Up the Niger

We left the dock in Mopti at about 10.30pm on Thursday night, and hit the hay pretty soon afterwards: who knew watching men load a ferry for three hours could be so tiring. Let me just explain a bit about the ferry. There are three main ferries that the COMANAV company have going from just outside Bamako, travelling all the way along the Niger to Gao, in far east Mali. The whole journey takes about a week, but probably more, and depends on the height of the river - during the dry season services are drastically minimised.

The cabin did not have enough space to swing a cat, but was fine for its use - sleep. There were two bunk beds and enough space to put our bags down in. That was the two main things for us: that we had somewhere to sleep in, with some degree of comfort, and also that we could lock our bags and valuables. That said, the lock did cause us a few problems - mainly Dree.

The Kankou Moussa was not as big as we'd expected, and did not have as many passengers as we'd thought. Probably only 15 or 20 tourists and about ten Malians. The dining room was in the heart of the ship on the third out of four floors (including the roof), and was where we spent quite a bit of time reading, playing cards and the inevitable dining. The meals, to put it nicely, were basic. Usually rice, although we did have spaghetti and potatoes on two occasions, with a tiny piece of meat (bony goat), they were enough to fill you up and keep you alive, but were incredibly bland and boring. I have no idea what we were expecting - haute cuisine?! Saying that, breakfast comprised of half a bit of bread and some warm milk.

The front of the ship was an interesting point, not just because of the view, but because there were twenty goats and two horses cramped in the front. They must have been in the front (bow - bit of nautical terminology coming out of the woodwork now) for quite a while, as they weren't loaded when we got on in Mopti! The roof was pretty blustery once we were out in the Niger Delta (a vast maze of narrow waterways and wide lakes that is inbetween Mopti and Timbuktu), but it was cool to sit up top in the sun, reading or watching the world go by. Very slowly.

The route through the Delta was painfully slow at times, especially when we got grounded in the shallow reeds trying to follow the river's path, but yielded amazing views. The Delta is almost completely flat, bar one or two hills in the distance, and to begin with was just green reeds and grass for as far as the eye could see. Every now and again there would be a pirogue or fishing boat pass us, but apart from that we were alone on the river; the only sound being the soft chugging of the engine. Then, as the journey progressed, we saw small villages spring up at the riverside, sometimes on sand bars, with picturesque mud huts lining the river. They were few and far between but there were always children waving and shouting faintly into the wind "Tuoab......tuoab....".

Then the next morning we woke up to see nothing but water out of our cabin. We were crossing Lac Debo, a huge expanse of the river, over 30km wide but still not very deep. You could barely see land on the horizon. There were occasional strips of reed, blowing in the strong wind, or a few birds flying past, but apart from that we were alone in the middle of nowhere. A pretty cool experience.

Most of our time was spent playing cards or reading. The latter was Homer's 'The Illiad', an epic tale about Achilles, Odysseus and co, fighting for Troy, the former involved huge games of 500 (a variation on Gin Rummy), Uno or playing Yahtzee with dice. We also tried to play Cheat, which ended in hilarity as Tilly just couldn't cheat at all, bless her! Bit of a downside to the trip now - I had the beginnings of a fever and stomach cramps for most of one day, but after a couple of Nuroflaxen I was right as rain. That stuff truly is a wonder drug - worringly, however, that we cannot get it without prescription in the UK....

There were a few stops along the way, where various stuff (for want of a better general word) was taken on or off the ferry. The first stop was near a village after Lac Debo, where villagers in pirogues came up to the boat to peddle their wares. It was pretty chaotic on the bottom floor - women shouting to other women in the boats, trading chillis, dried fish, dough balls, even chickens. The second stop was an early morning wake up call for us all:

Being awoken by the sound of crashing whilst on a boat is a little bit disconcerting, if not horrifically worrying. Clambering out of our cabin in the pre-dawn light, we came face to face with the Kankou Moussa's sister ship - the General Tamboussa - that had docked next to us. Noisily and heavily. And with a worrying fuel tank cum barge strapped to it's side! Shouts and greetings were exchanged ship-to-ship, and passengers swapped along with goats. With no real clue as to what was going on, we watched in amazement until we pushed off from the other ferry and continued on our way downriver. Somehow in all the confusion, the two horses tied in the bow had made it across to the General Tamboussa without our noticing. Magic!