Hey, it’s Christmas Eve. Sure doesn’t feel like it though. At least it’s kinda cold here. Yesterday we went out and got on the Bittar-Trans bus to Mopti. It all worked out ok for the most part. Actually the ride was a little boring, 9-10 hours on a bus usually is. We did have a little company from two American students currently studying in St. Louis, Senegal who were on vacation. Nice people I guess, although the guy, George was really working the Muslim gear... I don’t know though, maybe he was a Muslim. I’m not sure how many of them live in Connecticut. The only actual hassle in the ride came at the end. My pack is a bit larger than Tims or Joes and is just over the arguable size to take into a transport. Although they always try to get us all to put our bags on top or under the transports. That way we have to pay extra. Anyhow, the Bittar-Trans bus was a big coach and they took luggage both on top and under it. I, having no way of knowing put my bag on the roof. Although I’m not sure cause it looks different on the LP map we ended up in Sevaré before arriving in Mopti. Since we were heading to Sevaré we tried to get off; but all the bags on top were tied down and they couldn’t be removed until Mopti.

Whatever, no big deal right. Mopti is only like 15 km away from Sevaré, the problem came when we pulled into Mopti at around 3am, and they decided they couldn’t unload the roof baggage until the morning. After unsuccessfully trying to reason with them, climbing onto the roof of the bus, and being threatened we resigned ourselves to hanging out with the bus until morning. Thankfully the driver took pity on me. I think he didn’t want us hanging around the Mopti bus area late at night alone. Whatever it was though, I got my bag and we rolled back to Sevaré in a local cab to find the Peace Corps office and try to figure out what we were actually doing.

I shouldn’t say that really, I think Tim and Joe know what’s going on a bit better than I do at the moment. Somehow, somewhere I seem to have lost the plot on our whole Dogon excursion. But this mor5ning I’ve been getting myself up to speed and I think I’m about ready to reapply to the planning committee.

After some getting lost in the taxi from Mopti we found the Peace Corps office/Stagé house in Sevaré. The place is a dump. And the guards, the only people awake at 4:30am were no help at all. Our goal with this Dogon trip is to get out by tomorrow. We really don’t want to spend Christmas at a dirty Stagé house in Sevaré so after an hour or so of sleep Tim, Joe and I met some early rising Sevaré PCVs, got some quick, if confusing answers and hit the road again.

We want to do 6 or 7 days hiking. The Dogon country as people know it follows roughly an North-South running escarpment (with a river in the vally I believe). There are a lot of different possible starting and ending points. Most people (tourists) travel the bottom 2/3s of the trail, stopping at villages along the way over 3 or 4 days. We want to trek more though, and the tourist vibe isn’t very high on our agenda. So now we’re in a rig on our way to Bandiagra, a village in-between Sevaré and Dogon country. From there, hopefully we can get to Sanga, the town in the middle of the escarpment and one of the 3 main starting points. In Sanga we can hopefully get a guide, etc, and if all works out we’ll be heading North up to Douentza tomorrow. Still, its only 8:45 in the morning... I’d kinda like to sleep sometime too.

Well we made it ok. We got a taxi right away from Bandiagra to Sanga no problem despite what everyone said. Thankfully we had some good travel luck for a change. As we travelled, even out of Sevaré, but especially past Bandiagra the change in the landscape itself became very clear. The trees such that they were became more and more sparse until there were at times only a few between us and the horizon. The earth itself became replaced by rock, red and grey, flat, flat, flat. These layered flat rocks stepped out of the ground making me wonder how they were formed so uniformly. They look like they were carved out by the water, but I suppose it must have been the wind eroding the land. The shifting sands, and the moving desert. Shallow gullies and dry riverbeds weaving craggy breaks into the ground. The road weaves precariously through the occasional piled towers of rock. In the distance I can see what appears to be great mesas rising against the sky as the hills now surrounding us grow into lowland smaller mountains. Its very pretty and makes me feel somewhat poetic I suppose.

After this rocky incredibly dusty ride through a picturesque landscape we arrived at the village of Sanga. Luck was with us once again as we met our first actually truly helpful fellow travellers. Two extremely nice French people, a couple named Cloe and Richard who gave us a number of excellent tips on the river ride, Timbuktoo, and a bunch of other random stuff. They’re here for 2 weeks in Sanga doing some sort of water reclamation project with a large group, but at least as of yet they seem more content to hang out with us. A nice spirit of fellowship for Christmas Eve.

We are staying at the hotel they recommended, the Femme Dogon. A nice place, and not as touristy as the other hotel in town. But they had no rooms available with the huge influx of tourists and travellers at this time of year. So we are currently staying on the roof. The hotel supplies tents at as very cheap price and we are contented that we are at least somewhat removed from the tourist nonsense below us.

My personal goal of going to sleep has not come to pass yet. Instead we went with Cloe and Richard on a guided tour around the village. The culture here is very different. The Dogons seem much more traditional in spirit and way of life than the rest of Mali. I’m really not too sure about all that yet though; I didn’t get a very good cultural experience yet. In a way this town totally sucks too. The tourists have totally screwed these people up. All the people I met seemed to care about was money. I was totally unimpressed with the entire situation. At least while wandering around the town I got to see some very cool architecture. Curved mud houses with great craved doors and tight winding back streets. Very neat.

We also picked up a seemingly very cool guide. I’m not actually sure of his real name but it sounds like Goldfish and he told us it was ok if we want to call him that. He’s an old guy, a real old school Dogon who we all think will be able to show us a very good time.

So tomorrow morning we take off with Goldfish into the heart of Dogon country. Our trip feels like it’s finally starting out properly. Tim says it was bound to happen, we had to get worked over a few times, but it should be golden from here on out... :)