Submitted by rootsinafrica on Sun, 03/08/2008 - 08:48.
We arrived in Bamako on time to go to the museum after we impressed
ourselves with our navigation skills by driving straight to the hotel despite
the normal African city madness of Bamako.
We checked in to Hotel Tamana in the
hippodrome area (still to this day have not seen the famous hippodrome…does it
actually exist?) and got into a taxi to take us to the National Museum of Mali.
Thank goodness we did that
as all of the sudden it was as if all hell broke loose in the streets of Bamako. Due to the
eternal English/French problem we were unable to ask our taxi driver the reason
for the 10’s of thousands of scooters and motorbikes with screaming drivers and
passengers that swamped the streets. That was until we reached the football
stadium on our way to the museum. We, for the first time saw in real live
Football (or Soccer as we know it) African style. We thought it was the
national team playing as there were thousands of people in the stadium which
was bursting at the seams, that is besides the people hanging on to the
floodlights, the fences and sitting on the cliff sides around the stadium and
those queuing to get in or arguing with ticket sellers!! To our surprise we
heard that it was only 2 local Bamako
teams playing. Well, here comes 2010 SA, be prepared!!
The cliffs around the stadium
Entrance to the museum
I have been addicted to
museums ever since I have been a child in Luderitz and I had to wait every
Saturday for my parents to finish their tennis games/socials across the road
from the local museum. I spend hours there and I am sure this was the reason
for my Archaeology studies as well as my constant search and visit to every
museum I could find all over the world. The Mali National museum is small, but
the masks and various items are well displayed and I am sure the descriptions
explanatory if we could just read it as they were all in French! We were also
so proud to find that one of the special exhibitions was of paintings/drawings
by a South African artist from Soweto Titus Matiyane . The drawings are huge
pieces, some up to 12 metres long, of 3 dimensional views of cities all over
the world, New York, Dar
Es Salaam, Durban,
Pretoria etc. What a nice surprise.
Bamako riverside, Africans clearly do not use their rivers for relaxation and tourism!!
We spend the next day
getting our Mauritanian visas at an astronomical price, going to the German
Consulate to try and extend my Schengen visa or at least get some info on how
to be able to stay in Germany
for a year. Despite the lady assuring me that I have an excellent command of
the language, they were not prepared to help…..because the rules you know!
We thankfully met up with
our friends Renate and Reinout again and spend our last (or so we thought)
night in Bamako
having a great supper and lots of wine and Flag beer (Stews new favourite)