By now it turned not only into a habit, but even routine for Annette to sleep in and go on into the day without a breakfast, whereas I liked to wake up into still relatively fresh African mornings and eat in the shadows of hotel gardens. The „Tamana“ hotel garden was probably the most pleasant of all we’d been in so far and I enjoyed myself indeed. After breakfast, I would keep on sitting at the table with the „Lonely Planet“, planning in general terms our day, writing the diary and reading my book. All that until she got ready to kick things off. Morning in the „Tamana“ hotel garden felt no warmer than, or as pleasant as, late spring or early summer at the Mediterranean.
However, no matter how much you try to be left alone, you usually don’t stand a serious chance as a white man in Africa. So even while I was in the garden, I was at one point approached by two well-dressed locals who expectedly asked me ubiquitous questions of where I was from, where I was headed and so on. I told them that I had arrived from Burkina Faso and was now on my way to Mopti and Dogon country, and Timbuktu, before heading back to Burkina Faso again.
„We have a tourist agency,“ one of them said. I politely nodded, but it hardly moved me as guys like me, i.e. independent travellers, use assistance of travel agents only in exceptional cases. Most of us prefer to organise things on our own.
„Are you going to the Essakane festival?“ the other one asked. Now, quite honestly, I had no idea what the Essakane festival was, in the first place. So how could I know if I was going there? In fact, as I did not know, the likely bet was that I was not going there. How can you go somewhere if you don’t know it even exists, to begin with? But I wouldn’t appear an uninformed twit, so I sought to come up rather vague with my answer:
„I don’t know yet. It’ll depend on how much time I’ll have. I may not have enough time for everything.“
Well, the guys took it in stride and gave me an „offer“ just the same, together with price and all, in case I did decide to go to the festival after all. Their offer easily went up into the range of hundred and fifty thousand CFA francs or so. So on the face of it, it was going to be something destined to end up in the nearest garbage bin. But I took their paper as a reference anyway. You could never know. Besides, I came away smarter after our chat. I learned that whatever that festival was, it was taking place in two weeks. Therefore there was no rush and I had a luxury of not having to commit myself either way yet. I just said I „would call“ if I decided to go.
Just around the time when the two guys were about to take their leave, Annette appeared in the garden. Suspicious of strangers, almost as in the line of duty, she wanted to know who they were. I told her they were offering me a package for some kind of festival.
„Would you go?“
„No idea,“ I said. „Probably not.“
My answer seemed to satisfy her.
In fact, she was ready to go. Dressed to the nines, make-up all in place, it was now just up to me as to when we would leave the hotel and go out into town. And I saw no need to waste any time. I just replaced my slippers with hiking boots and that was it.
She wanted to buy some presents for the members of her family. I suggested we also look for an Internet café and an ATM. So those things lumped together would be our general plan for the first part of the day.
When we left the hotel garden, I must admit I was a bit leery of whether we would see David outside. And if so, what it would be like. I wouldn’t show that to Annette, but there were days when I was leaving my hotels more carefree. But David was not there. Neither was he anywhere around the Rue de Bla Bla. If anyone had any regrets about that, it definitely wasn’t me.
The nearest thoroughfare, a four-lane drag just a few minutes away on foot from „Tamana“ hotel is Route de Koulikoro, or Avenue Al Qoods by its official name. „Tamana“ hotel was a bit off the town centre, but there on Route de Koulikoro we had everything we needed - banks, restaurants and supermarkets. At first sight, perhaps precisely because of the Route de Koulikoro, Bamako looked more of a capital to me than Ouagadougou ever had.
Annette was not much of a walker. In a way, I could certainly understand her. The climate of sub-Saharan West Africa isn’t the first thing that comes to your mind if you try to picture an ideal setting to stretch your legs. But I believe she wouldn’t be an avid walker in Northern Europe, either. So when we decided where we would go first, we flagged down a taxi. In Africa it’s never difficult, and in congested and buzzing places like Bamako, taxis are prowling practically every street in numbers.
We decided to first check Marché de Medina, or Medina Market. If I had been there on my own, in spite of the high temperature, I would have certainly hoofed it up to the place. True, Bamako is a sprawling city and what looks close on a „Lonely Planet“ downtown map, may not be that close down on the ground. But I would have done it anyway. At least in one direction. After all, in places like West Africa every walk is a potential gold mine of excellent street scenes, as if tailor-made for taking pictures. But I didn’t have the heart to push Annette to it, all the more so as she chose some high heels for her first encounter with Malian capital.
