Mali Mali 8 – Cabin Fever

7 January 2009
10.03a.m.
Somewhere on the Niger River…

The last few days have involved rather early starts – we set off from Sevare for the port of Mopti (no time to find Baba the kora player again – maybe I’ll run into him at Essakane) where we loaded the pinasse – a large motorised canoe – for the three day journey to Tombouctou.  We were all a little excited about this change of pace, and after we finally found Fay’s luggage buried near Trevor, we set off down the Niger river.  If we hadn’t yet switched in tune with the relaxed pace of Mali time, now it was forced upon us.  The pinasse travelled no faster than it could, and once the novelty of bird-watching and sitting atop the canopy wore off, we were all firmly entrenched in novels, journals, quizzes and card games.

However, some of the passengers seem a little out of tune with the realities of living on a boat for three days.  Whilst not a squeeze, it is not completely spacious on board, and when some of the weightier members of the group shift their intentions from starboard to port, well, the ballast is disrupted.  Funnily enough, people all seem to want to shift at the same time anyway and the rest of us have to sort out the right balance!

GP claims this is his boat – I suppose we have no reason to doubt him, but some of his claims have seemed dubious of late.  He’s taken to calling me ‘mon petite-fils’ as I’ve fallen to calling him Grand-mere instead of Grand-pere.  It’s the little things.   Lunch and dinner on the way – and at the festival – are being cooked by Naphi, a gem in the kitchen who manages to whip up sumptuous meals for twenty on a charcoal brazier near the stern of the ship.  Spaghetti, cous cous, rice and some very tasty fish and beef have been served with a lovely selection of sauces and a chilli sauce that gets the sinuses clear.  It’s all very tasty indeed, and admittedly a relief from the day to day grind of setting up camp and kitchen for twenty.  Alas, my stomach has not been agreeing with my taste buds of late and our night camps haven’t been the best fun.

But they have been beautiful.  The sun was setting as we reached our first campsite on some dunes overlooking Lake Debo, the largest in West Africa (not actually true, but don’t tell GP!).  Arriving at the lake was an eerie experience – the clouds had settled in – from where we don’t know – and blotted out the sun.  As the wind picked up and swirled the sand and dust into the air, the lake and sky seemed an inseparable grey, a haunting scene of fishing boats, shrouded in dust and searching for a shadow.

Atop the dunes the view was even more majestic.  We were greeted by swarms of buzzing children from the nearby villages – one Fulani and one nomadic Bozo village – who were warm and interested in sharing – they tried to teach us Arabic and Ruth tried to teach a blind boy noughts & crosses.  (A real Ben Stiller moment before she realised he actually needed his stick…). GP lit the fire and we sat around listening to the music from the boat, interspersed with a lame chord or two on the guitar, before crawling into our tents ready for another early start.

It is a fantastically relaxing way to travel – if you can deal with being crammed into a small boat with twenty others for hours at a time.  Although the scenery doesn’t alter a great deal – this is a pretty damn big river – and you do get a little sick of passing the jam six thousand times over breakfast, everyone seems content, if not yet fully understanding that six people climbing down the same side of the boat will capsize it.

The second day was much like the first, only interrupted by a stop in Niafunke, town where Ali Farka Toure was born, bred, mayored and died, and some lively games of cards and names in a hat to relieve the cabin fever.  I think we’re all looking forward to getting to Tombouctou tomorrow, and then the day after we head for our true destination – Essakane and the Festival in the Desert.