Tombouctou & Niger inner delta

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Willem my CS host in Mopti was very helpful with all information’s about the available roads to Tombouctou and the difficulties I mait find on the way.
He even printed me some more detailed maps of the road I decided to take.
After consulting with one more person, an PCV from USA whom I have met cycling on the street in Severe. I decided to take the last popular choice of Mopti, Niafunke, Tombouctou road.
I had only one alternative which was the more remote road through Douentza. The difference between them was the water availability. Because the difficulty mait be the same!
So after recovering a bit from recent malaria and starting treatment for Tyfoide I went on to the famous town on the age of Sahara desert.
And it was easer sad than done!
As I was expecting the sand was the biggest trouble. Just on the first day I got a lot of it but more or less I get going and arrive just after dark in small town on the end of somehow dirt road.
Further from hire was generally speaking a "manijana" and anybody with whom I have been speaking with about my rout was rather not optimistic with this idea.

The next day as I proceed I had been slowed down just after the fringes of the town. And had to more or less push my bike through the sand for next 20 km passing millet fields and small villages in which I could fill up with water. Beside all the native who have been very happy to see me, the most happy was the flays!! Which hire are every numerous and their presents is very irritating. So on my way to Tombouctou I had more or less one reflecting- "In the night flays are slipping two"
Later on surprisingly as the conditions has improved I have been stopped by approaching sandstorm and hefty rainfall. Luckily I got some shelter in an small village where I got just in time. People there has been very kind inviting me to stay for a night. As the man of the house in which I have been waiting told me that conditions has worsened dramatically and traveling further on the bike or motorcycle would be a suicidal mission.
He later showed me to my surprise the wet and muddy plains stretching up to the horizont. When the sun drays them it is very god driving surface. But when they are wet it is a mud trap with no escape!!
So I decide to spend the night there enjoying company of my hosts in hope that in the morning the sun will dry up the muddy plains and fast cycle will be very much likely passable.

But as it is in Africa, it is never so easy. And when on the following morning I wet happy off. I was broth down to painfully reality quite fast.
Mud not so dray yet gluing to my tayers, blocking them totally in the brakes area! Mud even gluing to my shoes as I was trying to push my bike through this. Making them look more like a "dead man ready to be drowned" shoos!
In some sections I was dragging my bike behind me like a dead buddy! But this day Allaah was with me and the sun finally drayed up the plains as I was lauding up some calories on an local market.
After 11 am it was all over. I jumped on my bike and with the help of some friendly locals showing me a god derecton I went of to Niafunke flaping of the rest of the mud form my tires as the speed went up.

Of course if one problem have been solved the another will come up. And it was time for some more obstacles.
This time it was water crossings mostly easy negotiable with a help of a pirogues. But not so easy to negotiate the praise of it!!
I must admit in some places it was very hard to get the price to the acceptable level!
All together on the stretch 90 km I had around 6-7 river crossings few of them including unloading and caring all my gear on the another site through the water. Kazimierz Nowak would be proud of me???

Once I got to more stable grounds after Niafunke it was only bet state of the road and headwinds which Allaah was throwing on me this time.
But the landscape was stunning and making all that effort really rewording.
All throw hot, dusty, thirsty, with a simptoms of mild overheating I proudly got to famous Tombouctou, known to many, but not have been seen by many for quite a long time.
Tombouctou is one of this places that when you know what to expect, finally when you get there it did not disappoint you, And exactly it was that way when I came!
Sandy dirty and dusty roads, expensive, very hot and very dray. Typical town on the age of Sahara. But how many town like this have you seen you mait ask?
Tombouctou inhabited by a clorfull mix of people, Tuaregs, Maurs, Arabs, and more local stems of everyday Malians.
A bit of history hire, and great scenery.
I didn't had time to stay an extra day. So I enjoyed only one afternoon, slept in the sand dunes not far from town discovering that there is not much trees to hang my shower bag!!
The next morning after having a look a bit and making some more photographs I went off to catch a bout back to Mopti in a local port around 15 km from Tombouctou.
I was very lucky as the bout was living very soon. I have managed only to buy some basic food and fill up with water from a local well.
It was an passenger ferry pirogues which carry everything you can imagine, people, motorcycle on the upper deck with now escalators and elevators, ships, gouts, chickens down below and all kind of cargo which I did not recognize, with some 200 people as well. All of it makes a bit of overloaded flouting coffin with a big, noisy and stinky diesel motor ! All of it with metal shits covering uper deck to make it fill like in the oven for a desert! Or maybe swimming pool, down below where most popular model of pumps ("the black man with the bucket")is!
The trip on Niger river was very impressive. The inner delta shelter many animals and remote villages which we have been passing on our way. It was very rewording trip but I wouldn’t like to do it that way once again. The claustrophobic and swinging conditions of travel with no itinerary beside the free will of it’s captain and his "tin of sardines" philosophy, makes it a bit of an "what the hell"- ride.

Definitely the trip to Tombouctou never was easy, many has died trying to get there in previous centuries. It is still quite a ride to get there and similar to get out!
But as some mait say: It is not the destination you want to remember it is the way to it.
I thing I will remember it, quite well!

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