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We found an animal to spit roast for xmas dinner! What a mission to get there though. From Bamako we decided itd be fun to ride north of the niger river where there is in fact a marked national road. Well, it didnt pan out like that and what we expected to take 1.5 days actually took 3 and a bit. There was no road at all, at times we were riding through rice paddies and swamp lands. The canoe crossing we did into mali from senegal began to pale into insignificance after during these 3 days we did another 6. In one day we did 3 canoe crossings and even used a donkey cart (without donkey) in another to wheel the bikes across a river. We even had one crossing where the canoe was only the size of a sea kayak and balancing the loaded bike while sitting on it was real sketchy. Tipping the canoe was very possible resulting in a fully loaded bike at the bottom of the river shown in the pic above where the cattle are crossing. In other words DEEP! Fortunately we were not at all hungover and had our wits about us!
We arrived into Dogon country for an overnight hike without the bikes after crossing the Niger river to get to Mopti (not far from Timbuktu). This crossing was nearly an hour long paddle across the river. It was nice to be away from the bike for a short time while visiting some old pygmy settlements then it was off towards Burkina Faso. The people here were amazing. They are both very poor and incredibly friendly and happy. There were not any real attractions in the country but it will hold as one of the most enjoyable countries to visit for me, purely because of the people. Our Xmas was spent eating (isnt that what its supposed to be all about?! We arrived at a Syrian run hotel and splashed out here big time. Spent christmas eve getting a spit roast welded up and then on xmas day went to the market and got some meat. We ended up with a couple of roast chickens with veges for lunch and had a big goat on the spit. It was great to have enough to share around and provided us and the locals with much amusement especially since Ben and Tim, being engineers, had rigged the rotisserie with a battery driven motor so we didnt have to turn it by hand!
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