Thanksgiving weekend trip

We took a road trip over Thanksgiving weekend.  Our first stop was Ségou, about 4 hours from Bamakao, where we spent the night at the Espace Bajidala Guesthouse.  Ségou is a nice little town on the Niger.  They host one of Mali's best music festivals every February and we're going to return for that.

Segou Waterfront

Rebecca at a Bogolon cloth workshop.  Ségou is famous for its Bogolon cloth.

 Sunset along the Niger on the outskirts of Ségou.

Our next stop was Djenné where we stayed two nights at a beautiful guesthouse on the river.  To say Djenné is magical is not much of a stretch.  It is an island city in what is called the Niger River's inland delta.  Djenné is famous for its mud architecture and especially its mud mosque.  We had a fun tour of the city with our guide Sory.  We also made time for our driver, Mr Mustafa Traore, to pray at the mosque which he had never seen before.  He seemed to really appreciate this.

 

Walking through Djenné

A women's collective celebrating a completed round of fundraising with dancing.

Our guide Sory explaining to Hans and Rebecca the significance of the ancient tomb to the right.

The mosque pictured from a nearby rooftop.

The next day we got up with the sun in order to make the 3 hour drive to Diafarabé for the annual Traversée Des Animaux.  Our drive through Mali's "inland delta" on dirt roads and paths through the brush was fascinating and beautiful.  We arrived in Diafarabé just in time.  Here's a video of some of what we saw.  This went on for about 2 hours.



The whole town was at this and the celebration afterwards -- the streets were deserted.  Everyone in Diafarabé was very friendly, especially the children.

Rebecca walking with some children and our driver.

 We hit the tree on the right but escaped with just some body damage.

 

Rebecca with Chadal, who owns the inn behind them.  The river is just off to the left side.  Our room was the entire top floor and balcony.

 

The sort of crazy male monkey at the inn.

The much sweeter female monkey at the inn.

 A fairly typical village for the region.  Note the mosque in the middle left.  Also, the two outhouse-sized structures near the foreground are granaries.  All the villages had many of these structures, which are raised about a foot off the ground to keep out rodents.

 We stopped for a couple hours to have our car repaired and this Sotrama came in.  You can see many unhappy sheep on top towards the front and unhappy chickens on the top towards the back.  It is fairly common to see sotramas loaded this high or higher with all sorts of items.

We had to make a roadside stop to change a tire and this friendly group of farmers appeared to watch the excitement.  Communication was difficult since Bambara is their first language and like many Malians, their French was worse then mine.  Also like many Malians they didn't smile for the photo until they looked at themselves on the back of the camera.  Then they grinned from ear to ear.  We gave them a bunch of random food items we had in the car and they seemed to appreciate it.