Crossing Mauritania: Nouakchott to Bandiagara: 12th November to 16th November

Careful consideration took place regarding our next stage. After relaxing for a couple of nights, a most welcome rest involving showering, clothes washing and most importantly, not moving! The heat in this city is stifling; it is really noticeable as there is no wind. The journey down was at least windy! We planned to make a border run in a one go, this was due to security issues along the road to Mali. The reality of the proposition did not hit home until we had reached Mali! The road was over 500miles long before the turning we needed. After an early start our great plan began to be eroded by circumstances out of our control - a local transporter lorry had jack-knifed across the road on a downward slope. With desert all around, this meant there was a queue, approximately 60 other vehicles lined the road.

We were going nowhere. Well actually this was not entirely true as other cars were working out a detour through some little villages and we decide to do likewise and, as they say, "cane it" over the sand, where we get stuck (page 3 of the sabre handbook "digging trucks out of the sand"). Time moves on slowly in the heat and eventually we get going after a massive team effort and return to the road. The jack-knifed lorry is moved and we all move. Despite the fact that the landscape was stunning, with terracotta and rose coloured dunes, soft green low spread trees, chiselled cattle with elegant camels silhouetted against the earth, there is a sense of urgency to get to the border as soon as possible and cross into Mali. We passed through Aleg with a feeling of unease, remembering that this was the place where a group of French tourists had been shot by bandits the previous year. Nothing prepares you for this town - a sea of waste and rubbish with makeshift huts squeezed together, hostile, edgy and we are out of our comfort zone.

We need to be clear of this area and it looks like we will be driving through the night. So we stop briefly and Kerry produces a Master Chef style tea from bits and pieces in the food box. Back on the road, we drive until 4.30am. At times we almost ran out of road which became track, rock and potholed. It became an endurance test for the drivers. With everyone exhausted, we stop early in the morning for a brief sleep and then push on to Foulani and then the border. Everyone, without exception, is hot and tired and the day is spent driving. Getting through the border presented the usual headaches, not helped by the Bedford demolishing the telephone wire to the customs post, but eventually we arrived in Mali and immediately felt the difference in mood and atmosphere. Donkeys are replaced by 125cc motorbikes, there are crops growing in the fields, good(ish) roads, and a much greater sense of affluence. It is now Saturday and we rough camp on the road between Bamako and Segou - a great camp where we attracted some considerable attention from the local community and ended the day by exchanging teddy bears for freshly picked groundnuts and cementing relationships.

Sunday morning and we set off early, the roads are good and busy, there is plenty of activity with people travelling to work on bikes and carts, minibuses, totally overloaded, some with goats on roof racks. We arrive in the early afternoon at the Auberge Kansayp in Bandiagara in the Dogon region of Mali. This little auberge, with its flowers, lizards and flaky paint with a river alongside full of people washing themselves and their clothes, was our starting point to meet our guide for our long awaited trek to the Dogon villages and the spectacular cliff top site of Teri. So at 7.30 the following morning three of us and Abdullah, the guide, set off in the bus. The drive itself was incredible. At first, through rich agricultural land of onions and potatoes, followed by a massive, rocky terrain, the sheer scale of the landscape with its panoramic vistas was overwhelming. The road conditions were challenging to say the least but we visited three villages and for us it was one of the unforgettable highlights of the journey. The uniqueness of the region, the architecture and culture provide lasting and rich memories. That evening, on our return, we packed up the bus and set off.

We rough camped that night and prepared to leave early on Tuesday morning to visit the largest mud mosque in the world at Djenne. To reach Djenne at this time of year we needed to take the ferry which we caught by passing through flooded fields interspersed with beautiful pools filled with white, spiky water lilies and looking like a French Impressionist painting. In contrast to this Djenne turned out to be slightly disappointing. Although the mosque itself is impressive and the shadows cast from the sun upon it resemble the abstract shapes of the local Bogolan cloth, only Muslims are allowed into the building and the town itself is not particularly appealing. We returned to the ferry and made tracks to the Mali border and Burkina Faso.