Transfer from Bamako airport to hotel.

Breakfast and meeting with the rest of the group and departure to Segou.  City tour and lunch at restaurant.

Founded in 1852, Segou, keeper of one of the most ancient histories of West Africa, capital of the ancient Bambara kingdom, has an undeniable charm which is well worth discovering. Ancient kingdom of culture and tradition, Segou has inspired numerous writers and historians. Among the most famous is Maryse Condé.

Segou is also the site where Mungo Park, the first European in modern times, gazed upon the Niger River. When he arrived he ‘fell to his knees, thanked God, and drank from the muddy water.’ (Mark Jenkins, To Timbuktu).

Transfer to San.
 

Breakfast and transfer to Djenne. City tour.

Djenne, the most beautiful and genuine example of Sudanese adobe architecture. The story houses of rich traders families, the Koranic schools, the mosque -that is also the biggest building out of clay in the world- make together a unique inhabited center in the world.

Some details deserve special attention: the technique used to built the roofs, the setting of the rooms in the houses, the Morocco style windows, the Toucoulors gates, the rounded and the square bricks dating the time before and after the beginning of the .... colonization.

In Djenne we understand that a mason can be an artist. These artists, here in Djenne, are called “barrey”. They work just with hands. No tools. Like sculptors. The oldest among them replace the work of the hands with the pronunciation of magic spell, able to support the house, even in case of danger. To build a house like an artist, to protect it like a priest. Here is a “barrey”. No way to understand Djenne without crossing the path of one of them.

We will reach Djenne on market day… everybody will dress up with its best ethnic costumes. A colourful crowd will invade the town arriving by horse, by carriage, by pirogue, by camel, in roaring bush taxi…
 

Breakfast and transfer to Mopti. City tour.

The town of Mopti is built on three islands where the Bani and Niger rivers converge. The town is alive with the different cultures in the region: Bozo fishermen, Dogon, Bambara and Bella farmers, Tuareg and Peul shepherds. The market and the harbour are saturated of all colors and smells.

Part of the harbour is occupied by a traditional workshop. Artisans make up the “pinasse”, starting with the production of nails and finishing with colorful paintings on the sides of the boats.  As a trade point Mopti is important also for art objects from the region, including a great variety of beads and jewellery.
 

Early in the morning, breakfast and departure to Konna.  We spend two days navigating on the River on a big covered pinasse, (local large pirogue) through the most interesting part of the internal delta of the Niger. In this region at the edge between savannah and desert the immense water basin is divided in hundreds of branches, lakes and ponds: a vast “spider web”. Villages are inhabited by Fulani, Bozo and Songhai, some reachable only by pirogue. Beautiful adobe architecture strikes the eyes: the mosques with a “personalized” style in each of the ethnic groups… the homes built along the water courses… the tiny fishermen shelters on small islands… the rangy canoes with an unique shape.

At half way the river turns into the huge lake Debo: a paradise for fishermen and shepherds. The shallow water hosts enough fish to feed the region. And when the level goes down, green grass feed uncountable herds of zebus.  We say water and mean also birds, some of them coming from Europe to escape the winter. At sunset millions of weavers fly in flocks, composing strange figures. In fact, they are “dancing” in the sky.

Lunch on board and dinner and over night bush camp in tents
 

Breakfast, then continue to cruise on the Niger River reaching Nianfounke.  At Nianfounke we take 4x4 vehicles to reach Essakane.
The festival is due to start in the evening.

Dinner and Over night bush camp on sand dunes
 

Free days to attend the Essakane Festival.

Overnight bush camp in tents
 

Breakfast and transfer to Timbuktu for a city tour.

It is a long time since travellers were martyrized on the way to Timbuktu: "To begin from the top: I have five saber cuts on the crown of the head and three on the left temple, all fractures from which much bone has come away, one on my left cheek which fractured the jaw bone and has divided the ear…" (Major Gordon Laing).

Nevertheless, Timbuktu is still a myth. A myth can be disappointing.

In the XIX century: "I looked around and found that the sight before me did not answer my expectations. I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of Timbuktu…" (René Caillié)

In the XX century: "For some people, when you say 'Timbuktu, it is like the end of the world, but that is not true. I am from Timbuktu, and I can tell you we are right at the heart of the world." ( Ali Farka Toure)

Better to undress all the expectations and to walk in the sandy streets… Djingereber Mosque, built in the 14th century, the oldest clay building in Africa, … houses in clay and gray stones arriving from the area surrounding the city… small markets with few dry vegetables, some slabs of salt, a lot of leather crafts.

