The Sahel
Several uncomfortable hours pass. On one side I’m being slowly squashed by my oversized fellow passenger; on the other, I’m fighting a desperate battle for limited shoulder room. This involves tactical wriggling to maximise the amount of space I have to lean back against the seat. Any weakness shown by your opponent, the slightest hint of a readjustment of position, must be leapt upon without mercy. In this game, there are no prizes for second place; it’s him or you.
After what seems an eon, we reach Kouriame, the border post with Mali. We all shuffle out of the taxi, into the hut that doubles as the Guinean border control. The formalities are swift, and we’re ushered through to the Malian side, where the next checkpoint is customs. The official here eyes up our huge canoe, no doubt sensing the opportunity for a bribe. He points at it, demanding it be taken down; grumbling, our moody driver obliges, hefting the big bag down off the roof of the taxi.
We try to explain what it is. “C’est un bateau, comme un petit pirogue,” we explain. Pirogues are the local style of canoe used by all the local fishermen.
A pirogue in a bag? The official looks perplexed and bored. We try to make him understand, but he loses interest, the possibility of a bribe probably seeming like too much hard work. He shuffles back to his seat in the shade and waves us on our way.
One more checkpoint, this time on the Malian side, and we’re through, into country number two of the trip. Nothing looks any different. The landscape is flat and scrubby, occasionally broken by solitary rock escarpments. The villages are identical to those in Guinea – clusters of round huts, with conical thatched roofs.
This is the beginning of the Sahel, that belt of semi arid land between the Sahara to the north and the more verdant rainforests of the tropics to the south. ‘Sahel’ quite literally means ‘seashore’ – the sea in this case being the Sahara, that great ocean of sand that smothers much of northern Africa. We’re arriving at the tailend of the rainy season, so things are relatively green. But as we’ve already seen from the rapidly dropping level of the river, drier times are fast approaching and the locals are already busily burning back the fields they have just harvested in preparation for the lean months ahead.
It’s getting dark now, and all the passengers in the taxi have had enough judging by the sullen silence that has fallen. To make things worse, the good road we’ve had until now suddenly disappears, giving way to a dusty, bumpy track. The taxi’s weak headlights struggle to pierce the gloom and dust, forcing the driver to slow right down. Bamako seems like a long way off.
Tags: Travel
djnorwood