People who drew up western sources on Bamako obviously didn’t speak Bambara language much. At least not all of them. Because some claim that the name the Malian capital carries translates from Bambara as „crocodile river“. The others say it’s rather „the back of a crocodile“. Well, at least they agree on the crocodile. As for the rest, maybe one day I was going to check it with some Bambara native. And until then, I would put the issue to rest.
As I suspected, based on the „Lonely Planet“ map, Medina Market wasn’t that far, indeed. Taxi dropped us off very soon in front of what looked like an entrance into a sprawling shanty-town and indicated that it was it. I paid and followed Annette, and we dove into a maze of narrow unpaved passages, often littered to the point of seeming repulsive, sometimes with muddy water puddles which in the deep shadows you had to carefully go around. There was hardly a stable structure in this labyrinth and I had a feeling it was all about only makeshift wood-and-corrugated-metal shelters where locals arbitrarily sozzled whatever they thought would have a chance to sell into confused clutters. Where there was metal, there was rust, too, and where there was wood, there was disrepair. And it was in such a setting that Annette was looking for presents for some members of her large family. I didn’t meddle into her business much. I had no idea what she was after, anyway, so I concentrated on looking around and looking for things to take pictures of, even if in the deep shadow I wasn’t sure how good they would come out.
They sold mostly clothes here, with an emphasis on what looked like a fashion trend for men in West Africa – assorted football jerseys, mostly of European clubs regularly televised in live coverage of popular international club competitions. But of course, there was also an ample offer of multi-coloured fabric for traditional African women’s attire. And for the good measure, all sorts of universal clothing stuff.
Of course, if you were dying to buy yourself a ball, plastic or leather, or couldn’t go on into your day without a plastic bucket, or if a pair of knock-off sneakers was the thought you had been unable to shake off ever since you’d opened your eyes in the morning, you could find them all here at Medina Market. I am sure that, given time and incentive, I would have found other things, as well. But Annette found a thing or two to her liking pretty soon and then decided that as far as she was concerned, Medina Market had fulfilled its purpose and we could leave.
Back out in the scorching sun, and on the paved street, I was nevertheless inclined to explore the area on foot in search of an Internet café. It’s been some time since I’d last sent a word home, so I thought I might inform my folks that I had safely and in one piece arrived in Bamako. Annette was herself all for the Internet bit. But not for the on-foot bit. Again, I wouldn’t force things upon her, so we took another taxi and practically just around the corner found ourselves a small and empty Internet café. Or cyber, as they call it here.
A young lady was literally dozing with her head on her arms stretched across the table by the door, and I had a feeling we had startled her. But then again, we were also a bit of diversion for her, as she was immediately showing a visible interest in us, so on balance I hoped she wasn’t feeling too shorted by our appearance.
I was soon done. Two or three short messages, and that was it for me. Annette took longer, but I assured her that she could take her time and I would be just fine inspecting the immediate neighbourhood from the entrance door. Which was no lie at all. Next to some other spots in town, this would be a dead side street. Except that even as such it offered a healthy array of locals going about their business for me to stay entertained.
And then it was another taxi and we were back on the Route de Koulikoro.
By degrees, Annette was getting hungry and I thought I might join her. So we picked a patisserie called „Le Relax“, took one of the tables on the terrace there and ordered ourselves up something from the menu. It was obvious we could not be credited with the discovery of this spot. Vast majority of the guests were white people and apart from an odd exception like Annette, locals constituted only the staff.
I asked Annette to stay put for a few minutes. Not far from there, in the same row of buildings along the Route de Koulikoro there were one or two banks and I thought that this was a good opportunity to draw some cash from one of the ATMs. We were going to wait for our meals anyway, so why not put the waiting time to some good use? She had no problem with that and I went out.
The bank was really near, the ATM in order and in no time I was to be on my way back to „Le Relax“, when suddenly I was witness to one of the most bizarre scenes on my trip and it stopped me right in my tracks. From the side street to my right, from the direction Annette and I had earlier gone to when we had been in search of Medina Market, I first heard shouts and – pounding of hooves? The curiosity got the better of me and I simply had to have a peek. So I turned around the corner and there was a thing to see.
