Since my last blog update my plans changed a little, i wanted to go to D'jenne on Friday, it is a few hours west of Mopti and has the largest mud mosque in Mali and was an important old trading town on the Niger river. So early on Friday morning i met a guide and told him i wanted to go, it is difficult to get transport on any day apart from market day which is Monday so i expected a bit of a wait. We took his motorbike to the gare routiere (bus station/bush taxi station) in Mopti and they said a bush taxi would be leaving soon, we got there at about 7:30/8am, i decided to wait to buy my ticket until more people showed up as bush taxis don't leave at a scheduled time, they leave when they are full. At midday the bush taxi was still sitting in the same place, empty, so i decided not to go.

Had one last night at Macs Refuge, then on Saturday i went to the Gare Routiere in Sevare (Sevare is the town i was staying in - 12km from Mopti) and brought my ticket for the bush taxi to Koro on the border with Burkina Faso. I had wanted to take a big bus from Mopti to Bobo-dioulasso in Burkina Faso but i was told that that was not possible, i had to take a bush taxi to Koro on the border, then get another bush taxi to Ouahigouya (pronounced waee-gee-ya) and from there i could get a bus to Ouagadougou (pronounced waga-doo-goo) the capital. It all sounded relatively straight foward in theory, so on Saturday morning i got to the bush taxi at 7:30am and got my ticket to Koro, we had to wait for it to fill up for it to leave, there were quite a few people so i thought we would definitly leave in a few hours. Well we finally left at about 3pm, almost 8 hours later! There was not much to do but sit in the shade and wait, luckily there was a hotel nearby where i went and got some sprite at lunchtime, but apart from that all you could do was sit and watch the lizards catch flys. The bush taxi was like a minivan, with the back all empty except for wooden boards around the edge, so we all piled in there, it was a very tight fit, and set off. First stop was the petrol station about 100m down the road, you'd think they would have filled it up during the 8 hours everyone was waiting to save time once we left! It was a slow trip over potholed roads to get to Koro, we had to go through the Dogon country again and down the escarpment. There is one part of the road where the bridge is collapsed so the driver just drove straight on through the river which provided a bit of excitement in the back of the van. There were a couple of women with babies and amazingly the babies slept straight through everything, we were all bouncing and sliding everywhere as we went along the road and they just slept through it! We stopped in a town called Bankass so some people could pray, others had some dinner. I got some food and a drink, then we carried on to Koro, arriving at about 7pm. I had got up so early that morning to ensure i didn't arrive anywhere new after dark but there wasn't much i could do about it at that point! On arrival in Koro the whole town was pitch black apart from the odd blue mosquito light, you couldn't see anything! A man who had been sitting next to me in the bush taxi said "Le Campement?" and i said "oui" and he signalled for me to follow him. I told him i wanted to stay at the Aventure Dogon Campement and he said OK and told me to follow him, he didn't speak any english so i just followed him cause there wasn't much else to do. The streets got really dark so i got my head torch out, the sky looked amazing but i was more concerned about how far away this Campement was! Before long we arrived at the Campement and a man showed me to a room, it was very basic, the bathroom was really gross and there was no electricity and no fan which made for a very hot night - and explained why there were no lights in the town.

The next morning i got up early and told the guy i wanted to get a bus to Ouahigouya which is a town on the Burkina Faso side of the border. He went out into the street as i ate my breakfast in a nice shady courtyard and came back after about 10mins and said i could get one that was leaving soon. One of his mates gave me a ride on the back of his motorbike to where the bush taxi was leaving from and i got my ticket and sat down to wait, that was at about 7:30am. There were quite a few people so i didn't think i'd have to wait long, we left at about 9am which was good time. The van was a pretty rickety old thing that would have comfortably seated 12 people including the driver, but they managed to fit 19 people including the driver, 2 babies and a chicken in there, it was pretty cramped! We set off and drove for about 2 hours, then crossed the Malian border control quite efficiently. Then began a series of breakdowns, in the beginning we all just sat in the van and waited while they tried to fix whatever was wrong, but the van started making funny noises and it started filling up with smoke inside so we all scrambled out pretty quickly. We thought they'd fixed it and tried to set off again but 5 minutes later there were worse noises and more smoke so we all got out again in a major hurry and it looked like we would be stuck there for awhile. We were in the middle of nowhere, there were small scrub bushes that we all tried to find shade under, but it was pretty uncomfortable and hot. We watched as they took the back wheel off and tried to fix the problem, but eventually they gave up and called someone back in Koro to arrange another van to come and take us to Burkina. That was at 11am, by 3pm the new van still hadn't turned up and we were all getting very thirsty as water was running out and we were sitting in the heat of the middle of the day, it was so hot that the chicken that was alive and well at the beginning of the journey was now dead, i felt so sorry for it. At least with the sun moving across the sky we got a bit more shade! Not much other transport was going past so we just had to sit and wait. I hadn't brought any food with me as this was supposed to be a 2 or 3 hour journey, well i regretted that decision, i was so hungry! It wouldn't have been so bad if i'd had some food, and more importantly, some water!! I got talking to a man who spoke good english, when i told him i was from New Zealand he told me the rugby score from the France vs NZ game, so even when you're stuck in the middle of absolute nowhere you can still find out the rugby scores!! I was really glad that guy was there as he could tell me what was going on, everyone was speaking in Bambara so it was impossible for me to pick up on what they were saying, if they were speaking French at least i could get an idea of what they were talking about, so i was glad this guy could let me know what was happening! Eventually at about 3pm just as i had decided to start rationing my water cause i was so thirsty and running out fast, another bush taxi arrived coming from the other direction, they had a big container of water so we all rushed over and filled up our water bottles, i tried not to drink too much as it would have been local water that probably would have made me sick if i'd drunk too much. At about 4pm another bush taxi arrived from Koro, most of us got our bags and squeezed into that abandoning the broken one. After about half an hour we arrived at the Burkina Faso border, that was pretty straight foward, i was the only one who had to go and sit in the passport control office while they checked my passport. I think it must be a very quiet border post as the man had a bed in the office.

