look around but dont see him, so i ask the hotel receptionist who speaks little english if he had a guy named Eric who is American and looks like me. He told me Eric is gone, and i think he must be wrong, i painfully question him more trying to describe eric but he just keeps telling me he left. not sure what to do i drop my bag and head to the internet cafe across the way. i attempt to contact eric via email cuz he has a blackberry with him, with no luck or response after over an hour i head back to the hotel. I sit around and just wait without a clue how to find Eric. I figure im gonna have to turn into sherlock holmes to find him. i overhear two people talking and i know they are american. I ask the one guy how long hes been at the hotel and he says about a day and a half. Then i ask if he has seen an american guy that looks like me at this hotel. To my surprise he says yes, and asks if his name is Eric. I cant believe it he actually knew him and was on the same flight from senegal with him. His name is Shrikan and he is with a girl named Kara and they are both young lawyers from New York.


He tells me that Eric left the hotel in order to find a cheaper one and he told them all about how i was coming to meet him but that he didnt think i would make it. Shrikan told me he went with Eric earlier in the day to find another hotel and the cab dropped him off by the cathedral. Shrikan told me he thought eric was at one of two hotels and he showed me them in the guide book. I wrote down the names and hopped in a cab on a mission to find him. the cab driver had to ask about 3 times on the way to the hotels how to get there but we made it. the first one i tried turned out to be just a restaurant but they pointed across the street to the other one. This place was a catholic mission run by nuns and it closes at sunset for new arrivals. I buzzed the doorbell anyway and waiting. no answer, i walked away, but as i started to turn the corner for some reason i looked back and i saw out of the corner of my eye and nun looking out the door. i ran back to her and explained how i was looking for my friend. she spoke english and laughed at me and wondered how i could travel around here without speaking french. she searched through the register cards and wallah i saw the name eric riger. i had her take me to his room and there i found his bags but he wasnt there. i had found his bags so i knew i had found him. i asked for the bed next to his and waited. i was supposed to meet Clauss and Woult at the bar but i was to tired after searching for eric all night. i never got to thank them properly for the amazing kindness they showed me for driving me, but i hope they know how grateful i was. it was a shame also cuz i never got their emails.

That day was Erics birthday, and around midnight i heard someone doing a nose blast and open the door, eric came in and i said happy birthday. he was shocked and couldnt believe how i had found him. he said i thought you would never make it so i switched hotels. We shook hands and our Malian journey began. I found eric with about 8 hours to spare cuz he was leaving the next morning on the bus and if i didnt find him i wouldnt have seen him until the festival 4 days later maybe.

That night i dont sleep very well the air is very dry and the pollution is disgusting. in the morning eric and i get a taxi to the bus station and through the chaos and hassle somehow get a ticket on the bus which goes to Mopti where we were going to meet our group for the Pinasse ride down the niger river to Tiombuktu. At the station we meet a girl from kansas who is in the peace core working in Dogon country, we learn a few french words. so far communicating has been dreadful, i know zero french and little english is spoken, but i manage of course to get around it just takes time and a whole lot of patience. the hardest part is figuring out how much things costs by far.

we get on the bus after eating a tasty egg sandwich and our off on a 12 hour ride to Mopti. We are put in the very back of the bus and are the only white people on it. its nice to have a friend along with you to laugh at all the craziness around you and to be able to relate to everything with a different perspective. around 10pm we arrive in dirty dusty mopti along the edge of the niger river. we get a room and crash for the night . the next morning we are to meet for our slow 3 day bought ride down the niger to Timbuktu for the Festival Au Desert music festival. we get to the meeting point and here i meet my family for the next week. The group consists of Daniella 52 from Italy, her friend Dario 35 who i calld super dario, also from Italy, married couple David 33 and Vanessa 37 from america but living in geneva switzerland, and Barbara around 40 from los angeles who is a photographer going to the festival to do a story on it.


We all meet and greet and then we meet the owner of the boat who is named Amadou, immediately i know he is really friendly, he speaks no english tho. The Pinasse is a long boat with a kitchen in the middle and also cushions to lay down and sleep on; with a roof that you can sit on and a toilet that you can feel like your flying while taking a pee. on the boat there are 3 other crew members, one guy to cook and clean, one guy to steer the boat and the other to run the engine. Amadou was the captain and he did everything for us, this boat ride was the start of about 11 straight days of me being fed a specific meal by a guide.

