Podor in Senegal to Kayes in Mali: Doing the north run of Senegal

The entrance to our stay for the night.

Another early morning. We slept 5 persons per room in bunk beds covered by mosquito nets.

Barbara and Elizabeth were more lucky with their room. They got the De Luxe En Suite!

We had a breakfast á la Rurale.

Mo is doing the morning check-up on "The Beast".

We crossed the river Senegal to get back to our northern route towards the Mali border.

Local transport.
The interesting thing about the driving apart from too many holes was that the convoy often had to slow down to give way to goats, donkeys and cows. Hearing the CB radio warnings sent from Dirty Debbie (car number 1) such as "Be aware! Donkeys crossing!" always put a smile on my face.


Early in the trip a decision been made to have a fine system whereby Ahmed from car number 2 was in charge of registering the fines and Eammon from the riffles (car number 3) was the executer of the punishments (which we all had no idea what it would be). So, quite quickly Mo managed to be fined for abusing the CB radio system cause he thought he was a DJ. However, he got his act together and got scared of being fined again and started to behave. Half way through the journey Gus (car number 2) came up with a plot that included everyone even Barbara and Daniel to drive Mo crazy and push Mo to abuse the CB radio again. The plot was to pretend that no one could hear any transmission from our car's CB radio and also that Gus (car number 2) would come up with an alternative route to Kadiera (Senegalese borders with Mali) passing by a 350 kilometers of dirt road!! So, Gus has announced the new route and every car in the convoy has agreed the route while Mo was jumping up and down on his driving seat because he couldn't express his views that it is maddness to go into that route........ A great moment of fun!

Different ways of transport. Balance and strength, an amazing sight.

The villages are beautiful and very special. There is NO garbage disposal system so there is smelly waste littering the sides just outside all of them.

Being an arid climate with a low food supply animals find different ways of getting their needs filled. This goat like many others had ways of half climbing up the trees to reach the good stuff :)

At one of our many stops we brought out a food football and played with the curious villagers. The organizer for the whole adventure Gus is here showing his talents and impressive flexibility.

Daniel in the lack of football juggling talent is observing the spectacle from safe distance.

Barbara and Mo are talking with the children. Mo tfelt great as there were many wearing Chelsea T-shirts among them.

After a long day behind the wheels we finally arrived in Kadira, the bordertown of Senegal to Mali. It is a smelly, bustling little big town. The streets have no roads but red dusty tracks which when the cars passed threw up dust clouds behind them. In these conditions we had to criss-cross around to attain all the right car documents. Painful is the word, the word is painful..

With all papers signed and stamped we crossed the river Senegal, as this happy chap, only to fall into the hands of the Mali border control, which was one of the absolut lowest points on the whole journey (For the whole (and long) story on that you will have to buy our biography soon to be published :).

Ahmet posing during our loooong wait for the correct customs stamps, something that they seldom get right. This makes border crossing process drag out and your supposedly day behind the wheels turns into a very warm, boring wait constantly being harressed by bullish hawkers.

Good night Sahara4x Followers, wherever you are,