2 december, bushcamp somewhere in Mali

the next reports are in english especially for my dear half dutch cousin who still cant read any dutch :}

3 days have gone now since we left Kayes and it was almost all off road, some 250k. After we left the town of Kayes we soon ended up on a dirt road full of dust. First we should pass an old ruin after 12 k but unfortunately we missed the sign. That was off course because after one rest day some still were thinking its all a race so everyone rushed off, speeding out off town. Some uphills but the road wasnt bad and i had a good day. But after a while i was fully covered in dust. Its amazing how a 100.000 plp town suddenly ends and you are in the middel off nowhere.

Staying in a bushcamp is not really my hobby due to the lack of privacy and after its getting dark there is not much to do. Bedtime is then 7 or 8 pm. But with my laptop i still can watch some episodes of CSI. The next day was supposed to be rather easy with 80k off road. Normally a 4-5 hour ride, including breaks. Right from the start is was singletrack through the bushes. We left as a group because of the maze of track, 'roads', sandpaths, goat- or cowtracks, the risk of getting lost was to high. I hate riding as a group because you are pushed in your pace too much. After 25k we came across the most beautifull waterfalls. They look like the niagarafalls but a bit smaller and without any tourist, buildings or even a road to it,just a singletrack which is probably a goathtrack.One of the world's wonders in the middle of nowhere and very few people have ever seen it. Wonderfull !.

Just look it up at google or wikipedia and you will be amazed, one of natures secrets. We spent some time there and then went on. Because the truck and the van could not take this road, this stage would be without a lunch or water-stop. Waterrefill would be by a villagepump added with havrix if there were any villages at all. Normally no problem but after a while the road turned into a dusty track with just loose sand. And with 40c then another 35k is a long, long, longway. On and off the bike to push the bike through the sand, ride for a couple of meters and push again. The lack of food and water took a lot from all of us. We passed a few nice villages with huts of straw and clay and two of them had a pump. But even two times 4 bottles refill was not really enough. Energy levels dropped rapidly. At about 10k from the town we were having our camp some had to give up, were dehydraterd, had to stay in the shade, and could not move any further and they sent for the truck to pick them up. I moved on slowly stopping regularly, riding and pushing all the time. Fortunately i met the truck which was going to pick up the other riders so i could have another waterrefill, which i needed desperately. And after nine hours of struggling with the rotten sandpaths i finally reached the end at a campground in Bafoulabe. There was an oppertunity to rent a room which i did off course after such a day. It was not much, but it had a bed , airco and a shower: all i needed. After dinner i soon fell asleep and had a good nightrest. The next day i started in the van as the day before sucked up too much energy, as it did with a lot of others who started in the truck or didnt finish the next day either. I finished the second part of the next stage, which had a 2km climb in it of 5-10% which was pretty hard in the heat. Now at another bushcamp next to a straw-hut village. Its better than slightly away from the village because then all the childeren come and have a look, which is nice but sometimes annoying. When you camp right beside a village and ask the elders for permission they will keep an eye on you and their childeren, so actually its very quite with visitors now.

3 december, Kita, Mali

a few minutes after i wrote this about 30 children showed up. But it was good fun, they were all very polite, as most malineze people are. First all shake hand, also the children, and bonjour ca va, ca va bien etc. The children were of course very interested in what we were doing on our laptops and gathered around each of us who were working ontheir laptop.

They didnt ask for a cadeaux or so and were very nice. Lateron the elders showed up, shook hands, bonjour, ca va, oui ca va bien etc.. Most malineze dont speak french very well so its mostly hands and footwork to communicate. When we started our dinner, the elders called their childeren and it was quite again.

Off course i had the bushcamp shower again. Amazing how good you can clean yourself with just two bottles (1,5 liter) and a bit of soap. Actually one bottleis enough, but the second one is for the bushcamp shower 'Deluxe'. No need for a real shower then anyway. So people: get rid of your showers, just two drinkingbottles a day is enough.:}

One disadvantage of staying close to a village is that they off course have lots of animals, like cows, donkeys and chickens. This made sleeping a bit hard as the donkeys made a lot of noise during the night, IIAAA, well eventually they went to sleep as well and so did i.

In the morning a woman from the village came and brought us a pan full of 'oliebollen' which tasted exactly the same as in holland and were still warm and very nice. Didier our truckdriver, nurse and with lots of knowledge of and experience in africa wrote a letter to the 'chef de village' to thank him for letting us stay in their village. Didier is a great guy, very quite but sees and knows everything. I learn a lot of him, he knows (african) people and how to deal with them.

At eight o clock in the morning after breakfast (usually a few pieces of french bread with peanutbutter and a (instant) coffee) departure again for the next stage. It would be a long one (again). First 75k unpaved again and then some 50+k paved until Kita. I was not intending to do the whole stage as i still felt not very strong after the last demanding days, but eventually i did finish it all. The first Ks i was confirmed inmy bad fitnesslevel asmy muscles and legs still felt tired but after an hour or so it was getting better. The road led through multiple villages and beautiful scenery. Mali is a wonderful country with lovely people, especially the women look very nice, smart and well dressed (no worries Hilda :}, and almost all have a nice smile and a good laugh which needs little to trigger. I wish i could spend time more often with all these people i meet but then i wouldnt be home for xmas 2012. Also the childeren are great , most come running out of the fields or villages yelling and chearing and wanting to shake hands or high five and probably some more but most dont speak french so i wouldnt know what they would be saying. As for the scenery: apart from some duller sections Mali is great, more like a combination of Australian outback and Grand Canyon like scenery, but then with Baobabs and African villages and people in it,well, its more like Mali actually. Its even quit lush and vertile, lots of cotton, corn, other plants and trees, but maybe thats because we are following the Senegal- or whatever-river. There arent many mosks, like in senegal and gambia, although Mali is supposed to be islamic as well, but for that i have to consult Wikipedia first. The news on Mali was that you couldnt get any beer or wine, but also thats not true, you can get on every corner of the street and in bigger bottles than you ve ever seen ! Yeah, I love Mali !!!