The boat journey begins and we all get to know each other sit back and relax and take in the tranquillity of the river. life is slow out here and there are villages dotting the river all the way. the trip went a little something like this, we would sit back, listen to music get fed breakfast lunch and dinner on the boat, and stop off at about 4 villages a day. in these villages it was a special treat. the kids in the villages were so happy to see us and they would go bonkers when we got there. all i heard were screams of Toubab which means white man and Kudou which means present. the kids would run up to us and hold our hands pose for pics and just delight us as we did them. they live such a simple life but there was nothing easy about it. we also stopped in Niafunke which is the birth place of Ali Farka Toure who is one of the most beloved musicians of Mali and my personal favorite. everyone loves him in Mali and he is like a king. we listened to his music most of the boat ride on my mp3 player. Daniella and David could speak perfect french so they were our translators for the whole trip and we were able to communicate with the people in the villages. we would dance and sing and all laugh together at each others cultures. by the end of the 3 day trip i was so relaxed and we all knew each other and had become friends. a few hours into the trip i sneezed thus started my almost instant nasal problems which still effect me today. also my throat started to hurt and Daniella being the mother theresa that she is treated me like her son and took good care of me giving me medicine the whole time.


in the afternoon of the third day of the boat ride we arrive in mysterious and magical Timbuktu, a place where in history many people tried to reach but usually failed. at the port i play with the kids and have a fun time running around while we wait for our next guide to pick us up. we get a ride to our hotel and meet Hollis who is a Tuareg; which are the blue people who are nomads who live in the Sahara Desert. He speaks perfect english and is a jolly man. we agree to join his group for the festival and to be fed and have a tent out in the desert for the show. that night not feeling to well i get some meds at the pharmacy and eric and i walk around timbuktu in a hazey dazey, it is pure desert here and really dusty, we get lost and finally get one of Hollis guys to lead us back to our hotel. Later Hollis feeds us all and we go see an awesome band on the rooftop and melt into the saharan stars.

the next morning i wake up feeling 10 times better and its time to go to the festival. we pay Hollis for the tent and food but he doesnt ask us for the money to get into the festival which is 200 American dollars. i figure we will get it later inside. so we get a ride into the desert and when we get to the entrance of the festival we just drive right on thru. we are shown to our tents which are made of camel skins and there is also a huge tent set up for the whole group to relax and eat in. it truly feels like vip treatment. a few characters that i meet in our tent our Berry Cuda and his daughter kelly from key west, Kevin and his wife from Brooklyn, Marquios and his dad Haines, joanna from florida, there are also about 15 women from i think french but they never talked to anyone, elysse from los angeles and amazingly shrikan and kara who i had met back in Bamako and who helped me find eric. also the same people from the boat are with us.


the heat of the desert is very hot during the day but it gets cold at night. eric and i go and wander around and check out the festival grounds. it consists of many tent cities like ours that have a common tent in the middle, there are also many tuareg tents and personal tents dotting the sand dunes around us. there is one large stage where all the shows take place mostly only at night.

eric and i get invited to drink tea with some tuareg who traveled to the festival with their camels many days away. tuareg all dress in blue and they all have something to sell to you. we drink tea and learn about their culture.

Hollis never told me to buy a bracelet and pay for the festival so i figured i would just go without it and just see what happens. the first night i got in with out being checked, we drank we smoked and we danced like crazy people until 4am. it was a blast. the music was vibrant and electric, there was one band who used to be rebel soldiers who traded their guns for instruments, they were the highlight of the night.

The rest of the festival goes like this, wake up early in our tent from the heat of the sun, stumble over to the big tent, relax all day, getting fed, listening to music and lounging like no other. looking out into the sand dunes of the sahara. for the most part the main shows didnt start until 5pm because it was so hot and not wanting to risk getting caught without a bracelet i stayed near the tent until sunset for the next two days. Eric acutally got caught during the day while in the vendor area and had to pay the 200 dollars. each time i went into the shows i would go through the sides which wasnt hard cuz security was a joke and blocking off an area within sand dunes is tricky.

The festival was an amazing experience with a surreal atmosphere that really made it feel like a dream. the music and the beats are still flowing thru me and i can still feel the sand in my feet.


On a different note, on the morning of the third day of the festival a guy came to our tent early in the morning who had heard from his friend that eric and i were planning on taking a trip to Dogon Country. He asks us if we wanted to take a guided tour and after about 2 hours of negotiations we agreed on a price, it was to be an all included trip with all the meals and hotels paid for along the way. Our guide was named Momo, but that wasnt his real name, he just told us to call him that. he is 23 years old and he said he was born in timbuktu but grew up in a village in Dogon Country. so far he fits the mold of the typical african i have met here, he will tell you something but usually the truth is something totally different. but for the most part he was a really good guide. anyway im getting ahead of my self. the last night of the festival i get back to my tent after listening to the music at 430am, Momo had told us that we would be leaving at 830am but he comes to my tent at 5am, before i could even close my eyes, and says we must go now. not suprisingly we dont end up leaving until about 9am anyway, while i wait i watched the sunrise of the golden city of timbuktu in awe of where i was. i say my goodbyes to the group and my new friends and we exchange emails. eric and i are on our own again and we get on this bus like vehicle that looks like it could trample anything in its path::: we take a 12 hour bumpy and i mean bumpy ride back to mopti with our guide Momo.

