Mali cell: +223-3099642
Thuraya Sat phone: +88216-51071135
me@christophbangert.com

Dear all,

we are in Bamako, Mali. We? Yes, we. My girlfriend Chiho joined me on my travels in Dakar and together we will spend a couple of months exploring West- and Central Africa. Chiho is a designer and photographer and we frequently collaborate on projects, the last one being the Iraq book (http://www.iraq.christophbangert.com/) which we edited and designed together. Chiho is also an excellent co-pilot, navigator, cook, and packer of things. She has the ability to make huge piles of equipment, clothes and camera gear fit into a tiny metal box.
Additionally she is an experienced video shooter and editor. We started to publish short video clips on my blog, so please take a second to check them out, along with some new still images:
http://africa.christophbangert.com/

The real reason for Chiho to be part of this trip is obviously to bring some sanity and patience into the Land Rover, which so far has worked extremely well. It has been a huge improvement for the journey to have her with me.

The last dispatch I wrote a long time ago from Dakar. In the meantime I flew back to New York to attend my sister’s wedding. This involved me being one of the groom’s men, wearing a rental tuxedo and feeling adequately awkward, giving a speech, teaching my father how to ride my old motorbike on a Target parking lot, showing up at the wedding with a rented pick up truck carrying my bike on the back (my sister is used to trouble, she just rolled her eyes…), fixing my brother in law’s car, and bringing my uncle to the doctor for the treatment of an ear infection.
After the wedding Chiho and I flew to Hong Kong and China to attend the printing of the Iraq book, which was equally exciting and exhausting because of the great summer heat in southern China and the gruesome 32 hour non-stop printing marathon that we embarked on.

Back in New York we only had three days to take care of a million things, most importantly the preparations for the Iraq show that will open on November 15th at the Redux Gallery in Manhattan.
We barely managed to catch the plane from JFK to Dakar, where we arrived exhausted and terribly jetlagged, not sure if our bodies were still on New York or Hong Kong time.
We were extremely lucky to be able to stay at Finbarr O’Reilly’s house in Dakar, where he and his girlfriend Uma provided us with a perfect place to get some rest and re-pack the Land Rover that had been blocking Finbarr’s driveway for about a month. Finbarr (http://www.finbarroreilly.com/) is a Canadian Reuters photographer who is based in Senegal and I was introduced to him by Tina, a friend and photo editor who lives in New York. Tina, Finbarr and Uma saved me and I am very grateful for their help.
Chiho and I spent about ten days in Dakar, getting sorted out and hunting for visas. Apart from visas to Mali, Ghana, Cameroon, Niger and Burkina Faso, we proudly received Chiho’s new working visa for America, at the US embassy in Dakar, which was an important step for us as we had spent many months to obtain it.

Equipped with a variety of colorful little stamps and stickers in our passports we finally said goodbye to Dakar and headed for Mali. Still in Senegal though, on the road between Kaolack and Tambacounda, we were for the first time confronted with two realities that will pose a continuing challenge on our African journey:
Bad roads and rain.

