Two friends of Ashley and I, Susan and Rabayah, decided to join us for the adventure. We left our village at about 8am after eating with my friends Umars family, his wife made us rice and sauce. We biked about 40 km the first day to our friend Ryan’s village. Ryan was away, which we had known but he said we could stay at his house. The day was great, it was warm and we biked into a headwind all day but it was still a nice ride. We past little villages and farmers in their fields and we stopped and greeted everyone we met along the road.
When we arrived in Pellani (our friend Ryan’s village) we went through the protocol of going to the Chief of the Village and greeting him (as well as presenting him with a little gift of a small sac of Ku which is similar to a potato) and then going around village and greeting all of the elders, after that we settled in for the night.
The next day we got back on our bikes and started off for another 40 km day of biking. The second day we biked into an even heavier headwind which made our going slow, but we eventually made it to Borko around sunset. With some stunning views and a nice downhill decent into the valley that Borko is in the day ended up being a success.
As we rolled into the town with the sun almost set and not knowing anyone we wanted to try to find the Chief of the Villages house so we could ask him to find us a place to stay (which is standard). The first guy we met on the street we told him we had just arrived in town and we wanted to spend the night. He said no problem and took us to his house and pulled mattresses out into his concession area (what we would consider our yard) for us to sleep on and his wife cooked us rice, onions and with a little meat in it. We ate and went to bed pretty fast. That is how Mali works, you show up in a village and just about anyone will take you in…it is pretty fun. In the morning we explored Borko and our host family made us breakfast and lunch. After lunch we got into a Bush Taxi (it only comes to Borko once a week – every Monday at noon – we knew that from some friends of ours how had been to Borko before and told us the Taxi schedule) and went to Sevare (one of the biggest towns in our region).
It was a great 80 km bike ride and a wonderful visit to Borko, which is possibly the most amazing place I have been to in Mali thus far.
Onion fields along the road
rest stop for lunch
Our friend Ryan's house - where we stayed our first night
5km to Borko...this is a new road that was build last year...before that it was just donkey cart tracks
Ashley enjoying the view
Reminds me of the Southwest of our country
Ashley is becoming a biking champ
the famous Caiman alligators of Borko - the Dogon people believe the Caiman are their ancestors and so they feed and take care of these wild alligators
Ashley and I went up to have a touch
This is the concession we slept in our second night
Borko is a beautiful Oasis - the Dogon people that live in Borko grow onions, tobacco, lettuce, tomato's, garlic, peppers, and all kinds of other things...they are blessed with natural springs that irrigate their fields
Official Borko signage
Getting on the Bush Taxi - you can see they already loaded up our bikes
Ashley listening to her music sitting next to sacks of onions in the back of the Bush Taxi
