On the Road to Mali

The following report was written a few days ago. We are sitting in the bar of the Hotel Oasis in Tamba (counda) and this is the first time we have had Wifi for a week or so. Left ZebraBar yesterday and are now on road to Mali with, so far, brilliant roads and little traffic. Stopped overnight on a track off the road in the bush. Have visited the Airport here this morning, but the wind has been very strong for the last few days so it looks like a balloon flight in Senegal will have to wait for another time. We did get permission to take off from the airport had conditions been right.  Everything still going well. Only worry is lack of water at home for Peter and Cath who are there for New Year.  So sorry about that Pete.

We have very good information about the Senegal-Mali border crossing from Ron & Linda Douglas who did this 2 days ahead of us, but it will still be about 3 days til we get to Bamako.

Here we are still at the ZebraBar, 15 Km along the coast from the interesting, vibrant town of St Louis (www.zebrabar.net).  I feel its a bit like Hotel California and wonder if we will ever leave! The attraction is a sturdy ramp and workshop where Chris is finalising the remainder of the jobs he had planned to do on the Enterprise before we set off for Mali, so we expect to be here for another couple of days.  I am typing this up on Wed 28th but as there is no public internet access we will post this when we can connect to Wifi, possibly in St Louis. It is a very beautiful place and we were lucky for the recommendation while in Mauritania.

The drive from Nouakchott to St Louis was a very long tiring day as we chose to come via the piste road to Diama to avoid going to Rosso and using the ferry with all the associated hassle. We would have taken our time but as we had our Australian passengers who had to be in St Louis that evening we kept going. It was an interesting route through the Diawling National Park with all its bird life, giant lizards and warthogs and a relatively quick border crossing over the bridge spanning the Senegal river (helped in part by Holly flirting with the border police) but dark by the time we reached St Louis. We dropped the Australians at their hostel on the island and then cruised the darkened streets of Guet N'dar trying to find somewhere to park for the night. The streets were teeming with people and horsecarts and all was glitter & gleam as our headlights picked up the sparkle in the womens beautiful colourful dress. We found there was a site, Camping Ocean, at the end of the narrow spit of land past the fishing harbour and very relieved to arrive there (the only guests). Anne-Claire directed us to park close to the beach within sight of the sea and then plied us with beer and a hearty vegetable couscous which she had been cooking when we arrived. Very welcome after our long day. She was a slip of a French girl who had driven from France solo in a huge camping truck and was temporarily working at the camp. In the daylight the drive back into town was a real assault on the senses: fish being unloaded from boats, carried in buckets and baskets on heads, the fires of the fish smokeries/drying racks and all manner of bustle. Michael Palin likened it to a scene from Dickens. The central town on the island was much more geared to the tourist trade, but with real character. We went in search of the immigration office as we had learned that we could extend our Passavant (driving permit) to delay going all the way to Dakar within 48 hrs of crossing the border, but without success. We decided to find the ZebraBar for our Christmas stay and it has proved to be all we could have hoped. It is within the Langue de Barbarie National Park, famous as a bird watching site, which for me is a bonus. There have been lots of interesting people to talk to and we have made good friends. 5 individual couples are en-route to South Africa, some in less time than we plan, but the consensus is Angola may be a 'stopper' as it is difficult to get visas. We may be able to get a 5-day transit visa at the border but that is a bit short to do the drive with stops. We will see. Our next planned stay will be at the Sleeping Camel in Bamako, Mali where we need to go to get the next set of visas for Burkina Faso, Ghana and possibly Nigeria. In between here and there will take a few days as we hope to find somewhere to fly the balloon in Senegal. Here is lovely but much too close to the sea for safety!

Over Christmas we had our own private beach in the camp. When the tide is out there are hundreds of deep pink crabs on the sand, fiddling away, but they pop back into their holes at the slightest movement. Pelicans sail majestically by and it is fascinating watching the large pied kingfisher hovering aloft and plummeting into the water. The most spectacular birds here are the red-billed hornbills which hop around the camp and have a very distinctive call. One American guest is close to 'collecting' his 2,000th bird variety and he clocked up 3 new ones here on Christmas day.

