Pre-Christmas departures

So Christmas has come and gone already, but here in Mali - being in the centre of Muslim Africa - the Tabaski feast is obviously a much bigger deal. Tabaski fell on the 20th of December last year and things kind of wound down here at Syama, the Malians left for their Tabaski celebrations and the Aussies, Irishmen, Brits and South Africans headed out for Christmas festivities.


Leaving on a jet plane ...

Due to mass exodus from site, I finally got to leave by charter flight! A 45-minute journey by small plane certainly beats a 6-hour drive in the car on dusty, pothole infested roads - it also meant I got to spend a couple of extra days in Bamako getting a feel for city life here.

First thing to do? Take a tour of the ronds points ...


La tour Afrique


La tour du Monde


Another rond point, another tour!

I managed to miss the big hippo, and the hunters - will have to go back. But each trip into town from the airport allows for an action packed ...


Niger river crossing

And after a day of sightseeing, and being the festive season too, it's obligatoire to slip out for a drink at the Bla Bla bar with Adrian, Darren, Ron and Steve (most of our resident sparkies)!


Christmas G&Ts with the BEC boys

And no night is complete without a meal - Kalil joined us at Savanna for a great local band and some serious food. (I have since been informed by Mariam that they use undersized chickens - she's going to be an excellent guide if we ever manage to get to Bamako at the same time).


My first crêpe

I'd lined up Bintou to take me on a tour of the Bamako markets - something I'd wanted to do for ages and especially so after hearing Tammi's stories.


Following my guide!


The fetish stall

Of course, the first thing we ran into were the fetish stalls. And as luck would have it, a multi-lingual (English-French-Bambara-Senefou etc) American anthropology PhD student just happened to be on hand to fill us in on what exactly are the uses of dessicated hyena heads, monkey heads, and other assorted African animal body parts ... (no seriously, Darren was as spun out as I was!)


Beautiful Malian women (and one shabby tourist)

But I had been eyeing off the amazing chintzes that the Malians use for their more formal attire - and Bintou and her niece Aicha were wearing the best of the lot!


Bintou finds a bargain

I certainly had the right guide, Bintou really knows how to get the right price in any store. And we then wandered around the food section for a while, which of course kept me mightily entertained - especially seeing the large bags of shea butter, I think I may have to send for a crate!


Vegetables anyone?

After being overwhelmed with choice, colour, chatter, chaos, clamour we went to find a taxi to take us back to the guesthouse.


At the taxi rank