Torodo, Mali

As I retrace my ride across Mali back to Senegal I am able to anticipate the few rough stretches of pot holes and don't have to fret wondering how long they will last.  But my memory has failed me in their duration.  They seemed to go on indefinitely on my first encounter, but on a second time they pass in a snap.  One horrendous stretch after Didieni I thought lasted ten or twelve miles.  It was actually only three.

Instead of suffering through them on my return I can be entertained by a theater of the absurd routine by squadrons of young boys and girls who stand beside the potholes waiting for a vehicle to approach.  They then gather up some dirt in their makeshift plastic scoops and toss it into one of the potholes, as if they are a voluntary road maintenance crew and deserve a tip.  Not once have I seen them rewarded, though they must on occasion for so many of them to persist at it.  There are dozens of these somewhat dignified beggars along the stretchs of potholes.  If they were truly at work on the potholes, they could fill each in a few minutes.  Instead they wait until a vehicle comes along and then make as if they are performing a service.  It's not unique to Mali, as I witnessed such a charade last year in Madasgascar.

There's not much else for such people to do in the semi-desert terrain of the Sahal, especially during the dry season, if they don't have a herd of goats to tend to or they're not in the business of gathering wood.  Most are scraping by at the subsistence level and have few options in this arid world of theirs. What wood they gather turns up in stacks along the road and is picked up by trucks and transported to urban areas, as wood is the prime fuel for cooking throughout the country.

A few trees do survive in this terrain.  They provide shade for my rests.  I am surprised at times to see passersby, not having seen anyone for miles  and miles.  But they are certainly more surprised to see a white-bearded white man beside a bike hunched under a tree.  I could well be an alien who has dropped from the sky by their reaction, staring at me in bewilderment.

Kids in particular are unabashed in their staring.  If I'm jotting on my iPad I can tilt it up and snap a photo without them realizing what I doing.

Though there are those who ask for a "cadeau," a gift, it is not as pervasive as in Sengal where they are more accustomed to encountering whites.  The people have been remarkably cordial and respectful.  Twice a bill has slipped from my pocket and dropped to the ground when I have reached in for some coins to pay for something and someone has pointed it out.  They could have easily waited for me to leave and had a minor windfall of a dollar or two.

It is nice to be pedaling without any urgency, as I was to Bruce and Sounkalo, as I knew I was going to be pressed for time to get what visas I needed and then continue on another seven hundred miles to DL in Liberia and then another twelve hundred miles back to Dakar through four more countries I'd have to get visas for. Flying might have been an option to avoid all those border crossings, but getting my bike on a plane could have been a nightmare of a different order.  I had five weeks before my return to complete it all, which I wasn't sure was enough.  My ordeal at the Ivory  Coast embassy altered that plan and spared me from many more battles with African bureaucracy.  Now I can ride without the weight of all those concerns.  I'm riding leisurely, but even so had my first one hundred mile day of this trip.  

I wasn't intent on a century, as I had been looking for a spot to camp for several miles as dark closed in.  Though it often  seems that no one could be living in the vicinity, I will spot a mud hut blending in with the terrain, or catch site of someone trudging along either on foot or on a donkey or occasionally on a bike, so I must press on.  I have to wait as close to dark as I can when people will have concluded their commute or won't so easily spot me.  It is a nervous time for me.  Twice after I have stopped to camp someone has passed close to me but without noticing me in the dim light and my camouflage.  

At the 98-mile mark I spotted some bushes in the distance that I could camp behind.  As I pedaled through the dirt to reach them I saw some horses grazing nearby.  I didn't notice anyone tending them, but I didn't care to take the risk, so returned to the road.  It was another two miles, just as I hit 100 miles for the day, that I saw another bush far enough from the road for me.  

I've come 200 miles from Bamako and have another 220 miles to Kayes, where I will have my first opportunity for a shower in a hotel.  I'll at least be able to douse myself at the only gas station I encountered on this route that had running water tomorrow in Diema, one of the highlights of my ride to Bamako.

At least I won't be desperate to find wifi, as a friend of Sounkalo's provided me with a SIM card for my iPad.  I didn't have the consciousness to do that as soon as I arrived in Senegal, partially because I had no clue how difficult it would be to find wifi.  Now I have access to the Internet wherever I might be.  I almost feel guilty to be so connected to the world.  So far there have been no blank spots even out in this lightly inhabited region where few villages even have electricity.

Bamako, Mali

Just when I thought I had the ways of Africa figured out, or had at least come to accept its many challenges, it became more and more complicated and frustrating. Patience remains the key, but while one struggles to be patient, it is diffucult not to feel like a helpless victim as one is overwhelmed by stress and uncertainty.

As I closed in on Kati, knowing I had an oasis ahead with my long-time friend Bruce, I could begin to relax a bit despite the increasingly rough road and chaos of a city to negotiate.  All I had to do was find someone with a phone and have Bruce come lead me to his abode.  I began looking for a phone in some small villages as I approached Kati to give Bruce an initial warning, but without success.  No phone was to be found either at an electronics shop on the outskirts of Kati.  A pharmacist had a phone, but when he called Bruce, we received a message that his phone was out of service. My heart plunged.  It was approaching dark so I'd need to find a hotel.  The pharmacist didnt know of one, just  to continue further into the city.  Though Kati was of significant size, just north of Bamako, it had no evident central district where I might find a hotel, just rows and rows of nondescript shops along the congested paved street that continued on and on, such as had been the story through all of Mali.