At sunset the sky is still 'pale red as far as the horizon' like at the Caillié’s time and the town regains the vivacity that it has never lost. Rich merchants, elegant women, smiling kids walk in the street and socialize. Timbuktu is still today the major “caravan terminal“ of all the Sahara, beyond any postcard cliché.

"There are several Timbuktus", says B.Chatwin: the one in the reality and the one in our dreams.

A visit to the town is difficult because visitors would like to confirm the dreams they have about the town, instead of taking and appreciating what they meet. It is true that the town can be disappointing: Mud and dust every where; kids running after the tourists and begging attention and money. And the local tour guides are “masterized” on tourist tour of the town. They show always the same things to every body.

So, as result of that, there is another portion to the reality in Timbuktu: the one which is shown to the tourists and the real one where local people live, work, enjoy the life.

Breakfast and transfer to Douentza.  The Gourma region spreads out between Douentza and Timbuktu, a region signed by desert steppes. Thanks to its micro-climate, protected by the Niger River which frames it.  The region is a land of savannas mixed with dunes, in the Gourma region we could meet a lot of Fulani, Tuareg and Bella camps (ancient slaves).

We reach Gandamia Mountains and we visit a narrow village hidden in the mountains.  Arrival in Douentza evening time.  Dinner and O/N at bush camp, in tents
 

Breakfast and transfer to Koundou following the Bandiagara cliff, the drive offers amazing scenery and stops for photos.  Lunch at Campement.

In the afternoon a brief excursion on foot will lead us in a tiny village hidden in a huge cave in the escarpment, and not even indicated on the maps. We will meet the Ogon, the great priest. The Ogon’s house, half home and half cave, is an important shrine for the hunters’ cult: from the wall stick out animal skulls, ritual objects and wooden statues that carry recent traces of sacrifice… A water spring in a crack of the rock allows the complete autonomy of this magic village, protected from all external looks.

Dinner and O/N in tents at Campement
 

Breakfast and half a day trekking on Dogon escarpment.

A path across stones and some millet reaches a hidden village. A dozen people live in an open cave… some adobe dwellings… a spring in the middle… fresh water nourishing generations of lucky families…. Beside the spring the house of Hogon (the high priest) displaying fetishes and trophies. Two items reunited in one single activity: hunting, privilege of a special cast, and challenge to wild forces of the nature, needing spiritual protection. The voice of people resonates in the cave, and from there to the rest of the valley.

In the afternoon watch a dancing masks display.  Dogon masks have deep eyes, framed by vertical and parallel lines. A kind of rectangular box looking at you from an other world. Pure cubist art, with on top of all, the soul of a population living in communion with spirit of ancestors, nature, stars. They dance al together in a circle, accompanied by drums. Afterwards, group-by-group, they run in the ring and start dancing every one with his peculiar movements.  Just men stand in front of the masks. Women stay away, on the clay roofs of surrounding houses. Even if a taboo for them, they do not want to miss the performance. Masks are related with death and funerals; women are related with birth and life. They have opposite and complementary roles. Better to avoid any unfortunate clash.

 

Breakfast and departure by 4x4 to discover the Dogon flat land.  The landscape is characterized more and more by huge millet fields. They provide food for large villages communities. They are inhabited by Dogon, on a flat land dominated, far away, by the famous Bandiagara escarpment. This flat land has been populated for the last century. Dogon, looking for land, moved from the cliff back to the low land. The links to their original villages: giant granaries with an anthropomorphic façade, looking at the visitors (they seem to say: "Be careful… we saw you coming…”; Togu’na (men shelters) with carved pillars representing the ancestors figures are settled in middle of the village, silent witness of a long history and rare example of tribal art still in its natural frame; old bearded figures walking in the dusty paths or sitting in the Togu’na. Generous enthusiasm accompanies every new visitor.

A picnic lunch followed by an afternoon drive to Bandiagara
 

Breakfast and departure to Segou.  Visit a cave beautifully painted with design made of the classical cosmogonist colours of African people (white, red and black) receive a detailed  explanation about the initiation rites that every 3 years take place in this natural amphitheatre.
Stops on the way to visit Bobo and Bambara villages with lunch at a local restaurant.
 

Breakfast and departure to Bamako for a City tour. 

Bamako, is the capital of Mali.  The administrative buildings have the marks of beautiful Neo-Sudanese style. The museum is the best ethnographic museum in West Africa. Its great collection displaying the beauty of African shapes contains ancient art objects of astonishing beauty. We will admire masks, ritual sculptures, archeological terracotta’s, textiles, musical instruments, tools, and traditional weapons…
We visit also the blacksmiths, expert in turning every thing into every thing else.

Some day use rooms are available for a last shower before transfer to airport and end of services.