We woke across the river from Koakourou, and tried to get an early start. There was a debate about going to the village, and I insisted that we just go to grab some quick breakfast and snacks for the day’s journey so we wouldn’t have to stop for lunch. The fact that we were running low on water sealed the deal.
We tried to make it quick, but any stop has its hang-ups. I managed to make it back to the boat with huge bags of fried dough balls and little sugary morsels that were like mine rice pancakes. We were on our way. Little did we know that it would be, by far our biggest day of the trip yet.
We knew that we were roughly 50 km from Mopti and we were hoping that, with weather like the past couple days we could make it in two days. I had originally been hoping to reach Mopti by this day, but knew that an extra day or two would simply make my journey back to Bamako a little more pressed for time than I had planned for. We still had the idea in our heads to catch a tow from a boat if the weather turned too bad and we got discouraged again, but nobody really wanted to do this.
We didn’t feel like we were making exceptional progress, but we just plugged away at a decent pace all day. I spent most of the day, as I usually did, pushing at the bow with my trusty bamboo pole.
We looked at the map occasionally but without any obvious landmarks on the river and only the occasional Bozo camp, we had little reference of our progress. There is not much to say about our day, we simply worked hard and kept a good pace.
Late in the afternoon, we arrived at a village and decided to visit it to take a break, and to find out where exactly we were. This village didn’t seem to be on our map, yet it was fairly big. Jonathan stayed in the boat, while the rest of us went on the mission for possible treats and information.
Like I said, Jonathan stayed in the boat. Here he is, staying in the boat.
This town had a desperate feel to it. We didn’t receive many warm greetings, just a lot of befuddled stares. The kids mobbed us quietly, unaggressively and from a safe distance. During our walk through town we accumulated a crowd larger larger than any we had seen before. We found what seemed to serve as their central market, though there was just a couple people hawking some wilting mangoes and peppers. One woman was selling sesame candies, so, naturally, we bought her entire stock. The kids followed us as we continued through the towns narrow paths and checked out the mosque. They kicked up a huge cloud of dust and would freeze nervously if we made any sudden movements. This became fun for us as Jordan would lag behind the crowd and Blai would occasionally stop on a dime turn around and yell something back to him. This would shock the kids, and they would turn around, wanting to run, only to see that the gargantuan Aussie was standing in their way. Then we would all laugh, and the kids, hopefully, would realize there was no danger. A young guy who spoke French approached us on our little tour and started to talk to us. One of the most interesting things he said was that he had never seen the kids in this town so happy, or happy at all. The town was one of the more depressing places from the start, but I could only imagine what it would be like with scores of depressed children moping around in their tattered clothes would be like. Some villages seemed warm, inviting and positive places that had it all together. My observations, of course, were hasty, but this place, with how dry it was and how dejected so many of the people looked, seemed doomed.
Photo Credit: Jordan
Photo Credit: Jordan
Photo Credit: Jordan
Photo Credit: Blai Coulibaly
Photo Credit: Jordan
Photo Credit: Jonathan
Photo Credit: Jonathan
The young man also informed us that we were in the town of Ngomi. We checked it on our map and realized we had covered a much greater distance than we could have imagined: 40 km! This was double what we had done on most of our good days. Jonathan didn’t believe it, so we asked how far Mopti was. Of course their answers varied (based on whether they told us in distance or time), but it seemed that we were indeed only 10 km from our destination. It was an exhilarating feeling to know that we were so close, but it provided us with a conundrum. Did we want to push through, past sunset and make it to Mopti, or enjoy one last night in solitude on a quiet riverbank? I couldn’t decide, but another night on the river sounded nice and I also wanted to arrive to town in the daylight to let everyone see us and bask in the glory of our accomplishment. Blai kept reminding us that arriving in Mopti would get us to beer sooner. I had learned a lot about Blai through playing “bulls**t” for hours and knew that he could be as tricky and manipulative as they come. For someone who never was that tempted by beer, I realized that he was simply using this as a means of motivation for us. He had done this the day before as well, only to push ourselves to a town that probably didn’t know what beer was. He never said why, but I realized that he really wanted to get to Mopti asap. The other boys were also undecided, but in the end we decided to push it. A night landing it would be.
Photo Credit: Jordan
Photo Credit: Jordan
The sun set, and almost immediately this got us into trouble as usual. We hit sand bar after sand bar and eventually had to backtrack a few hundred meters to find the deep part of the river. Then there appeared to be an island, or at least a split in the river. We could start to see the glow of town in the sky above, but it didn’t reveal which was right way to go. We had to wait until we could hear a large pinasse coming, and follow it in the right direction.
Even though we were getting close to the city, we could still feel the calm of village life on the banks around us. Fires were springing up on shore and we heard the quiet chatter of children and the occasional eruption of song. Fishermen glided pass us, throwing their nets into the shallow water. At one point the silhouette of something large appeared directly in front of us. It wasn’t until we almost hit it that I realized it was some large fishing contraption made from sticks and netting. I yelled to stop paddling and I managed to push us around it, just before crashing through it. It was one of the rare adrenaline rushes I got on the river.