During riding on these road i think of a million things, especially what to write on my blog of what i all see and experience but its actually to much to write it all down, too many impressions, sights, sounds, smells and people. But i will give it a try someday. I hope the pictures speak for theirselfs.

Well, finally after some 350km of off road we finally reached the tarmac world again, what a relief, especially for my hands, which on the bumpy roads had a lot of bumps and hits to absorb. Although temperatures probably reached 40 again the heat didnt bother me so much anymore. Actually i kind of start to like it. No, it was the wind, again. All the way head wind. f.c..g headwind. And then 130k is pretty long. We had an extra water stop at 90k which was good because i almost ran out of water and with 40k to go thats not good. I just managed to find a coke in Tambage, a small town, but without any shops or stores, but i am starting to learn to find the right spots, even if they dont look like a shop, sometimes, hidden in a hut, there is some warm coke to find. Yeah!

The last 30 k were very hard, muscles felt heavy and i used a lot of shadestops, but by 5 pm i reached Kita. I got completely lost in this town and asked around everywhere for Hotel Refuge. Most people prefered to speak in english rather than french, but when i showed them a map of Kita and the name of the hotel, it appeared that nor they couldnt read or never had seen a map of their own town so that didnt help a lot. Eventually by coincidence (in a town of 100.000 people) i met a guy from the hotel we were stayingat and he escorted me through town to the hotel with his scooter, i would never have found it myself. Yes!, made it again 132K ! through a boiling wind. Two days to go and then restdays !!!!!

4 december 2011,

Heep heep hoeree, its my birthday today. 45 and still going strong, although.... the first 50k of the day were ok but then all energy flowed out of me, legs, tows, bum, back, hands, everything started to hurt. I managed it to lunchcamp at 65k and then after lunch i stepped in the van. I promised myself a birthdaypresent and not to hurt myself anymore on this great day. And as a bonus i decided to take the next day off as well and add another extra rest day to the restdays we were going to have. Last 3 weeks were very tiring. I was at bushcamp pretty early and put my tent up far away from the rest. Didier found a nice spot again in the middle of a green forest with lots of shade and pretty cool temperatures as well. It was about 300mtrs from the road and not visable for anybody else, if it wasnt for the flag we always put out whenever there is a lunchcamp of bushcamp hidden away from the road, as a sign for the cyclists that camp is there. But this time the flag took attention from the local authorities as well. Four men in armyclothes in a big pickup truck came to visit us. We appeared to be camping in a national reservation of somekind, well other than trees there was nothing to see but we werent allowed to camp there. But after some hard bargaining it was possible to bend the rules a bit for just 15.000 CFA (some 22 euros). Until now we hadnt met any 'corruption' of this kind. Mali, Senegal and Gambia, were all very friendly to us. We passed lots of police checkpoints and could ride on easily. Just wave friendly, 'ca va' a bit and if neccessary even make compliments about their outstanding uniforms and how nice their country is, and off course we all cycled all the way from europe to see this magnificent country, well that makes an impression !. A small joke will break the ice in a second as well. Al least thats how it goes sofar. Once we come further south in more equatorial regions, corruption is supposed to get worse and w'll have to do some more bargaining. I maybe have said it before but Mali is wonderfull, very easy, muchnicer than we expected. Even Didier who visited almost every african country is pleasantly surprised about Mali.

At dinner we had beer, as a birthday present for me and i even got a grand-desert completed with burning candles and an umbrella on the sour cream-topping. I really dont like deserts but this one i couldnt skip. And of course everybody sang happy birthday to me, in the middle of a Malian, national reservate, where we were not supposed to be staying in, i think, maybe, its not possible, not likely even, slightly unrealistic or a little unthinkable, that i will have another birthday like this.

Well, nest day i stepped in the truck together with Bill who had been ill during the night and we drove into Bamako, the capital of Mali with 2 million inhabitants, so quit a big village, the fastest growing town in Africa. Riding into such a big african city is great, it gets busier every meter youenter town, also some sad sights of people crawling over the dirtbelts to find anything usable, but also many, many people on scooters and motorcycles. Once we crossed the Niger it became a bit quiter. For the first time in three weeks i went into some kind of supermarket, whith filled shelves, airco and stuff like shampoo, soap,food, drinks, chips and chinese crap-cadeauxs, what a wealth. Never thought to be amazed to walk down ilses of supermarketproducts, although its still just 4 weeks ago i had a croisant in the local Vomar.

We were in the ambassy area where our hotel would be.As we didnt have rooms enough i went out with a taxi to find more rooms for all of us. off course i didnt want to stay my rest days in a crappy auberge, i finally found a decent hotel with a pool, a restaurant and even a working shower in the room. Three stars Hotel for Mali, but -/- one star in Holland but its wonderful, a bit far away from the others butwe will be fine here for the next three days. Bill and Illka are also staying here. So tomorrow and the next day i will see how Bamako looks like, do some Xmas Shopping (wonder if they have Xmastree balls here?). I think after that i will be ready for the next stage of 6x >110km cycling to Burkina.

Although West Africa is considered to be flat, we already made about 6000 hms, apart from one section not very steep but always up and sometimes down. Wonder how the the next few 1000km are because they have not been explored yet.