When I came to another pharmacy a mile later I gave Bruce another try with the same disheartening response that his phone was out of service.  I had them try Sounkalo in Bamako to see if he knew an alternate way of contacting Bruce.  His phone connected, but he wasn't answering.  The trio of pharmacists behind the counter had no ready answer about a hotel, finally telling me to turn left a couple blocks up. That wasn't assuring at all. A few blocks after turning when I could see no sign of a hotel I stopped to buy some bananas and asked again.  I was told there was a hotel just a couple blocks up on the left.  When I got there, I saw no evidence of it. It was near dark and I was getting desperate.  How is this one going to turn out, I wondering,more out of curiosity than desperation as I knew wherever I ended up for the night would seem like a triumph.

I told a guy hanging out straddling a motorcycle I was looking for a hotel. He didn't know of any,  but he was helpful enough to ask a group of guys with motorcycles across the street who appeared to be the local version of a taxi stand. He came back with the thrilling news that there was a hotel down the alley, the first door on the left.  There was no sign for it, but yes indeed, there was a row of rooms inside the wall for rent.  Several were occupied by residents.  I was shown a room with no windows, but it had a shower and a fan.  The guy wanted $30 for it, an utterly absurd amount, and accepted $20, still a bit much, but within my level of tolerance.  It had no wifi, but he said the pharmacy on the corner did.  Before I took a bag off my bike, I zipped over to try to contact Bruce.

Bruce miraculously responded within a couple of minutes and said he knew exactly where I was.  It was just a couple blocks from the school where his wife worked.  Fifteen minutes later I had that long-awaited, joyous site of Bruce and his wife Kafoune.  Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

We returned to the hotel to fetch my bike and my ten thousand francs.  The proprietor was gone.  No one around knew where he was, but someone gave us his phone number.  Kafoune called him.  He said to return in the morning for the money.  At this point I didn't care much.  Kafoune was adamant though.  She was appalled that I had been charged so much for the room.  That would have been the local's price for a week or even a month.

It was now pitch dark.  Bruce and Kafoune had shown up on a motorcycle, with Kafoune in command.  It was an eight minute ride to their residence in thick traffic, the last few blocks on a dirt road.  I used my lights for the first time on this trip. They shared a walled compound with several other families, some of whom were sitting outside.

Bruce and Kafoune married last July.  She is still awaiting a visa to the US.  She still lives with her parents, though is in the process of building her own home that won't be ready until next January.  Bruce is happy to split his time between Africa and California, where he lives out of a van in Santa Rosa while he administers the Arlene Francis Community Center.  He brings to Africa his organizational skills to assist the disadvantaged and promote environmental causes.  He's trying to battle the epidemic of litter in Africa, figuring out a way to recycle the tons and tons of plastic bags and bottles that are everywhere.  One start was to post no-dumping signs across from where he lives, though they are hardly heeded.

He lectures at the school where his wife and mother-in-law work, trying to get the students to dispose of litter in receptacles rather than haphazardly dropping it as is the custom.  The next afternoon while we hung out at the school library Bruce prevented me from picking up litter.  He said he prefers to do it in the presence of students, so they will join in.  The litter truly is a scourge, but is totally accepted.  Bruce's mother-in-law, Maria, attends educational conferences all over the world.  Her first impression of the US was how clean it was, and also that not everyone was toting guns.  Her friends were all frightened for her when she attended her first conference there in Denver,  thinking guns would be everywhere.

Maria, like Kafoune, was a genuine dynamo.  She had the urge, as did Bruce, to join me exploring Mali via bike, not this year but maybe next.  If the Issis presence in Timbucku has been cleared up by then, it would make an enticing destination.  Bruce has yet to get there in any of his sojourns in Mali, the first in 1999, followed up in 2002, 2007, 2010 and 2017.  Now with a wife in Mali, he is working on gaining a Mali passport, which will make it much easier for him to travel in Africa, sparing him the cost of $100 visas for Americans in many of the neighboring countries.

Not only are visas costly, but they can be a monumental chore to obtain. After a day of rest in Kati, I spent a day-and-a-half in Bamako trying to get a visa to the Ivory Coast.  Kafoune was well aware of what an ordeal it would be and insisted on accompanying me to the embassy.  She was truly my guardian angel and saviour.  It was a not unpleasant twelve mile ride to the embassy, trailing her and Bruce.  She led some of the way and let me lead and set the pace on the open road before we hit the congested maze of the city.  She had no mirrors, but managed to keep me on her wheel.

