For better or for worse, everything eventually comes to its close and so, good six hours after we had left Ségou, our bus ride finally ended. Well, in fact, we didn’t arrive in Mopti, but rather in Sévaré instead, a town some ten or twelve kilometres to the southeast. But I had been familiar with the fact that for some time now most of the bus traffic to and from Mopti in reality went through Sévaré and not Mopti itself any more. For some reason they had decided to move the transport hub here and therefore, even if Mopti still was – and would remain - the place where you arranged every possible excursion worth undertaking in Mali, Sévaré too profited from tourism. So this came as no surprise to me. In short, this bus ride was one of the things for which, when it had ended, I could safely say it was for the better. In every conceivable sense.
The French guys and I waved each other good-bye and I went off in search of a taxi to get me to Mopti. Of course, local cabbies are all too happy when they see someone like me, so expectedly, they started elbowing each other for the right to bag me, as it were. As a customer, of course.
„Taxi?“ one of them asked.
„Yes,“ I said. „To Mopti.“
„Six thousand,“ he said.
I frowned. I had paid only seven and a half for the entire bus ride from Ségou to Sévaré and he was now demanding six. I was ready to call it a rip-off.
„I’ll look around a bit more,“ I said.
„Be careful,“ he warned me. „Other people are not good“
I must have grinned:
„Really? And you are?“
Well, I guess he too knew his attempt to prevent me from seeking out somebody else was a bunk. Not knowing what else to say, he just let me go. And I simply asked another driver how much he would ask.
He said five.
I had a strong feeling that it too had to be a rip-off and way overpriced. But after more than six hours in the bus, and out of those less than one in a proper seat, I was too tired to take a run now at something that I’d never been good at anyway – haggling. So I just nodded and clinched a deal.
Finally, it was off to Mopti.
