Adventurizing

Just spent a fantastic week around the lovely town of Bobo-dioulasso in the south of Burkina Faso. Compared to Ouaga, its incredibly green. From this town I took an hours bus ride to Banfora, as much of a tourist hub as exists in Burkina, and for good reason as the surrounding areas are something pretty special.

I took an early morning bike ride along a dusty path past ox carts, donkeys, people on motos and the occasional unicef 4x4 which makes everyone stop to cover themselves from the dust, to lake tangrela in a beatiful and very rural village full of stereotypical mud huts. I took a pirogue ride on the lake. I knew that it was possible to see hippos, but that wasn't really my objective as the lake itself is beautiful and apparently you have to be there at sunrise to see thelm, and also they're the biggest killers in Africa. But I did see them. I was pretty terrified, but also pretty impressed, big pink toothy mouths sticking out of the water with a hige shadow underneath showing the sie of the beasts.

That afternoon I went with some swedish girls I'd met to an amazing harmattan-formed rock formation which has incredible views over the flat land below. I don't think Ive ever seen such a vast expanse of land. Hard to really comprehend the size of the land mass that is Africa. We also went to see some really stunning waterfalls; we made it there an hour before sunset and were splashing about on the warm rocks as the sky turned orange over the surprisingly green landscape.

The following day all four of us, a guide, a driver and our bags piled into a battered old merc to go to the village of  niansongori at the corner of burkina where cote d'ivoire meets Mali. We climbed a huuuuuge hill to see a village that had existed tehre since the 14th century and had been deserted in colonial times when the French had eventually persuaded them life might be easier if they didn't have to climb a huge cliff face every day to get water, or harvest crops. It was pretty special. We stayed in a eally chilled out campement at the bottom of the hill with no electric or running water, just hammocks, mud huts, stars, and more couscous than anyone could ever eat.

I'm heading to Mali tomorrow, but because al-quaeda have decided to spoil my fun ,its just a stop off on the way to senegal.