I could remain calm knowing I didn't have to stop and consult my GPS as I would have innumerable times otherwise.  The internet gave two different locations for the Ivory Coast embassy.  We had to wait to leave until after nine when we could call to confirm where it was.  I also needed a visa for Liberia.  It didn't have an embassy in Bamako, meaning I'd have to go 500 miles out of my way to the capital of the Ivory Coast to get it.  That wasn't such good news, but I accepted it as an opportunity to get to know the country better than I would otherwise.

We didn't have the address for the Ivory Coast embassy other than it was behind the Radisson Hotel, which had been the site of a terrorist attack a few years ago.  Once we got to the Radisson we had to ask several times before we found the embassy.  I was told in. Very stern manner that  I had to lock my bike across the street and also that I had to wear long pants to enter the embassy.  And then the official we dealt with was equally stern behind his vast desk piled with papers.  He gave us a list of demands I had to fulfill, including a prepaid hotel reservation and photocopies of a bunch of my documents and also verification of where I had stayed in Mali.  

Kafoune and I went off on her motorcycle to find a copying shop and also the city hall where they could document my stay with Kafoune.  I had become a metal ball in a pinball machine.  We easily found a copy shop but had to go to two different city offices.  The second was jammed with people.  We were sent to several different offices packed with women sitting at typewriters besides stacks of paper.  It took half an hour for us to get what we needed and a charge of ten dollars.  

When we returned to the embassy over an hour later it was closed for lunch.  We had to wait 90 minutes for it to open. Getting a hotel reservation was too complicated to take care of in this time.  I hoped it would be waived, as it has been on other occasions in consideration of my means of travel.  But this official was unbudging.  He also rejected my passport photos, the same that had been accepted by Mali in Dakar. I could at least have them taken at the embassy for $5.  I was on the verge of forgoing the Ivory Coast and simply heading back to Senegal and ducking down to The Gambia.  But Bruce assured me that Sounkalo, who I'd be spending the night with, would be able to reserve a hotel for me, as he knew he had done for others.  

Kafoune led me for eight miles more through the thick Bamako traffic and left me at a school near where Sounkalo lived.

It was full-on chaos, but it was therapy to be back on the bike, somewhat in control of my destiny after hours at the mercy of the Ivory Coast embassy.  Sounkalo showed up twenty minutes later, hopping out of a taxi after a day of work in the city.  That was another joyous reunion.

It was a ten-minute walk to his apartment.  Boys were playing soccer on the wide dirt road in front of his home.  

A young woman was selling the dough balls that I continually munch.

After a shower we easily booked a hotel in the capital of Ivory Coast that I could cancel if I chose after I got my visa.  Except half an hour later the confirmation of my reservation was annulled, so we had to book another hotel.  Since we had already printed out the reservation I thought that would be enough to get the visa, but Sounkalo said the embassy would call the hotel.  I wasn't sure about that, but accepted his experience in such matters.

We had the meal of rice and peanut sauce that Sounkalo had promised me when I alerted him that I was coming to Mali.  And it was as sublime as promised. It had been two days since I had had rice, as Bruce resists it.  It had been meat and potatoes for dinner with him and Kafoune.  It was like a dream hanging out with Sounkalo after having met him at Telluride last fall, especially since he wasn't certain he'd be able to return to the US and Telluride this summer.  His work has suffered considerably with tourism near dead in Mali due to the Issis presence in Timbucku and the northeast of the country. Lonely Planet and the US State Department highly recommend travelers staying away.  

It was eight miles back to the embassy.  Doing it on my own I had to stop several times to verify directions.  I stopped at every bank I passed to try to break five and ten thousand Franc notes.  It's hard to get change from shops for any note larger than a one thousand.  Not every bank would change money but I did change sixty dollars worth, almost enough for the next two weeks on my budget.

I greeted the embassy official with the happy news that I had a hotel reservation.  All seemed in order as he stapled my photos to the forms and checked off box after box and had me fill in a few empty blanks.  Then it was more sitting and waiting.  Three hours later I was told he had called the hotel and couldn't confirm my reservation.  And that was that.  I wasn't going to try to make another reservation and suffer the same fate.  I wasn't at all looking forward anyway to having to go through all this again for visas to Liberia and then Guinea and Sierra Leone and Guinea-Biseau and The Gambia, and trying to get back to Dakar in time for my flight.

I had a noteworthy ride to Bamako.  Now I'll head back the same way and then explore more of Senegal in the next month.

Nossombougoui, Mali

As I close in on Bamako and the completion of the first 850-mile leg of these travels, I am fully immersed into Africa. My survival routine has become second nature and what seemed hardships are now charming facts of life. My transition from the comfort zone of the home front for the comfort zone of the road has not been as seamless and smooth as when heading out into the good 'ol U S of A or venturing off to France, but life on the road essentially becomes the same wherever it may be.

I can now look at the above supply depot with anticipation and pleasure rather than chagrin at how meager it may be, knowing that the white chest refrigerator in the background will have something cold, or at least a little cool, to quench my thirst.  There is always the chance it will offer up a surprise, such as a bag of water that had been in a freezer and has a lump of ice within it--a gift from the gods.  It may not seem much, but it can make my day.

