19 Dec Mali: Bamako

Three o'clock in the morning at Bamako airport. This travelling on the cheap, sometimes they charge me in meat. I've thought of writing in my egoblog, to see if it will keep me awake (I don't know if it will keep you awake). Today I wanted to write more subtly, but I'm afraid the chromagnon in me is going to come out again. Anyway, I'm happy, because this time the desire to return is stronger than the desire to stay, Christmas is what it is. So I'm going back home....

If I even feel like going to work on Monday, something good will be waiting for me I say, I love Mondays and the mother who bore them. I hope it will be warm in Spain

Today I want to show you something of Bamako and its surroundings.

I'll start with the big market, if the mosquitoes, which are swarming all over me, will let me.

As a good African market, you can find everything, and if they don't have it, they'll make it for you. With an animist tradition, there is an area where they sell bones, heads and remains of all kinds of animals for amulets and rituals, from lion skins, which I didn't know there were in Mali, to elephant remains, which you can see as they pass through Hombori, as they make the longest mammal migration in the world between Burkina and Mali.

What these ladies are selling are nuts from the cola tree (puticola), which they say gives sexual vigour, although they are so bad that I don't think it's worth it... I only tried them for experimental purposes.

Risking my life, I climbed up to a high place to enjoy the spectacle, and at the same time to get away for a while from the court of self-appointed salesmen orbiting around me. See if you like the pictures I took:

This is the access road to the market

Although this street gives the impression of chaos, which it is..., they are much more advanced than we are in road safety. An example of this is this revolutionary prototype airbag for motorcyclists that they are developing and whose test pilot I was able to photograph. I'm afraid it will be implemented in Madrid.

Motorbikes are the most popular means of transport in the country, it is very dangerous, there is an army of ruthless bikers. I had to use one myself to accomplish some "mission undercover".

By the way, here I came to see where we are going to live next February and March. I put the photo, I have not identified neither the infinity pool overlooking the Niger nor the breakfast buffet, I'm still looking for but I look bad...

The Niger River runs through the city. On the north side is the racecourse area, with places like the terrace, byblos or Ibiza, which are not bad at all, but on the other side .... at night you can hear the war drums beating, you have to go...

Well this is the river that separates the two halves.

This black and white photo is very nice. This river is navigable for passenger boats from Koulikoro, which serves as the port of Bamako. You can get to Gao via Timbuktu, but only in the months following the rainy season. For the rest of the year you have to leave from Mopti (see my wonderful photo report above) as the river is very low.

I took these photos in the port of koulikoro, and this last one, it doesn't say anything, but I love the colour it has, so I put it here.

I wanted to do a tour of the Senufo villages in the south of the country now, but I'm going to save that for the next day.

Between yesterday's bender and the late hour, I feel as if my body and soul have been turned inside out like a sock. I wanted to return home but it's only been a few minutes since I took off and I'm starting to miss Africa. My body, in a pile, is on its way home, but my mind has stayed there again, like the harmattan, that desert dust in suspension that envelops the Sahel at this time of the year and never leaves...