younginternationalism

I have just returned from me mid-mandate break where I spent considerable time of rooftops, drinking beside a donkey and running away from vendors, beggars, touts and aggressive children in historic Djenné and its alentours. My travel comrades and I headed to Pays Dogon with our guide that we happily picked up in Djenné, thinking that if we'd gone to Mopti to seek a guide as we originally planned, we'd feel like Rick Grimes when he rode into Atlanta.

As a Canadian Rockies addict, I was mostly excited to go to Dogon Country for the hiking, but also to see this "world apart" that the Lonely Planet described. I was a little sceptical that Dogon culture could really be as unspoiled as guidebooks and tourist websites would have you believe. However, considering it is more or less advertised as the biggest attraction in Mali, we didn't really come across that many other tourists.

As for the world apart aspect, I found it to be close to true, but tourism's and Mali's cosmopolitanism's encroachments were evident. The villages with their thatched-roofed granaries resemble a lot of other ones that I've seen during my slew of ill-fated road trips, but the rhythmic in unison greetings and indigo tinted clothing of their inhabitants and the fact that they cling to a cliff did set them apart. Nevertheless, the price gouging, offers to view a masked dance ceremony for an exorbitant fee, and strategically placed wares reminded us that we were very much still on the tourist track.

The best part about the villages was the dolo (millet beer) that you drink out of a hollowed out calebasse and sleeping on rooftop campements under the stars. There is no electricity in the villages which means there is no light pollution. The term "blanket of stars" applies here, I have never seen anything like it. As for the trekking, it was not technical, but definitely a bit hair-raising at times and the views from the top of the cliff were exhilarating. While looking out on the Sahel plateau from the top of the Falaise, it seemed as though the earth went on forever. Our guide told us that at night you could even see the glow of electricity from Burkina Faso from up there. For me, watching the sunset behind the cliff and the sunrise the next morning over the plateau was one of those sights that are so breathtaking and awesome that no words or pictures could do them justice.

Selecting which pictures to post from my Pays Dogon excursion was a Sisyphean task, and at any rate, the pictures cannot begin to capture the experience, but I'll try.