8

Likewise lifting the lid on a pot at a roadside cafe and discovering pasta rather than rice. I have experienced that pleasure just once in eleven days. And I took full advantage of it.  It was sixty cents to  fill my Tupperware bowl and then another forty cents for my smaller auxiliary container.  I was good for the rest of the day. That was a day I didn't have to worry about waking up hungry in the middle of the night.  I've just about figured out how much I need to eat, but it is still a concern.  

Even though I am on the main trucker route from Dakar to Bamako, the capitals of Senegal and Mali, the traffic has been negligible.  Rare is it for vehicles to pass beside me simultaneously from both directions.  The truckers tend to stick to mini-convoys of three or four.  When they pass from behind me, they propel me with a welcome surge of air.  The pedaling has been most pleasurable.  I have an instant smile on my face when I hit the road each morning knowing I have a full day on the bike ahead of me.  How lucky can I be.  The occssional truck bulging with passengers makes me all the happier to be on my bike.

The terrain continues to be dotted by the occssional baobab, as if overseeing its own fiefdom.

My sense of well-being biking along and being spared the nonsense of the daily Trump ruckus is heightening with the anticipation of meeting up with Bruce and Sounkalo, friends from the Telluride Film Festival.  Bruce has been a compatriot for years, but I just met Sounkalo.  Bruce has been visiting Mali for years, returning to his roots. He recruited Sounkalo to the festival this past year to work with him on the food lot.  He loved it and plans to be back this fall.    Bruce is in Kati, just north of Bamako, living with his wife.  I'll visit him first and then stay over with Sounkalo in Bamako while I acquire visas for the Ivory Coast and Liberia and see what the city has to offer.  Bruce has spoken in the past of doing some biking together.  Whether or not that happens, it will be a joy to share his company and gain a better understanding of Mali.

After heading east across Mali for over 200 miles I have turned south down to Bamako.  There have been a smattering of palm trees and bananas have turned up on the roadside tables after a several day absence. They are just what I need for a midnight snack.   Though I am within 100 miles of the capital, there has yet to be a hotel.  I would have been tempted last night for a shower, to be a little more presentable when I meet Bruce's wife.  It's been nearly a week since I've been able to do more than pour water over me when I've been lucky enough to find a gas station with a faucet or  a village pump that isn’t busy with a line of people filling jugs.  Nearly every pump I've come upon has been mobbed by women filling jugs.  Rarely am I am to stick more than a water bottle or two under the pump during a momentary lull before the next person can position their jug.

Diema, Mali

The deeper I penetrate into Mali and approach closer and closer to the fringe of the Sahara, rest stop amenities grow fewer and fewer.  When I open a refrigerater that fills a good portion of the space in front of the counter of the village grocery store looking to see what drinks are on offer, I am lucky to find more than a handful of half-liter plastic bags of water.  They are considerably cheaper than water in a bottle--ten cents for a bag compared to sixty cents for the smallest bottle.  In this land of have-littles, if someone wants clean water, they'll take it in a bag.  Motorists, who would opt for a bottle, speed past these dusty, forlorn outposts that are my supply depots.  Gas stations have become equally primitive, offering no drinks and rarely more than a small barrel of water from the village pump.

When I open a grocery store refrigerator, I'm always hoping to be surprised by a mango juice that had been my favorite treat or a calerie-laden flavored milk (chocolate, strawberry or banana) or a yogurt drink.  I have to be happy with simply some somewhat cool water that I can pour into my own water bottle.  Food too has become minimal.  Bananas and hard-boiled eggs are rarely to be found any more.  All I can count on is sardines and dough balls.  One village in five will have someone with a table and chairs and a pot of rice and a pot of some sauce to put over it.  Sometimes when I peek into a pot I'm disappointed to find it is full of utensils and the food is done for the day.

Hardly a soul stirs from their spot in the shade as I slowly pass through the villages straining to catch a glimpse of a large white refrigerator that indicates shop.  Even when I stop and walk past men sprawled in the shade, few have the energy to greet me. Most only speak their local language, which they know I wouldn't speak. It is so rare for a white to make an appearance in these villages the kids aren't accustomed to being given candy, so don't come running with their hands out as in Senegal.  I am such an unlikely site, people seem too perplexed to react.

The most responsive folk are my kindred spirits out in the countryside--young men sitting on a horse or in a donkey-drawn cart hauling a load of wood they have gathered.  The goat herders too give me a cordial “bonjour.”

It is well into the dry season and the air above is a brown haze from the dirt and sand blown up by the Saharan harmattan winds, though the air has been mostly still, making for easy pedaling.  The terrain was flat for 420 miles across Senegal and the first 100 miles of Mali before it climbed 700 feet up onto a plateau. The haze is a welcome sun filter sparing me from having to use sun glasses or sun block.  It's also a relief of filtering the sun sparing me of its full intensity.

The vegetation is thinning, letting the occssional baobab stand even more prominently above all else.  They cheer me on and answer the question how did I ever find myself in this unlikely of locales.  

