Vacation in Mali and SIAO

The Pays Dogon is a part in the south-west of Mali were you can find a lot of still quite original villages along a huge cliff. It is the first tourist attraction of Mali (i think) but it seemed still quite untouched. We were driven by 4x4 to the first village and then continued the next 5 days walking from village to village along the beautiful countryside with a guide and a porter who carried our water. The villages are partly built in the mountain and there were rests of small houses of the "Tellem" an old tribe of pygmees (small people) which still exists in burkina faso they say. We visited 2 villages a day. In the evening we could take a warm bucket shower and they made dinner for us. At night we were sleeping on the roof under a moskito-net because it was too hot inside the houses! It is still so warm outside at night that you don't even need a sleepingbag! After pays Dogon we visited Mopti the so called Venice of Mali and (well there was the Niger crossing) and Djenne an old style maroccian influenced beautiful city where all the houses were built with the same material and doors and windows have beautiful ornaments.

Saturday we have been to the SIAO the african International Arts and crafts fair wich was at least more a tourist-fair were you could buy all the beautiful souvenirs of west-africa at one place. Sadly there was nothing from south and east africa... but we made some nice shopping and could see different tribal-dance performances...

Now we are in Dedougou since tuesday, more about here next week...

H.A.M.