After crossing the border into Mali, which proofed to be a surprisingly straightforward procedure, we used a perfect tarmac road to go to Kayes, where we took the decision, perhaps out of guilt to be driving on such a perfect road, to try to use the 500 Kilometer, direct, almost purely off road route to Bamako that is rarely used by local traffic during the rainy season. And that is exactly what we found ourselves in: the heights of the rainy season in Mali.
Encouraged by mixed reports about the road, ranging from “the road is closed” to “there is a lot of mud, but it should be possible…”, we headed out, just to see the road blocked by a truck that had been stuck and couldn’t be bypassed after only 10 Kilometers.
Because the sun was already setting we decided to return to Kayes and try again in the morning. After stocking up on fuel, water, toilet paper and candy, we passed the spot where the truck had been stuck without any problems. All the problems started later…
We had a very interesting visit of the remains of the first French settlement in Mali, Medine, thanks to a knowledgeable young man called Abdoulaye Sissoko, who showed us around and also took us to the spectacular Felou waterfalls nearby.
What followed after this rather tranquil visit is easily the most difficult thing I ever attempted with my Land Rover. It took us almost five days to drive a distance of 160 Kilometers, or 100 Miles, from Kayes to Bafoulabe. It might have been faster to walk. We kept getting mixed reports from local travelers on the road. One of the troubles was that apart from us everybody else was traveling by bicycle or small motorbike. The only truck we encountered, and who’s tracks we followed for half a day, which filled us with great hope and joy, we found hopelessly stuck in knee-deep mud, the driver and his helpers looking exhausted and hungry. (We shared some of our imported Japanese rice with them)
But although the situation was truly hopeless at times, we somehow managed to continue. We got stuck in the mud many times. We had to dig for hours, use our sand boards and winch on a regular basis. At times we had to rebuilt parts of the road with dirt and stones after the rain had washed the even in good times poorly maintained path away.
We had great moments of joy after passing particularly difficult obstacles, like a river or a deep mud hole. Sometimes people told us that the road would be getting much easier ahead, only to be disappointed later by having to face a long stretch of wet and impassable passage. A large part of the distance that we drove I ended up walking as well. We discovered early on that it was faster to stop the Land Rover frequently to walk ahead and test the surface of the track on foot, than having to dig out the car after failing to see a soft spot on the track while driving.
The days were marked by constant setbacks, usually followed by great relieves as we continued our exploration. We visited small villages that are virtually cut off from the outside world for months during the rainy season. We met wonderful, warm and hospitable people on the way. Everybody tried to help us in any way possible. About 20 young men and boys were hard at work for about three hours, basically carrying the Land Rover down an especially muddy bank of a wide river in order for us to cross it.
I learned a lot on this part of the journey. It proofed to be not only a great, at times seemingly impossible challenge, but also in a sense a humbling experience. We are so much used to be dictating to nature our human ways that we rarely encounter the forces that nature is able to impose on us. We live on the surface of the earth and we drive over it with our vehicles. Only sometimes this nature changes from being a soft-spoken friend to an aggressive enemy that we are forced to fight against, while we quickly realize how hopeless and ridiculous our efforts are.
The true adventure of a journey like mine or ours lies not in the distance we travel, the exoticism of the countries we visit or the amount of mud holes we escape from. The challenge lies in the uncertainty of our travels. It is constantly unclear what will follow next. Disaster or revelation. Despair or hope. Mud or firm ground.
With a mixture of luck, German stubbornness, Japanese optimism, and not to forget the genius of British engineering, we somehow managed to reach the little town of Bafoulabe, where a ferry boat, that was apart from us and the Land Rover transporting a donkey and some chickens, brought us across the Senegal river.
Tired and happy we stumbled off the boat. We really made it. A great moment in our lives.
From Bafoulabe onwards the road constantly improved and a couple of days later, we reached Bamako, the capital of Mali.
The shower was heavenly. Almost a week of camping in the bush had left its marks on us. My beard almost reached my belly button. Well, almost.

Tomorrow we will continue our journey through Mali, stopping in Djenne to see the famous mud (!) mosque, Mopti, the Dogon country, Timbuktu and Gao. Niger will be the next country we visit. At the local Land Rover garage we met a fellow traveler, Arle from Norway. Since February 2006 he and his great Defender are on the road in Africa, traveling from South Africa home to Norway, visiting every single African country on the way. His website, which features Chiho and me today can be found here: http://www.cape2cape.no/

Best
Christoph.

Christoph Bangert
-photojournalist-
currently in Mali,
on the way to South Africa
Mali cell: +223-3099642
Thuraya Sat phone:+88216-51071135
me@christophbangert.com
http://www.christophbangert.com/
http://www.iraq.christophbangert.com/
http://www.travelnotes.christophbangert.com/
http://africa.christophbangert.com/
http://www.laif.de