When it comes time to camp, I have to pedal over the hard ground for several minutes to be distant enough from the road not to be seen. I awoke to my third flat tire one morning, another wire sliver puncture on my rear tire.  And I discovered I had two broken spokes.  One was on the freewheel side, which meant I had to find a vise or a hefty wrench.  I was fortunate to pass a bike mechanic on the outskirts of a town.  He didn't have a vise, but he did have a wrench and the strength to remove the freewheel after several attempts.  He used my remover and my spare spokes, as he had none.  He was a maestro giving each of my wheel's 48 spokes a pluck with his fingers to make sure of their tone and then made adjustments with a spoke wrench where needed.

Wifi continues to be an extreme challenge.  A booth providing telephone service in Kayes advertised wifi, but the operator couldn't find a password that would work.  After innumerable attempts he headed off with my iPad, saying he had to ask at an office around the corner.  I wasn't sure if that was the last I'd see of it.  He returned five minutes later with no success.  As I was leaving town, having given up on trying any further, I came upon a hotel/restaurant that advertised wifi.  No one I had asked knew of it.  

In over 150 miles since Kayes, I have passed just one hotel and it was closed.  There have been no restaurants catering to the motorists of some means who might be interested in wifi as there was one instance of in Senegal.  For several hundred miles in Senegal and Mali the road has followed a rail line no longer in use that used to connect Dakar to Bamako, another indication of a faltering, rather than growing economy.

The road remains paved but it has turned rough.  Broken down vehicles are frequent, some abandoned and others guarded by their drivers until help can arrive.

Kayes, Mali

And the baobabs keep coming into Mali, a pair even flanking the road not too far from the border as if providing an official welcome.  But like the customs office, there was nothing on them identifying them as anything official.  I ducked into four different official-looking offices along a two-mile stretch after I crossed into Mali before I found the right one, even going past it without being halted.  Just across the Falémé River dividing Senegal and Mali would have seemed the obvious place to have my passport stamped, but the uniformed officials in that office didn't provide such a service.  Kidira on the Senegal side and Diboli on the Mali side are sister cities that citizens can pass freely between, with no need of a passport check.  

They informed me a police checkpoint three or four kilometers down the road would process me.  I turned into a Douna/Customs office, but it was for people transporting goods.  A little ways down the road trucks were lined up in both directions.  I followed the cars and motorcyclists bypassing them on a dirt road that flanked the main road that they blocked.  At last, a mile further I came to an arch over the road with offices to one side and another set in the middle of the road like a toll both.  And that is what it was, a toll both.  I had missed passport control.  It was back where all the trucks were backed up.  I only recognized it when I returned by a uniformed guy sitting on the porch in front of it, as there were no signs whatsoever.

I was a little nervous about being let in,  not because I was so grubby, caked with red dirt thrown up along the road that had deteriorated badly the last one hundred miles, but because my three-month visa had a start date of February 3, when I estimated I'd reach the border.  I had made good time, and it wasn't as far as I thought, so I was three days early.  It was early in the afternoon.  I had contemplated finding a hotel and make my attempt the next morning on the first of February, hoping the customs official wouldn't look so close at the date.  But I hadn't seen a hotel to tempt me in Kidira, nor did Kidira have enough allure to make me search for one, so I took my chances that they'd let me in.  Not only was I let in, but I wasn't asked for my Yellow Fever certificate.  That didn't make me regret getting it though, as I have several other countries ahead that are said to require it.

Just as the final 45 mile stretch of Senegal to the border had been in a sparsely settled region with just a couple of villages of no significance, so were the first 55 miles in Mali to Kayes. I might not be able to come by food or water, but I knew I would have an optimum campsite my first night in Mali and with a good chance of cozying up to a baobab.  I was a little concerned when I suffered my second flat of the trip half an half before dark.  It was on the outskirts of a small village, so I couldn't camp there.  Luckily, it wasn't a sidewall rupture, as I feared after the last 100 miles in Senegal on a badly pot-holed road.  Like the other flat it was from a sliver of wire, fragments of blown truck tires.  I made fast work of it and was able to get another three miles down the road, putting me within 29 miles of Kayes, which could be my next opportunity for water.  

There were baobabs scattered here and there, but the vegetation otherwise wasn't thick enough to camp anywhe near the road.  I was able to bike nearly a third of a mile on the hard dirt to a distant baobab with a particularly ornate network of arms.  Once again I had a night of rich and strange dreams.  The most bizarre found me sharing a hotel room with Stephen Spielberg and Sally Field at a film festival that was short on accommodations.  It had only one bed.  Spielberg slept in the middle.  When he awoke in the morning he lit up a cigarette while still in bed.  It couldn't have been at Cannes, because when Spielberg served as the jury president a few years ago, he slept in his private yacht.

I didn't have to worry much about exhausting my water supply this night, as I was able to add two half liter bags of water to my reserves shortly before my flat when I stopped at what I hoped was a shop.  The shack was actually a police outpost. They gave me the water and waved a hand when I reached into my pocket for some coins.  I hadn't been in great need of water as five of my seven bottles were full, but with the ovenish afternoon temperatures I never know how much I'm going to need to drink at night.  The temperature generally falls below 70 while I sleep and doesn't start heating up until 10:30, allowing me several hours of luxurious morning cycling.  After that, I've got to keep drinking as much as I can.