Coming my way, soon to reach the intersection, there was this huge herd of cattle, several hundred longhorns for sure, led by one of the darkest guys I’d seen as of yet, even by local standards, wrapped up as if European winter had just paid an unannounced visit to these parts, with a turban on his head and long, lean wooden stick in his right hand.
The scene was absolutely fantastic. For a moment I was as if transfixed. Every other form of traffic moved aside and made way for this tide of animals. Cars pulled over by the wayside, pedestrians jumped out of the way, motorcycle riders stopped and waited. There was absolutely no doubt as to who was here to give way. The herder with his longhorns was the king of the road.
As a matter of fact, just across the Route de Koulikoro there was some kind of what might’ve been an animal market. Goats, sheep, geese and chicken, they were all a feature there, so in that sense the cattle belonged to the setting just fine. Also, I’d heard that Bamako was in an area still heavily dependent on agriculture, so allegedly cattle crossing the streets of the city was not such an uncommon sight. But when I heard that, I thought they meant a few cows every now and then. Probably fewer than in India. What I witnessed, though, was a herd that would easily put to shame a less ambitious western movie. I’ve seen oaters with hardly any more animals than this turbaned herder was driving to the animal market located along the Route de Koulikoro.
They came to the street intersection. Traffic lights went through several turns of red and green, and the longhorns were still crossing the street. The vehicle traffic came to a complete standstill with an ever increasing queue in both directions on all four lanes. But interestingly enough, there seem to be no frustration, no nervousness, no honking from the cars. People waited with remarkable patience as if it was the presidential motorcade that was blocking their way. It took several long minutes until the Route de Koulikoro was free for motor traffic again.
We took our time at lunch. And then, as Annette felt pretty exhausted by the intense Malian heat, we decided to slowly head back to our hotel. We had a leisurely stroll there, stopping by along the way in a well-stocked and clean supermarket, watching an open-air street furniture shop across the road, fending off some persistent begging children with tin cans, and in general watching people pass us by in all directions. I enjoyed the walk and ended up with some more pictures.
Back in the hotel, I first noticed a piece of paper advertising yet another travel agency offering foreign tourists a package tour to the Essakane festival. I guess it was only then that I started realising this thing could be more important than I had originally thought. But it was still early days for any decisions.
Annette was leaning towards an afternoon in the hotel garden. She didn’t seem too excited about the prospect of going out again. At least not so soon. So we spent it just as she suggested. We chatted and played again some games. Dice were favouring her over me once more and it made her very happy again. In that sense, I didn’t mind much losing to her, either. So everyone was happy.
When the sun went down, she decided she was hungry and we thought that „Le Relax“ was the best choice again. So we walked back there, this time in a very pleasant evening. And to be honest, I was still half expecting David to pop up out of the shadow, but he didn’t make me a single bit disappointed when he didn’t show up.
What made us both a bit sad, though, was the fact that she rang her father up and he informed her that „they“ had told him she should return to Ougadougou by January 2, and this time it seemed to be final. She claimed her father would be „happy“ if she could stay on, but according to her words he simply had no choice. „They“ had said she should be back and „they“ were not to be trifled with.
Having that thing now for a fact, we decided to modify our plans a bit further. Judging by what I’d read about Malian roads, traffic conditions, buses and so on, I realised that it might not be that easy for her to return to Ouagadougou so smoothly from some place like Mopti or other. Particularly if bound by a deadline. It looked as if her best bet to return home hassle-free might well be to stay on in Bamako and then simply catch one of those buses that link Malian and Burkinabe capitals. Everything else smelled of being suspiciously unreliable. If we went on with this new modification of our schedule, it would also mean I would have to forgo something of what I had originally planned to see in Mali. I would be able to see everything I’d wanted to see only in case we went on, two days ahead from now at the latest. Weighing it all against each other, I decided I wouldn’t want to be responsible for anything going wrong with her in case she would miss her deadline. I didn’t give a toss, really, about „them“, but she and her father took them extremely seriously and I didn’t want to be in the way of their beliefs. So with a bit of a heavy heart, I decided I would sacrifice something of my original trip plan. What exactly, it would remain to be seen. I didn’t know myself yet. However, a sacrifice I would make.
But at least I was going to put her on her bus back home on time.
So it was some logical thinking and cold facts that contributed to yet another decision to stay on in Bamako. She was fine with whatever I decided for as long as she could be home as her father demanded.