We finally could see the actual town of Mopti, but it looked like the only way to it was through a narrow passage. It seemed like we should stay on the main river, but we tried steering right into a little canal. I had been worrying about arriving to Mopti which doesn’t have the best reputation. Anyone that has traveled (and most that haven’t) know that port towns, like border towns can be sketchy places. Being on a river in Mali doesn’t necessarily change this. Mopti is West Africa’s biggest river port as well as the jumping off point for some of Mali’s most important tourist attractions. It is the country’s fourth biggest town, but feels like the only big city other than Bamako due to how packed in it is around the port area. I knew that it would not be the relaxed and welcoming place that Segou was, and even though we were self-sufficient with our boat, we would probably have problems with hustlers and wannabe guides.
Sure enough, as soon as we entered into the little canal leading to Mopti’s port, we heard a guy yelling to us from the bank. He was asking us where we were going and if we needed any assistance. It was pitch dark! Did our light skin really beam that brightly? Had we been talking? It seemed like he must have smelt us! The difference between a genuinely kind person in Mali and an opportunist can be spotted a mile away (in the dark). We just ignored him and continued on our way. As we got closer to the port, we noticed a boat approaching us from behind. It was the same guy trying to talk to us. He made the classic move of trying to make us feel like we didn’t know what we were doing (which, honestly, we usually didn’t), and informed us that if we wanted to get to town, we had to go left, not right, around an approaching island of dirt and rocks. Sure, we didn’t know this, but we would have figured it out. He quickly moved on to offering us guide services and seeing if we needed a place to stay. This was a complete insult to us. Instead of arriving to Mopti, satisfied with the accomplishment of making it on our own power nearly 500 km along Africa’s third largest river, and impressing people both foreign and local, we were being offered the services of a guide. The LAST thing we felt like we needed was a guide. A guide, for what? He followed us all the way to shore and continued to push himself on us. We explained that we were self-sufficient, had been traveling for weeks on the river, all the way from Koulikoro, and that, no, we didn’t need any help. He didn’t budge, he just loitered around, trying to think of the next thing he could try to make money off of us. We stood around, wondering what we would do and where we would go, as we waited for him to leave. He didn’t. We had hoped to arrive silently, and unseen in the night so that we could all go to town together without worrying that some hustler knew about our boat and where it was. This plan was ruined. Blai, who is always our best diplomat, went and told him very directly, in no uncertain terms that we would not be needing any of his services and that we wanted him to leave.
Jonathan and Blai went to scout out the dingy town, looking for, hopefully, food, beer and a place for our boat. When they returned, they said they had the perfect place. A bar, right on the river, just a few hundred meters away, and it was still open. We got in the boat, and paddled along the port. We slinked past gargantuan pinasses and long-haul passenger boats that towered over us like gods. The boats all looked new and sleek, with fresh, colorful paint jobs on their bows. It was like seeing what our tiny pirogue always aspired to be. As we passed, we realized that most of the boats had crews sleeping or living in them. Occasionally one of them would poke his head out, realizing he had heard the voice of toubabs. A couple of them yelled to us, in a heckling way, offering to buy our boat for a pittance. So we weren’t getting a hero’s welcome, but really, nothing could destroy our triumphant mood. We felt like kings. The only thing we needed was some cold beer to prove it when its sweetness hit our lips.
We arrived at the bar, which now looked dark and shuttered. We asked around to the people lurking about the dark and garbage strewn port area. Somebody said they knew the person who could open it up and they made a phone call. We waited patiently and after thirty minutes, a bewildered old man in a yellow shirt arrived to unlock the place. He wasn’t the owner, or even a bartender. I can’t be sure, but I think he was just some sort of caretaker who figured he could sell the beers and make a few francs on the side after hours.
It was called Bozo bar and it felt like it had been built for us. After all that time on the river, we really identified with the Bozo people and truly aspired to be like them. Even the Fulani people who saw us with our boat would call us Bozos. This was the greatest compliment we could have received. The Bozos had become our heroes, and it only seemed fitting to finish the journey at a place so aptly named.
I could not have dreamed of colder, more refreshing beer, or in a better location. We were sitting on the terrace, looking out over Mopti’s silent port, lined with dozens of large boats, with our little tiny pirogue tucked quietly in between them.
The man in the yellow shirt could tell we were hungrly and said that he had egg sandwiches. He wanted to charge us triple what they would cost on the street, so it was pretty clear that he was hoping to make a little extra money off of us. We politely refused. Blai went on a food mission and eventually came back with a giant purple bowl of rice with sauce and organ meats. We all dug in with our hands and licked it clean. We drank a few more beers and selfishly reveled in our accomplishment. We had covered 50 km in one day. I had spent the entire day on the bamboo, which I was proud of since it is the most physically demanding spot on the boat. However, though, what we were so proud of would be nothing to brag about if we actually were Bozos. A 50 km day, even for one man in a boat, would be standard, if not an easy day. We were still amateur toubabs, who still had trouble steering the boat in tight situations. We knew we could only show so much pride before we were seen as fools. When it got late, we woke the man in the yellow shirt, paid our bill and headed out to look for a place to camp.
The only place we knew in town with space for tents was where we had originally landed. There was a dirty beach with some dirt, sand and grass, as well as quite a bit of garbage. It would work for the time being, but we knew that the morning would not be so nice to us. It didn’t matter, we had arrived and no uncomfortable situation could take that from us.
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