I had no immediate sense comparingo Diboli to Kidira how Mali might differ from Senegal. The food stands weren't any more plentiful, though my first batch of fritters were larger and softer and greaser than any I had had in Senegal.  The road surface was an improvement, at least initially.  The kilometer posts were spaced five kilometers apart, rather than coming every kilometer.  The road had been perfectly fine through most of Senegal. It had been clear sailing the first three hundred miles from Dakar, but after Tambacounda on the lightly-traveled final leg to Mali the road had turned into an obstacle course of potholes and washboard and broken down vehicles.  The road was blocked at one point by a huge truck that had gone off the road as another huge truck tried to pull it out.

I was able to get around it and had my half of the road to myself for a couple of hours.  Amongst those blocked were a trio of French men, businessmen driving a rental car back to Dakar, the first whites I had encountered since Dakar.  They knew Africa enough not to be impatient.  They asked if I were English. They were delighted to learn I was American, with the one nearest me giving me a hearty pat on the back.  

Most of those marooned took shelter under the sparse vegetation.

I was generally able to weave around the potholes.  In many places where they were prolonged motorists left the road and had created an adjoining dirt byway.  As they sped through they stirred up clouds of red dirt.  My eyebrows had turned red and my hair was tinged as if I had had a bad dye job.

The temperature may be close to ninety, but it is so arid, I'm not caked in sweat, so the dirt didn't have a strong adhesive to cling to as it might have.  But my eyes are shedding clots of mud.  When I had a chance to wash my shirt, the first four rinsings were solid black.

The final meal I loaded into my Tupperware bowl in Senegal was what I had been looking for since I arrived--a bowl of rice with peanut sauce, a dish two of my friends I'll be visiting had told me to be sure to try.  There just hadn't been any in the two or three pots at the small restaurants I had come upon until Kidira.  It was good enough that if my entry into Mali had been delayed, I wouldn't have minded, so I could go back for more.

Tambacounda, Senegal

I was awarded my much longed for campsite last night under a baobab when one presented itself just over a rise near dark as I was looking for a place to disappear to.  It wasn't too distant from the road, but it's hulk and low-lying brush provided more than enough camouflage.  And no surprise, I had the best sleep of these travels, accompanied by the first dreams I have been cognizant of.  None were of significance, I don't think, but I will see how prophetic they might be. If I have another chance at a baobab sleep, I will be fully attentive to what it injects into my subconscious.

My guardian for the night also had a therapeutic effect on my leg cramps. The night before I was besieged by a series of cramps such as I have never experienced before in both legs and in multiple places--ankles, calves and thighs, sometimes two at the same time.  Some were genuinely excruciating going on for minutes.  I am prone to them the first couple days of a tour, but these didn't come until day three despite my efforts to drink and drink and drink.   It was a relief to be cramp-free under the baobab.  I had a near-full moon to stare up at through the eerie limbs of my companion for the night. Glancing at its thick rugged bark/hide I imagied I was sidled up against a pachyderm, it's counterpart in the animal kingdom.  No sunrise has been more magnifcent than with my baobab for the night stretching out his arms to greet it.

The baobabs remain the highlight of my ride across the flat, arid interior of Senegal.  They don't come any more frequently than do the small towns and villages, making them all the more special.  The way is dotted every ten miles or so with small villages of walled compounds of mud huts with thatched roofs and slightly smaller towns of bareboned box-like concrete homes and businesses.  I know I'm coming to a town when the litter along the road thickens to a virtual carpet.

The litter isn't so flagrant beyond the towns, but approaching them and through them it is a genuine eyesore, just as it was in Dakar. 

The most striking litter out along the road is the carcasses of abandoned cars and trucks.

But I have the baobabs to sustain me.

I am still figuring out my diet.  I can't count on grocery stores, as they are nothing more than a few shelves of little suitable for my purposes in a town's one room general store with everything behind the counter.  I thought I would be able to stock up on food when I came upon a couple of French grocery chain stores in Dakar.  They were both clones of their counterparts back in France, stocked with the identical items one would see there, even the yogurt, but at outrageously inflated prices, everything having been imported.  A yogurt drink that sustains me in France cost ten dollars.  A bottle of mint syrup had a price tag of twenty-five dollars.  A can of cassoulet was priced at fifteen dollars.  In France I was accustomed to not paying more than a dollar for any of them.  It is a testament to the French love for their food that those residing in Senegal are willing to pay such exorbitant prices.  But I have to admit, after a few days of food deprivation, those prices didn't seem so unreasonable.  Plenty of people do indulge to sustain not one but several such large supermarkets.

I went in to two of them looking for couscous, but they can be purchased so moderately elsewhere that couscous weren't imported or stocked.  I was able to buy a kilo bag from a small town store that the proprietor had to stand on a chair to reach high above him.  That has been my dinner so far with hard boiled eggs or sardines. When I slowly bike through the small towns I scan the tables of the women along the road looking for eggs and fritters and other enticing food.  More often than not the eggs haven't been cooked.  It is so rare to come upon hard-boiled eggs, when I come upon any I will grab four of them no matter the time of day.

