Mali, Bamako

When we left Nouakchott in Mauri we headed inland again along the appropriately named `Road of Hope´. You hope you will get to the end of it, hope your car won´t break and hope you survive. There is also no hope for the animals here, they are not fenced in and just wander all over the road, hence you see dead camels, cows and goats at least every 100m and the car that hit them a few meters on. They of course haven´t been killed in the proper way whilst saying allahs name so they cannot be eaten as hallal meat and are just left to rot on the roadside. . . great smell! I told Adam that if we hit something we eat it, waste not, want not. I will do the whole top gear cow on roof thing if it means we get fed! This was definitely the worst road yet. We bush camped all of the way to Ayoun, which is the border town across to Mali, as there are no camp sites en-route. We can honestly say we will never go back to Mauritania as it is so expensive and corrupt. In all of the time we were there we did not pass any other travellers except for in the capital. This we think is the reason why. . . 151 police and military check points!!! We knew it would be bad after all the recent events here and in the neighbouring countries but they are not interested in your safety, all they are interested in is what you can give them. We began to dread the next checkpoints (and some were only 100m apart) as it was ´cadeux, cadeux, cadeux`, ( present or gift or roughly translated give me something )90% of the time and us getting bored of saying ´no, no, no`. It was so frustrating and irritating but we kept our cool until the 148 checkpoint. The policeman asked for our sunglasses, Adam said ´no`, he asked again, Adam said ´no` then the guy grinned and asked for all of our paperwork. We had everything so there is nothing he could have fined us on but Adam was so pissed off that he proceeded to throw every bit of paper we owned out of the window whilst shouting and swearing at him. The guy was so shocked he said he didn´t need anything else, gave us everything back and told us to go.At the customs on the Mauri side we were asked for another bribe to stamp our car out of the country, we know this is free and he said we had to pay because it was the weekend. Of course after the happenings a few meters before, we wouldn´t give them a penny. Finally on the other side of the border we both sighed and started to relax. However, we forgot to change money at the border and when we got 1km down the road we found out it was a toll road, so we had to go back to the border to get some Francs.We have been in Mali for 2 days now and not had any problems. It is hot, the roads are good, the people are great and everything is cheaper than Mauri. We went straight to the border town of Noiro to Malian customs, then to the town to get our West Africa car insurance (22000 CFA/34euro for 2month). and bush camped for the night. Yesterday we drove to Bamako stopping on the way at a petrol station for an hour where we pumped our own fuel and ate papaya with the owner and his sons. The city is huge and when we arrived we had a drive around to try and find the embassies for Monday morning and one of the many campsites. It was impossible so we had to ask around and were shown the way to each place by various taxis, cars and motorbikes. We have marked several places on the GPS but it will still be fun and games to try and get back there but at least they have road signs in this country!We are at a campsite just out of town (www.kangaba.com) and it is like paradise, hot showers, wifi, swimming pool, hammocks, animals and a bar with good food and mojitos!!! We will be staying for a few days until we get the visas for the next few countries or until we sober up but in a place like this we dont mind.

Cuando dejamos Nouakchott camino a la frontera de Mali, fuimos por la carretera de la Esperanza (road of hope) vaya que carretera con mas socavones que asfalto! velocidad media 20km/h no se como no revento el coche. Habia vacas, cabras y camellos muertos cada 100m atropellado por los coches los cuales tirado en el arcen con las delanteras reventadas, no veas el peste. Tenias que tener esperanza para llegar sanos y salvo!!
Acampamos dos noches en el campo en camino a la frontera, sin problemas ninguno.
Como siempre controles militares algunos solo 100m de uno a otro. Acabamos muy altos, contra mas nos alejamos de la civilizacion mas por culo daba. Pidiendo que le dieramos un "regalito" hasta que llegue al penultimo y el policia se puso del todo, que queria unas gafas de sol, le dije que no y se puso a pedir papeles me enfadé con el y empeze a tirarle todas las copias por la ventana y a gritarle. Se dio cuenta que me habia tocado los huevos y nos dejo pasar. Hemos contado 151 controles militares en el tiempo que llevamos en Mauritania, vaya que pais. Para rematar me querian cobrar en aduana para sellar el carnet de passage, aun estaba enritado del ultimo control y le puse las cosas claras.
Por fin cruzamos la frontera y entramos en Mali sin ningun problema.
Que diferencia de un pais a otro, ni un control militar la gente super amable y mucho mas barata
que Mauritania. Por fin empezamos a relajarnos un poco.
No quise cambiar dinero en la frontera porque dan poco en el cambio. Salimos camino a Nioro
el primer pueblo despues de la frontera, y vaya un peaje!! Tuvimos que dar media vuelta a cambiar dinero. Al menos las carreteras son buenas.
Paramos en Nioro a hechar Gasoleo con una bomba manual! y a sacar el seguro Carte Brun para los paises de Africa del Oeste, nos costo 34€ ( 22000CFA) para dos meses y a sellar el carnet de passage. Pusimos a comer una papaya con la familia del surtidor, aqui son gente de puta madre. Acampamos en el campo esa noche y a la madrugada fuimos los ultimos 260km a Bamako el capital de Mali. Una ciudad con mucha gente y ruido pero muy bien, la gente felices dar gusto estar aqui. Era sabado y fuimos en busca de las embajadas para poder marcarlas en el GPS por no tener que liar mucho el lunes cuando venimos a entregar los pasaportes para los visados de Ghana, Bukino Faso, Togo, Benin y Nigeria,
Al final y despues de muchas vueltas encontramos el camping que buscabamos a la salida de la ciudad y es el paraiso podeis ver lo en www.kangaba.com aqui nos quedaremos unos dias bañando en la piscina y tomando mojitos. Un saludo a todos.