Shitty border

After the soldiery evening we headed towards Mali on quite decent roads. Waking up again on the noisy, bumpy bus, so shitting only on the Mauritanian border. The Mauritanian border is quite developed, there are two buildings! Sitting soldiers are around everywhere. I asked one of them where the toilet was and he just pointed out the open fields behind him. I pass some donkeys and go behind a bush, skiflying position taken, and action. Meanwhile all the guns from the jeep turn towards me. I’m not sressing out, I just shit with guns pointing me out for the first time in my life.

On the Mali side there’s nothing unusual, although Aravind has to tell the officer what to write what in the form. The border is very funny, as there’s only a hut in which a guy is sitting in his uniform and a pair of slippers. And instead of goats we see donkeys here.

Mali is a nice place

Compared to Mauritania Mali is the paradise itself. The terrain is getting greener and the trash is significantly less. Proceeding South more we pass more and more villages with mud wall huts than nomadic tents. There are markets by the road. The meat rottens on the sun, just like up in the North, but we can find grocery items around here as well. And the most significant difference: we can buy alcohol! And something interesting: almost all the restaurants have a Maggi sign painted on the front. That’s about the authentic local food.

When we stop 200 children are surrounding us right away, the usual ’give me a present’ situation. The Mali people, especially the women have a very beautiful poise, maybe due to the fact that they carry everything on their heads. We should introduce it in Europe too. Many locals have flashy brand new mobile phones, and not from the 30 Euro category. It feels strange when a person who has better mobile phone than me begs for my dirty trainers.

We camp on the savannah, set up a big fire and have the left over beer. Unfortunately we didn’t buy goatmeat, so we have to eat what we brought.

The stars shine extraordinarily bright. The Kevin couple and the Norwegians climb on the roof to sleep, and Attila, Tamás and I stare for long at the burning out fire. A beautiful night.