Hombori

After a few days in Sanga, we moved on via a sandy track to the North. It runs below the escarpment, with plenty of scenic villages, acacias, mangoes and baobabs. 

We came back to the tar at Doeuntza to find the town in great excitement. Le President de la Republic was in town, along with an entourage of at least 50 Toyota Land Cruisers. Many in the crowd were wearing political t-shirts. The Fula women have tattoos around their mouths, and many men were carrying homemade flint muskets, which did not seem a security risk to the mirror-sunglasses of the presidential guard.

After a night in Douentza, we continued East, passing eroded hills and mesas, and camping in view of one formation near Hombori. This area feels remote, there is almost no traffic and fewer villages. We stopped to give lifts to young men, who stood on the back bumper hanging onto the rack. And when returning we made space inside on the luggage for a young Dogon woman who was going to Bamako for work. She was setting off for the 24 hour journey with no belongings at all.

From Hombori we made the long journey back to Bamako via the tar road, overnighting in Sevare and Segou. I left Stefanie to get her flight home, and turned back for Sevare to pick up the next co-driver, Con, who is flying in there directly via Marseilles.

We took a hitchhiker back from Hobori to Sevare

In the Pays Dogon

If a set designer dreamed up an African village it would probably look like a Dogon village. They have a distinctive architecture that is bound to their culture and animist beliefs. Wall foundations are chunks of local sandstone, but the house and granary walls are a smooth blend of mud, straw and cow dung. The square, tall granaries are roofed in picturesque hats of straw, while the houses have flat roofs, useful for drying grains and tamarind, and for sleeping when the hot season comes (any day now). 

Then there are the meeting houses, which are constructed from beautifully carved posts, and roofed with thick layers of reeds. A new layer is added for each generation. The doors and windows are also beautifully carved, and they make ladders by notching tree trunks. Many of the villages are planted on boulders on steep cliffs under an escarpment. Add to all that some of the most beautiful baobabs and fig trees, and an interesting culture, and it is not surprising that the area is the prime tourist destination in Mali, although it is quiet now. Taking photos requires a negotiation each time, which is why I don't have many. 

We based ourselves in the clifftop village of Sanga, and each day drove down a steep track to explore the villages. Market days change on a 5 day cycle, but we visited two of them, always entertaining. Perhaps not so much for the goats who end up in pieces on a big wood fired grill. Life looks hard here. Despite the tourist revenue, pumps are out of action and there is endless well work and water carrying, which is probably easy compared to the millet and sorghum pounding in big wooden pestles. 

The top photo shows telem houses, at least 1000 years old, built by a pygmy people in cliff overhangs. The Dogon use them for storage and burials.