After passport control we had to go and get the luggage checked, they had water and soft drinks here, it was heaven!!! I drank a large fanta in a matter of seconds and brought some water as well! As we were getting our bags checked the original bush taxi i was on that had broken down turned up, sped through customs and was back on the road again while we were still going through formalities, i wasn't even annoyed at that point, at least i was in a vehicule that could move. Although in saying that, both bush taxis could only get started by being push started by about 4 or 5 men. So that meant all women had to sit in the back so the men could get in and out easily to help start it up.

After customs, it was back on the road, i was really relieved, and then we stopped again!!! We had to get our passports checked by some military guys, they looked at mine for ages then asked me what my nationality was, quite amusing. After that we left and were finally on our way to Ouahigouya!

Once again we arrived after dark, when i got off a man asked me if i wanted a hotel, i told him i wanted a taxi or a moto (motorbike) to the Hotel Dunia as it is recommended in the lonely planet. He spoke a bit of english so i went with him and we got a moto, it was worse than the usual ones i've been on, it only had a bicycle seat which he sat on so i had to sit on the metal bit above the back wheel which was pretty sore going over the many potholes!!

The hotel was really nice, it had a huge shady courtyard with comfy seats and a swimming pool (which on closer inspection was pretty dirty). I got a room and showered which felt really good after sitting in the heat and dust all day! Back out in the courtyard i met some french people who were out here because their son was marrying a Burkinabe woman, a couple of them could speak english and they invited me to join them for dinner which was nice, it was just at a table in the courtyard of the hotel. The food was amazing!!! The hotel is owned by a Syrian or Lebanese couple (not sure which) and we had salad, meat, veges, spagetti and some beautiful lebanese bread that was sooo delicious! It was the first food i had eaten all day apart from a piece of bread i had for breakfast at 7am in Koro, so i was starving! After dinner i excused myself and went straight to bed as i felt exhausted and had a great sleep under a fan!

This morning i got up early again and at breakfast the french people offered to drop me off at the bus station as they were going into town anyway. So i got a ride with them and brought my ticket at the bus station. This was a proper bus, not a bush taxi, so it left when they said it would, regardless of whether it was full or not. It felt nice to have a bit of structure, i even got a luggage tag for my bag and a proper ticket. We left at 10am as scheduled and arrived about 3 hours later in Ouagadougou. It was so nice to take a bus, they are cheaper, more reliable, run to a schedule and go faster than bush taxis. But in areas where the buses don't run, bush taxis are usually your only option. The most frustrating thing about the bush taxis is how slow they go! The fastest i've ever seen one go is about 60kph, and at that speed they are shaking like crazy! I think if they went any faster doors and engine parts would fall off, they are just so old and beaten up, just the basic parts of the car all put together, and they're pretty uncomfortable inside. I don't understand why they cost more than the buses, that is something i need to find out!

So on arrival in Ouagadougou i got a taxi to a hotel which is nice and reasonably priced, then came to use the internet, this is the fastest internet i have come across in west africa so far, it was exciting to see the web pages pop up so quickly!! Burkina Faso seems a little more modern than Mali so far, there are actual shops made out of brick or concrete with glass windows and modern looking buildings, rather than the stick shacks everywhere in Mali. Also there is a petrol station across the road from the hotel and i went in there and it was like a proper shop, they even had pringles, and packets of biscuits and soft drinks in a fridge and other packaged food and even french wine!!!! I didn't see anything like that in Mali!!

The plan from here is on Wednesday i'm going to take a bus to a town called Dori, it should take a day to get there, then from there i'm hoping to go to the Thursday market in Gorom-Gorom which is a town near the Mali and Niger borders. The market is famous as an authentic local market with traders coming from all over the region from all different ethnic groups, it's not targeted at tourists at all so i hopefully shouldn't get hassled too much?! I probably won't go to Bobo-dioulasso anymore as it would mean travelling for a day in the other direction.

It's quite exciting for me to be in Burkina Faso, it's a country i've always looked at in the atlas and wondered what it looked like and what the people were like, and what their lives were like. It's funny to think i'm actually here, and i can tell you that everything is red and green, the trees and grass are green and everything else is red. Ouagadougou is quite a nice city, much more laid back than Bamako and definitly less chaotic and crazy! I think less people speak english in Burkina Faso though which will be a bit more difficult for me, this country sees fewer tourists, i have been asked a lot if i'm a peace corps volunteer.

Well thats all for now, will update again soon!! xx

PS. i have finally put some photos up here, hope you enjoy checking them out! Sorry some of them are sideways, i tried to change it but i can't figure out how?!