Mali Day 2 - Bamako to Djenne

We had two weeks to play with in Mali as there's only one flight a week from Lagos - a milk run through west Africa stopping at Accra and Abidjan (turning a 1 hr flight into closer to 4 hrs of takeoffs and landings...)

Anyway, our plan was to make it up to Essakane a couple of hours north of Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara where a three day music festival has been held for the last 8 years. We hired a guide and a car (with a driver) through a local tour company and had agreed on a route that covered pretty much all of the country that you could see in only two weeks...

I managed to take just over 1,000 photos and a few videos - so it's taken a little while to sort through them all and get something up on the blog (I also managed to turn them into a slide show that runs in just under an hour - maybe a little too long...)

So, here, for your viewing pleasure is a selection of Mali's finest...

[SO I DON'T KILL ANYONE'S BROWSER I'VE LIMITED THE AMOUNT THAT WILL COME UP ON THE FIRST PAGE - YOU'LL HAVE TO GO TO ARCHIVES ON THE LEFT TO LOAD UP THE LAST WEEK OF THE TRIP]

It was apparently watermelon season
(seems like a strange choice for a country that's mostly desert)

There's always a big trade in firewood
The roads were busy with donkey-pulled carts of wood, bagged rice and millet

Family on the move for lunch

This bloke hitched a ride to somewhere
(I'm not sure if the driver knows he's up there)

Walking to evening prayers

Sunset on the river waiting for the ferry to Djenne