The greatest friends we made here were Ron & Linda Douglas, travelling for the 2nd time in Africa in an old Morris Minor with home-made roof tent. They are the same age as us, from near Crediton in Devon and we got on very, very well. They left yesterday morning for Mali along the northern Senegal river route. We intend to go the middle route via Toumbacoumba but have been told the roads are fairly bad. We will see. On Christmas Eve we took Ron & Linda into St Louis as we had a letter from Ursula here at the ZebraBar to assist us in extending our Passavant, but due to Christmas both offices were closed.  We also took along Anita, a very attractive 24 yr old who is driving an old Land Rover back home to S Africa from Grassmere in the Lake District where she worked as a chef at one of the hotels. She had taken the radiator out here as it was overheating on the Diama route and it was being repaired in St Louis. She was doing the work herself but glad of the help from the men in the camp! She is travelling all on her own and we hope there will not be too many other mechanical problems ahead for her.

Christmas was celebrated here on 24th as most European countries do and we had a big party with music, decorations and a 4-course meal with wine and coffee. It was delicous as are all the meals. We have only had a couple of other dinners here as we are cooking for ourselves. We had a lovely Christmas day with breakfast on the beach and a lazy morning. As turkeys are not easily come by, I cooked chicken (from our freezer in the Enterprise) in a mushroom and white wine sauce with creamed potatoes (Kirsty, the potato ricer you gave me a while ago is coming in very handy), followed by a matured Sainsbury's Christmas pudding and cream. After a sleep, we were invited to a pig-eating contest. In fact the whole camp was invited to eat with the Oasis Overland truck group who had spit-roasted 2 pigs and had far too much. The driver, Steve, was a very nice chap but most of the clients were young girls, away from home for the first time, and not greatly enjoying the experience. There were 10 of them staying in camp and a further 8 who decided to spend Christmas in the bright lights of St Louis. They are planning to do Cape Town and back to Cairo (from Gibralter) in 40 days. First time Steve has done this route so he also needed to extend his Passavant and not go to Dakar to get the Carnet stamped. To this end, he, Chris and Ron got a taxi into St Louis on Monday and successfully returned with the required documents. This is good as we can drive to the Mali border within the time allowed and avoid the hassle of going to Dakar Port. Senegal is the exception to most African countries where the Carnet has to be stamped in the capital rather than at the border. Chris also bought cheap motor insurance to cover us for the whole of West Africa. We had been stopped and fined by the police on our first day without insurance, but on the 2nd attempt, Chris managed to do a deal with the police officer and acquired another hat for his collection! While in St Louis Chris and Steve spent some time having beer in the Hotel de la Poste where the early pilots on the mail run to South America used to stay. Ron chose to stay behind at the "General's" office to sit it out in the hope he did not have to pay for the 10 day extension (without success!). Chris did make use of the General's free wifi and posted the latest couple of photos, so we will try and go back there and log on before we leave.

While the men were living it up in St Louis, Linda and I walked into the local village of Mouit across the causeway past the National Park office and then I caught up on 'housework' in the Enterprise and did a lot of handwashing which I hung out on a drier on our beach. Dry in no time and very soft due to the breeze. There is lots to do here as we have free use of kayaks, sail boards and there are boat trips across to the islands in colourful pirogues for bird watching. Haven't had time for any of that though! I am typing this up in a lovely 'safari' lodge room where there is electricity to charge the laptop. Martin the owner plays the accordion and accompanies breakfast, lunch and dinner with some Swiss? music. I can smell them cooking lunch now which is making me hungry, so I will go and see how Chris is doing underneath the Enterprise on the ramp and see if he wants me to make him a sandwich yet.

The climate here is perfect. Even when it gets hotter at mid-day there is a nice refreshing sea breeze. Don't know when we will next be close to the sea, perhaps in Togo or Benin. We are really, really enjoying ourselves and life in the Enterprise is very good.