Mali - 8 November, 2000

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Today we spend the day in Bamako, capital of Mali.  As we get up before breakfast, we decide to walk around the area near the hotel.  We go and explore the local markets and decide to buy a basin to wash our laundry in - it will make things much easier.  After breakfast, we do our laundry.  We had run out of clean clothes and it was a priority.

At 11:30 AM we headed into town, first stopping off at the Nigerian embassy to drop off our visa applications.  This was one of our last chances to get these very important visas.  After dropping off the passports, we drove into the center of town.  After walking around for a short while, we had lunch at a local restaurant - the meal of the day was fish with rice.  We got that and a cold drink and it cost us a total of CFA 1,000 (or US$1.33).

We then spent the afternoon walking around town.  It was like many of the other towns that we have seen.  We went through the market, saw the grand mosque and went to the artists market.  After getting hot and tired, we decided to go to a bakery for a cold drink and snack.  We spent about an hour at the internet cafe (very slow) and then went off for dinner.  We decided to have western for a change and we went to a pizzeria - and it was quite good.

We then took a local taxi back to the campsite and took it easy for the rest of the evening.  It is very tough to walk around this town - it is very hot and dusty.  And there are no sidewalks.  We find out that we will have to spend another night here as the visas will take a bit longer to process.