It feels as if the bus has no shocks and every bump who hit permeates through every bone in my body. after a few break downs along the way we get to mopti and we go to Momos place, which is a room that is set up for tour guides to sleep in that is the size of a large bedroom and has cushions around the perimeter. we stay there for the night while it seems like endless people come in and out, however we sleep great cuz we hadnt slept in a day and a half. we hadnt showered in over a week, alone from the swims i took in the niger river ,and we were filthy. in this place there was a dungeon of a toilet and going in there to take a shower with a bucket of water was disgusting. i almost puked and i felt dirtier than when i went in. eric felt the same way.


Our plan for the next 5 days was to hike through a place called Dogon Country. This is a region in the south of Mali where there are villages built along massive cliffs, where pygmies used to build tiny villages inside the cliffs. but the pygmies were kicked out long ago by the dogon people. every day on this trip we would wake up at sunrise after sleeping on the roof terrace under the extremely bright stars eat breakfast, walk for about two hours visiting villages and then rest for about 4 hours in the midday heat and eat lunch. at 3 pm we would walk for about 2 or 3 more hours and arrive in the village where we would sleep. we would get fed dinner and Momo would roll us joints each night of the dirtiest brownest weed i have ever seen.

the scenery and landscape was so beautiful to walk through and the culture is unlike any others. we watched a ceremony of dancers and masks and drums and again got treated like kings. our guide always made sure we were ok. after a bit we got momo to break out of his guide role and we started to relate on a more buddy relationship. after 4 nights of sleeping under the stars i would always look for orions belt and the star that someone told me was venus. we had seen so many great things along the way. however the whole trip my nose was acting up and i was congested, but it didnt bother me to much, it was just so dry out there. erics stomach was giving him troubles as well and he was pooping like 7 times a day. We were being fed so much food and we just couldnt eat it all but momo kept making us and we didnt want to waste it.


At the end of the 5 day trip we went with momo back to the same place we stayed in mopti last time. we arranged for eric to take the bus back to bamako to catch is flight back to florida and for me to get the bus to Burkina Faso.

That night momo eric and I ate dinner and had some beers at one of the dingiest bars ive ever seen. there were some real characters there.

i also forgot to say that when we were in mopti before the trek, we arrived when Mali had overcame a 4 goal defecit to tie algeria in the african cup. the city was going crazy and the people were partying in the street.

furthermore, the next morning eric and i got on the same bus with momo who was going to a place called Djenne. He arranged for me to get off in another city along the way and catch a bus to Burkina Faso. about 7 hours later the bus conducter pointed at me and i saw the bus out the window, i said my goodbyes to eric and hopped off the bus, got on the other bus and once again i was on my own and alone. i rode on the bus for about 5 more hours to the border of burkina faso, where i bought my visa. i also met a few people from ghana who spoke english and i remembered how ghana was a english colony and that they all spoke english there. i look forward to spending a long time in ghana where language will not be a problem. after getting over the border we arrived in the 2nd largest city in Burkina which people call Bobo. at the bustop i meet a guy who takes me to a mission where i get a ncie room with a shower, and i scrub and scrub and get clean, and i am by far the cleanest i have been in over two weeks.

so here i am sitting in Bobo writing this part of the journal. its hard to include everything that i have experienced. in Africa i have to mention all the kind people that have helped me so far. i havent met an unkind person here yet, its nothing but peace and love and the energy is vibrant. everywhere i go i hear sava, which is how are you in french, the people are so friendly, and all the kids love to slap me five and the adults shake my hand. the way i travel is a kind of floating technique where i bounce off of different situations and eventually get where i need to be. trying to hard to figure something out only leads to confusion and ive found the best way is to just keep rolling the dice and see what happens, for not knowing the language there is only so much you can understand anyway.


at the end of my first month in Africa i still feel good and confident. i am happy to not be working and i am taking things slowly. there is a surprise at every corner i look around. being a toubab in an african world has its ups and downs. as of now i have no time restraints and nowhere in particular to be. my next stop is ghana where i hope to find a nice beach to stay at for awhile.

goodbye for now

hello to all my friends and family

and to my extened family at the Don Cesar

Happy new year 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!
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2025-02-17

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