Today will be our sixth day of driving with only bush camps- which meant no showers for that time period. We wanted to make it to Bamako today, but that would mean some hard driving - we had over 450 km to cover and we were hoping the road would be better.
We headed off at 8:00 AM and we decided to sit on the roof seats this morning. The view from up there is great and we greatly enjoyed watching the countryside pass by. It was amazing how much it varied. We also got a great view of the towns we passed through and were able to greet the people with big waves (many of them would wave with both hands). We were also able to see the birds much better and some quite close up. Some flew just in front of the truck and it felt like we could reach out and touch them. The only risk of sitting up top was the branches from the low hanging trees or the bushes on the side of the road (in particular the ones with long, sharp spikes - and they are sharp!). We had to pay attention.
After we passed through Diema near noon, we got down as it was getting too hot and sunny. After Diema, the road improved for a while, and we made some progress, but the quality of the road slowly continued to get worse again. At 12:40 PM we arrived at Torodo, where we stopped so that the cook group could do its shopping. We walked around the market, which was quite interesting. We were able to observe some of the different tribes, with the most interesting and striking being the Fulani's. The women dressed in black and had beads and coins woven into their hair. We also looked at some of the beads that they were selling in the market. We picked up a string of blue beads.
As we walked through the market, we got quite a few looks, but as we headed back to the truck, we noticed that it was surrounded by people, mainly children. When we would take a picture, many of the children would come "dance" in front of us. It was a struggle to get into and out of the truck. We tried to get some pictures of some of the Fulani women.
After we left Torodo, we wanted to continue to make some progress towards Bamako, so we had lunch on the truck while we were driving. We were all getting a bit tired, so everyone tried to get as comfortable as possible. The sun slowly set in the sky and soon we were driving in the dark. We then started to see some blue glows by the side of the roads - they turned out to be TV sets. Along with the TVs, there would often be a fire going. There were no lights as the TVs would be run off of a car battery. We also had a number of police stops. As we came to within 15 km of Bamako, the road got really bad and our progress really slowed down. At times it seemed like there was no road at all!!! A number of times we asked a local if we were going in the right direction, and they confirmed it.
We finally made it into the city after 8 PM and then we had to find the way to the campsite. This was a bit difficult, but despite being stopped by the police for some reason (took a while for Mark to talk our way out of that one), we finally made it to the campsite over the river. We got there at 9:15 PM and after a light dinner, we took our first shower in 6 days. Even though it was the worst shower of the trip (so far), it was great. We got to bed after midnight. A long day, but we were glad to have reached Bamako over some of the worst roads in Africa on a route that overland trucks do not currently do.
By the way - the quiz of the day. Guess who each of these feet belong to and win a prize (prize to be determined - it will be supplied by Mark and Rick).