I am also on alert for covered pots that could contain some sort of stew.  There have been no noodles as in Madagascar or rice as elsewhere.  Mostly it's been some bean concoction.  I am happy with that.  I hand over my tupperware bowl and 500 francs, never knowing how much I’ll get.  Sometimes that will fill it and sometimes not. Sometimes I will receive change and sometimes not.   On occasion the woman will give my bowl a rinse, which I would prefer her not to, not knowing the cleanliness of the water, but they can be very quick about it.  I'll sit and eat some and then head down the road.  Sometimes I’m asked if I'd like bread with it, a baguette of a sort, which I gladly accept.

Once as I walked to my bike having only eaten half of what a woman had put in my bowl, saving the rest for later, she chased after me in a highly agitated state. If she hadn't given me change I would have thought she wanted more money.  She was close to livid as she jabbered away in a French I couldn't decipher.  A couple of men came over to see what the commotion was all about.  I had no idea what offense I might have committed. I kept saying, "Je ne comprehend pas," hoping some English speaker might materialize.  Neither of the men interceded, but neither looked very friendly.  I couldn't imagine what trouble I was in.  At last I opened up the Tupperware bowl to show that I hadn't pilfered a spoon or any other food, but that wasn't the issue.  She pointed at her stomach and said  "midi" (noon).  I finally understood that she was warning me I had to eat the food by noon, otherwise it would go bad in the heat and I'd get sick.  With that we could smile and everyone was happy.

As I have penetrated deeper into the country and the traffic has diminished to a trickle, the gas stations that had been mini-oases for me offering cold bottled water, sometimes with an ice cube frozen in it, and chocolate milk, have become less frequent and not always stocked with drink.  It can be a challenge finding a store with water.  The price had been 350 francs for a liter-and-a-half, but has risen to 500 francs in the hinterlands.  I've been buying three bottles a day, a little more than a gallon.  My water purifier turned testy the day I left Dakar, so I have been saving it for emergencies. I'd probably be foregoing it anyway for the pleasure of cold water.  When I handed a small shop owner a 500 franc coin for a bottle, thinking I might possibly receive change, he pointed at the other coins in my hand, preferring five 100 franc coins to make it easier for him to make change for other customers and also he said to lighten my load.  

It's a good thing I don't need to check the Internet every day, as its not a fact of life in these parts.  In the 300 miles I have cycled these past four days from Dakar I have seen only two signs advertising WIFI.   I spent nearly an hour in the decent-sized city of Kaffrine two days ago hunting WIFI.  I stopped at a pharmacy and a camera shop and a telephone shop and a couple of hotels without any success.  They all said I could find WIFI just down the road.  When I asked pedestrians along the road, the majority were utterly baffled, having no idea what I was inquiring about.  After I had passed through the town, a young man at a gas station told me to go back to the gas station at the roundabout in the center of the town and ask there.  That did no good.  I tried the police station and they sent me to a hotel back near the gas station on the outskirts of town.  It's sign didn't mention WIFI, but they did have it and a better signal than any I found in Dakar. 

I'm now just one hundred miles from Mali.  I'm hoping the street food there will be more abundant and varied, or that there might be restaurants.  Even in Dakar, restaurants weren't so common.  At least I don't have to worry about changing money as it, along with six other countries, all use the same currency as Senegal.

Kaffrine, Senegal

I was so focused on the road and attentive to the traffic on my ride into Dakar from the airport I didn't even notice that there were baobabs here and there along the way, some lone sentinels and others in clusters.  It is a wonder that not a one of these towering divinities attracted my attention, either their grand presence or the power emanating from them.  If Janina had been along she would have excitedly been pointing them out.  She is always amazing me by the items she spots that I miss as we are bicycling along. She has the artist's eye sensitive to her surroundings, while I tend to concentrate on the task at hand.

Noticing the baobabs made the long thirty-nine ride out of Dakar on the road I had come in on two days previously a little less painful.  Not only was I perplexed by having overlooked the baobobs on the ride in, I was further perplexed that the airport had been situated so far out of the city.  There had been plenty of open space half the distance that could have accommodated the complex.  There had no doubt been some favoritism to cronies or big payoffs to have put it so far away.  With no public transportation, the taxi lobby must have been thrilled by the huge fares they could charge.  At least there was a tollway for them to zip into the city.

I continued sixteen miles past the airport continuing south just inland from the Atlantic, which was beyond site,  before I turned inland out of a headwind for my nine hundred mile trek east to Bamako, the capital of Mali.  The traffic only diminished slightly.  The road remained two lanes wide, but with a less smooth shoulder that dropped down from the highway, making the riding a little more out than it had been. Long, overloaded trucks forced me off the road every so often when there was oncoming traffic and not room enough to give me some extra space.  For the first time ever I was wishing I had a mirror, though at least the trucks generally gave me a friendly warning.

