Squatting in Segou

February 1, 2011

We felt the need to push our way into the actual city of Segou, and off the grass of the luxurious Hotel Le Faro. So we headed that way, and thanked the travel gods for subduing the wind. On the way, however, Blai remembered that Alejandro, who had briefly been in our convoy from Nouakchott to Bamako, said he was staying in Segou. Blai gave him a call, and sure enough, he was still in town. He told Blai he was at some great hotel/camping place where he had been staying (in his van) for free for over a month. This seemed odd, or even impossible. He even added that the staff had taken care of him while he had malaria. This also seemed suspect, as he claimed he had gotten the malaria from lettuce that had not been washed properly. Either way, though, we wanted to pay him a visit, and his place was right on the river.

Our camp in front of Hotel Le Faro. Photo Credit: Blai Garriga

We were greeted by Alejandro waving at us, flanked by a German couple, who, for whatever reason, also seemed excited to see us. Alejandro had lopped off the four dreadlocks hanging off the back of his shaved head, and I have to say, it was a good move on his part. We immediately parked the boat and ordered a round of beers from Katia, the sweet woman who ran the show here. Both Alejandro and the Germans had been parking their Mercedes camper vans for about a month, and had basically just compensated the owner by buying beer very regularly. It seemed like a good deal. The owner was a Frenchman named Jaques, who seemed friendly at first, but a little awkward. The hotel was still under construction, and only had a few rooms in business. Rumour had it that the place is extra busy on the weekend, when people come to book rooms hourly…if you know what I mean.

Alejandro. Photo Credit: Blai Garriga

We sipped beers next to the gardens overlooking the river through the afternoon and kicked around all sorts of stories. It was really refreshing to get some conversation in English (and some in Spanish) with people other than Blai and Jonathan for a change. We were even joined by an older French woman on vacation, who was young at heart and lots of fun to hang out with. Eventually everyone decided to head into town (still about 6 km away) to use internet and get some food for dinner. We decided to have another chicken dinner to celebrate our arrival. The Germans, both vegetarians, were a little squeamish at the thought of us butchering a chicken, but that just encouraged us more. The French woman came for the feast and we all hung out with beers until late into the night. We figured the more we spent on beer, the more the staff would tolerate us crashing on our mat in front of the hotel.

The gardens in front of the hotel. These gardens line the banks of the Niger near Segou for miles.

In the morning we looked and felt like hobos. We didn’t really have much ability to pack up and go either. The wind was roaring worse than it had in days. One of the first things that happened when I woke up was an old man coming to yell at me in Bambara, and pointing toward the river. I had no idea what he was so upset about, but he insisted that I come down to the river with him. It turned out that our boat was not anchored well enough, and had been dragged up river by the wind and into the shore, thus blocking his designated spot to collect water for watering his garden. Of course this seemed trivial to me, as it seemed that he could simply move down a few meters to fill up his watering cans, but at the same time, our boat really did need to be re-anchored as it would surely keep moving. Worse yet, the waves had come crashing into our boat, filling it up halfway. What followed felt very dramatic to Jonathan and I, but probably made us look completely ridiculous to the savvy piroguers standing in our midst. First we emptied the boat of everything, making it sit higher in the water, and easier to maneuver . Luckily all of our water sensitive belongings had been removed the night before. Then we struggled to control the boat as it was tossed around by the wind and waves. We were trying to find the right angle to park it, so it rode the waves, rather than get pushed by them. Of course, all the pirogues near us already had this figured out, and they just rolled gently with the waves. I had not anticipated getting all the way into the water and I was still wearing my ankle length blue boubou/jeleba (the robe I had gotten in Morocco), but within minutes, I was forced to get all the way in to not lose control of the boat. Luckily for Jonathan he had more foresight than me and had the fortune of wearing only shorts as he dove into the water to move the anchor. It took about twenty minutes of struggling and re-anchoring to get it out of people’s way and in line with growing waves.

Yep, we were in no position to move out of our little spot at this hotel. Meanwhile, Blai had been talking up Jacques, the hotel owner, asking if he knew of any places to rent in town. Blai’s dog Fura had a litter of puppies on the way any day now, and he had decided he would stay in Segou until the puppies were ready to give away, rather than continue on the river with the whole litter. Jonathan and I were still unsure of our plans. We would surely stay for the festival (Festival Sur le Niger), but weren’t sure if we would try to continue alone, stay in Segou, or go to Burkina Faso for their famed film festival. When Blai was finished discussing with Jacques, he came back saying that the owner was not to keen on “our gypsy styla”, as Blai put it. It was true that our mat and accompanying belongings and cooking materials looked…less than classy. However, Jacques had had every opportunity to offer us a room or at least tell us his rates for camping. We were probably in the wrong there, but after so much time camping freely (and being welcomed by locals) anywhere in Mali, Mauritania and Morocco, we were not used to these kinds of rules. He did not tell us to leave though, so we just tidied things up, put most of our things back in the boat and made some more beer purchases to stay on his good side.

Our spot in front of Jacque's hotel.

In other news, Jonathan had been inspired by some of the sailing pirogues we had seen in the days since the beginning of the Harmattan winds. Although the pirogues we had seen were only capable of going downwind, which 100% of the time was up river, in the opposite direction we wanted to go, he felt confident that he could figure out a way to design a sailing rig that would enable us to tack against the wind and move down river without paddling. I didn’t really know how I felt about it, since I liked paddling and didn’t want to make things more complicated. I felt simplicity was what made the boat trip so much better than the donkey trip. However, our progress since the winds had begun was dismal, and I was open to being able to make k’s in situations that we otherwise couldn’t. Jonathan’s expertise is in sailing, so this was an exciting prospect for him. I told him that I would help work on it, but that I wouldn’t help fund it (his estimates were around $60-$80) until it actually worked. He immediately got to work drawing up plans and shopping for the best quality grain sacks to construct the sail with. The Germans even offered us a large blue tarp that would provide material for about half of one of the two sails. It would turn out to be an extremely long, and at times ludicrous process, but it sure was an experience.