Oh my god! What a miserable night. I think a combination of hot weather, hot food, and a hot tent was more than my body could stand and it rebelled spectacularly: 5 night-time trips to the odious squat (no comfortable Western-style sit-down toilets here) for diarrhea and 1 for vomiting. I’m fairly certain this is not an infection, just a bad case of traveler’s diarrhea. God I feel terrible, but the Dragoman tour waits for no man. Sip a little tea at breakfast and then get the strength from somewhere to help load the bags into storage locker at the rear of the truck before collapsing onto a seat inside the truck. Our destination today is Begnemato and the start of a 3-day hike into Dogon country (a true highlight of Mali). Somehow I have to get better and quickly. It’s hot, of course, and I can find no relief from the miserable rebellion in my stomach or the hammer pounding inside my head. If all else fails, Christi promises me Immodium which will lock my bowels…indefinitely. Before we take such a dramatic step however, Christi resorts to her trusty box of pharmaceutical tricks and urges me to drink a rehydration pack dissolved in water. It’s like drinking salt water from the ocean. Once we reach our first stop of the day (market day in Bankass) Aphrodite offers me a freeze-dried cordial to help with the taste, but the combination is even worse causing me to vomit violently in a side alley. Fortunately, the rest of the group are exploring the town, leaving me to puke in peace. Remarkably the normally curious locals just ignore me. Feel much better after this latest vomit. Perhaps I have finally voided whatever nasty bug was inside me.
Our lunchtime stop is in Bandiagara at the Auberge Kansays and it is here that we are finally introduced to Granpere, fixer extraordinaire in Mali – at least according to Adonis. A fixer incidentally is a local expert and someone who knows how to get things done. They can, if they really know what they are doing, make your life much easier. Delicately nibble on a sandwich and then pack a bag to take with me for the trek into Dogon country. We begin our Dogon experience with a painfully bumpy ride in Tortuga (all Dragoman trucks have names!) along the rim of the escarpment. The road is truly terrible, which does nothing to ease my discomfort
Our first hike (only 30 minutes) is along the escarpment to Begnemato, a classic Dogon village. It’s about 4 pm and the ferocious heat is finally beginning to dissipate. The village sits on the top of the Bandiagara Escarpment overlooking the sandy plains of Dogon country, some 500m below us. The mud houses are wonderfully charismatic. Take sunset silhouette shot of Aphrodite who is in her element posing for the group on a rocky outcrop. Adonis looks on proudly, while Agatha Christie writes furiously in her notebook . We sleep literally on roofs in the village on mattresses provided by Granpere. Christi and I have the honeymoon suite (a roof to ourselves!). It’s another hot evening and we fall asleep staring up at a billion stars. The churning contents in my stomach have settled into a gentle ripple and I think I might just live!
Blog post by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching tale of broken hearts and broken test tubes.
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