This continued for over fifty miles until the road intersected with the city of Koalack and the road south to Gambia.  The traffic thinned considerably with the majority of the truckers heading south rather than east to Mali.  The cycling at last turned peaceable and I could cast more than a quick, furtive eye upon the occasional baobab, mostly solitary figures.  They were the lone object  to truly enforce my pleasure in being here.  I couldn’t help but be thrilled to be off riding my biking in this unlikely, distant land, but it was the baobabs that gave some relief from the tension of these trying circumstances and injected some pleasure into the riding. 

None is the same with limbs wildly jutting in every direction. It is difficult to pass by any without a momentary pause to genuflect and take a photo.They all have distinct personalities and characteristics.  If I were seeking answers, that is the tree I would sit under.  One can only wonder how much more profound and perceptive If the Mahatma had sat under a baobab, one can only wonder at the version of Buddhism he would have perceived.  Would it have been as gently profound or would it have had more vigor and intensity.   What would it have made of  the chaos and perplexity of every-day-life.  Or would it have depended on the tree—whether he had been in the embrace of a warm and tranquil configuration or of a semi-deranged version.  Some are frightening and some are peaceable.

I was hoping I could camp under one, but they weren't frequent enough for there to be one when it was time to camp.  My first night I opted for an auberge when one turned up in a small dirt road town half an hour before dark when I wasn't confident enough to find a secluded spot down the road.  The habitations hadn't been far apart and in the gaps the vegetation was just scattered trees and not many bushes.  I was eager to camp, and would have relied on the cover of dark if need be, but was happy with the security of an inn.  I stopped at the town's city hall when I noticed the door open to enquire if there was a hotel in the town, hoping that if there wasn't they might invite me pitch my tent in their walled-in compound as happened to me in the Philippines. 

But surprisingly the town had an inn, though it didn't look like it got much business.  It wasn't even identified as an auberge, rather a welcome center.  The best part of the place was the baobab tree on its sign.  

There were two small buildings with four or five rooms in each.  Based on the lack of tracks in the sandy dirt leading to them, it didn't look like they had been used in a while. There were no sheets on the bed nor running water in the bathroom, just a five-gallon jug for bathing and flushing the toilet.  I’ve had plenty of experience with such accommodations, so didn't flinch.  Once in Kenya when I was showed what I was in for the proprietor was surprised I accepted.  He said no Kenyan who had been to America would accept such primitive accommodations.  

When I turned in, I could feel mosquitoes nibbling on my legs, so I got to sleep in my tent after all.  I would have set it up outside to begin with in the walled-in compound, but the proprietor had been insistent about no camping when I asked if I could use my tent.  It was late enough when the mosquitoes forced me in to my tent, I was tempted to set it up outside, but opted for the concrete floor.  It wasn't the best night of sleep, what with the hard floor and the temperature never dropping below 80 in my cell.

That wasn’t much cooler than the day-time temps.  It has been hot, but not sweltering, largely thanks to a brown haze from the stirred-up dirt and sand that blunts the sun.  My legs and arms are just a slight pink from what sun does penetrate.  No need for sun block.  

A cold drink was a rarity.  Not many of the small towns have cafes or even small stores offering cold drinks.  I've been relying on gas stations.  Most advertise a boutique with snacks and drinks.  The gas stations also are kid-free.  If I stop at a village store and sit and drink little kids gather around me asking for candy.  My friend DL, who has been teaching at a university in Liberia the past five years and is on my itinerary, recommended I carry a bag of candy for such situations.  I can't bring myself to encourage such behaviour.  Whoever started this practice should be banned from traveling and enshrined in the Traveler's Hall of Shame.  The candy refrain is relentless.  Kids come running as I bike by hoping for a handout.

At gas stations I am generally approached by those working at them, who couldn't be nicer.  A mechanic said he grew up loving America due to hip-hop and rap.  It was his dream to visit America. But he doubted he ever would.  I said I had long dreamed of visiting Senegal.  Since he was much younger than me, he still had plenty of time.  That made him smile. He, like everyone, is astounded I'm biking to Mali.  It is beyond their comprehension.  No one conceives of the bicycle having such a use.  "You could take a bus," they say.  I tell them that the bus goes too fast, preventing one from fully appreciating the countryside, especially the baobabs.  

As my second day on the road drew to a close I had the dilemma of pushing on to just before dark to reach a large city where I could have another night in a hotel or to camp in the slightly more unsettled countryside.  A shower and wifi would be nice, but I didn't want another night confined to a sweltering room.  When I came to a gas station an hour before dark that had an outdoor faucet that I could duck my head under and wipe off a layer of grime, I took that as a sign from the Gods that I ought to camp.  It was the first such faucet I had come upon. Most gas stations didn't even have running water in their toilets, just a bucket of water for the toilet.  So that faucet was a true gift.  

I waited until I reached 80 miles for the day to start looking for a place to camp, though I passed up some possible sites.  The closer to dark I am, the better.  I still noticed shepherds with goats and others leaving the brush, walking home along the road.  One never knows who might still be in the fields up to dark.  Just after 80 miles a high row of bushes appeared along the road.  I got behind them when there was a lull in the traffic and pushed a little further beyond the road behind some more bushes.  There was no baobab in the vicinity, but I was content with this secluded nook.