Climbing in Siby

We got up early the next morning - "we" meaning me and Barney (comes with the territory now; Dree 'n' Kez, Dum 'n' Barney, sorry Lisa!) - to go and see a view from the top of one of the hotels down by the river. The guide book said this is the first thing that you should do in Bamako. So off we go, walking straight up to the huge doors of this Hotel D'Amitee and stride in. The place was pretty plush, and we felt thoroughly under dressed in shorts and teeshirts. Made a beeline for the lifts and made our way up to the fourteenth floor. It was a really cool view of the city sprawled out below, but a really nice maid opened one of the rooms at the back of the hotel, where it looked out onto the river Niger passing below. Well, there would've been a good view if there wasn't concrete pillars blocking the view. Got a few pics off, before the really kind maid said that the 16th floor was an even better view of the city, so up we went.

After getting back and waking up the sleeping couple, we all headed off to collect our Ghana visas (no problem whatsoever), and got a lift to a secondary gare routiere for Siby, a small village that has a recommended rock climbing school in amongst the Manding Mountains. We squashed into a minivan, only allowed to pay for three tickets and having to bribe the driver to take us all.

Wasn't too bad a journey - probably because it was very short - and we arrived about lunchtime in the amazing of the mountains. On three sides, walls of sheer red and black rock rose up for about 150 metres, surrounding Siby. We dropped all our gear in the compound, which had little white huts in a circle, and went to book climbing for the afternoon, even though it was about 45 degrees! We had to choose our own rubber-toed shoes to wear for climbing, and they only seemed to have the smallest ones in the world. We all just squeezed into them (Kerry was okay!), and were told to meet back there at 3pm.

Headed down the main (very well paved road) to some wooden huts by the side. We had liver brochettes (kebab), riz au gras (standard dry reddish rice) and tomatoes. The kebab was suspect, but was not bad by any means. Helped that I'd skipped brekkie and it was gone pretty quick! Dree had to shake the shock from his voice when the head scarfed woman said it would only be 1,000 CFA for all four of us! So, so cheap. It pays to eat Malian. On the way back I got some 'Black Panther' mosquito coils to kill off the little bastards! The huts we were given had huge gaps between the top of the internal walls and the roof, meaning that an elephant could've squeezed through, let alone a snidey little mozzie. I was determined to not get bitten, even though we did have a charming pink mozzie net for me and B...

We went to the climbing place and were pretty pleased to see the two young guides had a bag of ropes and hard hats. Had no idea what we were climbing, so kept saying we were "debutants"! After walking down the main road for twenty minutes, we cut in towards the mountain and past a village and fields of millet (for the production of millet beer - gotta try that I suppose!). Arrived at a huge cube of rock about 80ft high and 40ft wide/long. There didn't look to be an awful lot of hand holds...

One of the guys literally ran up the side of this behemoth, to clip on some caribinas (?) onto the top, so we had something to abseil back down. Turns out these two guys had been climbing for about eight years a piece, and seemed to do this "easy" rock for fun. In broken French, I understood that they regularly climb the mountains all around us! Hardcore - Nick would've loved it! Needless to say, 'Mountain-Goat' Barney raced up the first challenge, like Hunter in Gladiators, whereas I needed a leg up twice to get started! Kerry and Dree were pretty good, but the guys advised that we sit back in the harness and walk down straight-legged, with them taking our weight. They didn't seem to take the strain until you were sitting right back, so that caused some hairy moments. Didn't love the heights either, or should I say the looking-down. It was so hot we all went topless; well not Kerry!

Moving around to a harder side of the rock (not doing it enough justice, twas the size of a house!), after a few routes, we all came unstuck on a 5 1/2 level climb. Kerry did incredibly well, reaching the highest point, before swinging back and forth like a pendulum! And the guy even held her with one arm! I thought my extreme reach would work well, but my lack of upper-body strength let me down and I too swung on the rope, albeit a bit heavier than Kez!

On the way back I got a few photos of the sunset down the road, setting behind some of the mountains, and some kids ran over asking to take a photograph. I took a few and showed them. They loved it, squealing with delight, but then a teenage girl ran over and started arguing with me, demanding that I pay money. I said no, and after she got even more aggressive I deleted the photos and walked off. This is a common problem I have found - anyone that you want to take a photo of you have to pay. Unfortunately, part of the more touristic trail we are now on through Mali.

That evening I went back from the restaurant to get some cards, avoiding all the frogs that come out at night. When I got back to the table all the guys had disappeared. I thought they were playing a prank on me and just sat down. After a while they emerged from near the entrance to the compound, looking quite shaken. While I was gone, the waiters and owner of the restaurant had joined about ten other men in beating a man outside. The man had apparently stolen some money and this was the punishment. The guys ran out to see what the screaming was about, and Dree shouted at them to stop. This gave the battered and bleeding man enough time to slowly pull himself up and hobble off, but the men chased him down the road. The owner said to us afterwards, "He won't steal again." Very dark, but a snapshot of African justice: no trial, no investigation, just harsh punishment.

We also found out that we couldn't hire bikes as an expedition had hired them all, so our plan to cycle out to a waterfall for the day fell flat. We decided to head back to Bamako and try and get the night bus north to Djenne.