We’ve gotten a ride back to Mopti with a group of tourists who came up here to see the desert. They seemed nice enough at first, but by the end of our trip back to Mopti, I really wasn’t so impressed. The leader of the group was nice enough: Michel, he’d been in Mali for a month and change and had just returned from a huge camel trek out to Tdenni (sp?). That’s a salt mining town that it takes 15 days to get to by camel caravan. He’s a writer and was going out there with the plan to write a book on the subject. Although it sounds more to me like good subject material for a in-flight magazine article. His girlfriend really got on my nerves though. I understand that she was feeling sick and all but she really was acting like a bitch the whole way. I think the problem was that she was older, at least she seemed older, and was really a package tourist pretending or convincing herself that she was young or hardcore enough to handle travelling like a grubby backpacker. Too bad for her, but she really didn’t have any right to make the people around her miserable. The other main companion they were travelling with was Marlon. He struck me as the ‘too-cool’, screw-up who thinks he’s edgy and hip because he lives dirty, drinks and smokes a lot of pot. But people like that more often than not just come off as a total loser to all but the lowest common denominator. He was a volunteer working in Ghana, I believe, and he really personified everything I hate about volunteers. There were a few other people in the rig going back down to Mopti with us: two American girls, and a Swedish couple, but I didn’t talk much with them and they seemed nice enough. The nice thing about the ride was that we’d managed to hook up with a group going all the way back to Mopti. Timbuktoo was nice and all but I really don’t need to go back there.

After a very long and tiring ride, taking 3 very rough, dusty hours to Timbuktoo, 2 hourse waiting for a ferry across the Niger river, and another 7 hours on the other side, we arrived in Mopti tired and more than a little sketched out. We decided to stay at Mac’s Refuge instead of the Peace Corps house and get an actually good nights sleep for a change. This place is really very nice. The rooms are great, each one is decked out in a motif of a different Malian tribe (were in the Bozo room), the food is excellent (especially the breakfasts), and the staff are fantastic. We showered, thank god! And finally got a chance to relax in a comfortable environment for the first time in a week. Camping can be pretty tough sometimes. As the day rolled on more and more people started to roll in, and in the evening Marlon showed up to meet with those American girls and discuss a Dogon trip. Since we had no desire to talk with him we went for a very decent 3 course dinner of veggie soup, cous cous with lamb, green bean and salad, and ice cream for desert. As I said Macs Refuge does make great food. We got our laundry done by a local woman and went to bed early, finally getting a good nights sleep.

Today’s been pretty chilled out too, we’ve decided to spend another night here to recoup a bit more, send some e-mails, and buy some presents for the people back home. I picked up a new Dogon blanket at Peace Corps Babas for a decent price and gave my old one to the manager of Macs Refuge. I also got a really cool mud-cloth wall hanging, a Tourag knife, and a goatskin bag. I think I got some decent yo-bals (small presents in Wolof) for the home people too. We found out that you can book a seat on the Bani bus (not Bitar-Trans) back to Bamako right from Peace Corps Babas; so we booked some seats for tomorrow and now we won’t have to trek back over to Mopti in the morning. We sent our e-mails and I let my folks know that no we in fact haven’t been killed or captured by Tourag rebels, and now we’re back at Mac’s Refuge enjoying our moment of respite.