Mali – Advice for trekking in the Dogon

I would rate trekking in the Dogon as the very best thing I did in West Africa, and probably in the top five things I did in the whole of Africa. I cannot recommend it highly enough.  The sights were amazing and the people were wonderfully friendly and welcoming…… my top tips!

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Yougadougourou

My favourite places to visit

 

  • Yougoudougourou – best up close tellum houses and a fabulous gorge to traverse
  • Youga Piri – lovely setting and view with great tellum houses
  • Kani Bonzon – historically interesting and little visited, the first village settled in the Dogon
  • Ende, Ireli, Kani Kombole – nice well kept valley villages with good hillside ruins and nice mosques
  • Begnimato – plateau village set in spectacular rock scenery
  • Koro, Youga Na, Soninghe and Tiogou – little visited by tourists, these offer an entirely authentic village experience (no cokes to be found)

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Favourite hiking sections

  • Natural tunnel path from Soninghe to Ende,
  • Ascent from Djindalou to Aindelou through a hidden chasm in the rock
  • Climb from Youga Na to Yougadougourou through the narrow canyons and round to Youga Piri jumping over the insanely deep crevasses

In my view the plateau in general is better hiking terrain than the valley, and I really like going up and down the cliff rather than just walking along the valley, it is much more interesting (albeit more strenuous)

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Getting organised/guides/transport etc

Mali is one of the few places I have been where I prebooked everything. As far as I could tell it would be easy and safe (if time consuming and uncomfortable) to get round the country with bush taxis. I didn’t have a lot of time and had overly heeded the warnings of the foreign office and so arranged private transport everywhere (which was expensive but worth it).
I cannot recommend more highly the services of Monique Teggelove at Papillon Reizen. She was amazing, crafted a great itinerary for me, made sure it all flowed seamlessly, and paired me up with the perfect Dogon guide for my fitness and interest levels (Mamadou Traore from Bandiagara who was hands down the best guide I have ever had in my life!!!! – thoughtful, lovely, kind, fit, wise, delightful and he knew everybody). I even got to have a divine lunch with her and her partner Ibrahim on the river whilst I was passing through Segou! I found Monique through friends who had also worked with her and were equally complimentary. If you want to go to Mali, definitely give her a call.

6174638336_img_0544.jpgWhen to go

I think you would need to be a masochist, a desert nomad, or in training for the marathon des sables to come in May when I did (temperatures in the 40s). I loved it, but suspect it would have been easier in November/December when the days are sunny and warm and the nights are cool. I didn’t see a single tourist in five days as it was the hot season, but given current politics I don’t think you risk being overrun with tourists even in December.

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A couple of suggestions

  • Dogon villages have been hit hard by the lack of tourists in the past five years, some more so than others. As a result I spent more money than I normally would buying drinks and souvenirs, and I honestly didn’t even negotiate unless the price was insane (I was once asked for €140 for something which I had already been told was €10). Ask your guide which villages would benefit most from your custom – Yougapiri and Yougadougourou stood out to me as places where living was difficult – and buy your souvenirs there
  • Villages which have seen frequent tourists are evident from the kids asking for bonbons and bidons (lollies and bottles). The locals hate the tourists for creating this dynamic. Remember that in Europe a stranger coming into town giving away sweets to kids would be arrested for being a paedophile. If you want to do something nice for the village, go give some money or supplies to the chief or the school teacher
  • Your guide will likely be a devout Muslim. I only mention this as I think it is good manners to bear in mind that he (and it will be a he) will need to pray during the day. I let my guide know I was always happy to stop whenever for the 5-10 minutes that takes. I had a drink and he would pray. If your guide suggests a five minute pause, he probably wants to pray and doesn’t want to say so, so take the five minute breaks when offered
  • Facilities are basic, obviously don’t expect running water or electricity or much in the way of sanitation. You can wash, but remember that a women or girl has carried the water up to a kilometre for you to do so, and that the wells aren’t always reliable in the desert, so use water sparingly.

6241675440_img_0154.jpgItems I would definitely pack again

  • Sawyer water filter and platypus…. pump water was high quality and mineral water is rarely available, definitely not available in remoter villages and most people porter it in. It’s faster, cheaper and better for the environment to filter your own
  • Nuun zero electrolyte tablets – a must given how much salt and minerals I was sweating out
  • Lightweight trekking Umbrella – without question the thing that saved me from heat stroke. Hats only shade your face and I also find they make my head to hot. I would have not made it without the umbrella
  • Blow up sea to summit pillow – I can’t sleep without a good pillow and this is the business
  • Silk sleeping bag liner – helpful for a few cold nights and when the mattress wasn’t super clean. In December you would want a summer weight sleeping bag. Note I considered taking a thermarest and am glad I didn’t as never needed it
  • Robust battery pack – it might be possible to charge devices occasionally off the solar panels at the camps but I found it easier to carry my heavy but robust battery which can charge my iPhone nine times
  • Apart from that I took just two changes of clothes, basic toiletries, toilet paper (not available) and a few snacks. I rinsed and dried my clothes each night (using less than a cup of water). Snacks are not necessary to bring as there were places to buy peanuts and fruit in most villages, but do try and take lots of small money with you otherwise you might need to wait an hour when you buy something for them to find change.

Bandiagara, Mali, May 21, 2017

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Mali – Day 3 in the Dogon, Konshugo, Dourou, Nombori, Idyeli Na, Komokani, Tereli, Amani, Ireli (31k, 44 Celsius)

I woke up at three a little bit chilly, and I didn’t have a blanket so I grabbed another mattress and chucked it on top of me and went back to sleep until five. After breakfast of mango jam, laughing cow and bread we wandered along the stunning rocky escarpment to Konshugo.

Dourou well

This is a bit the conundrum of the Dogon – the landscape on the top of the escarpment is incredible, wonderful rocky formations and mini canyons everywhere with hidden features, but the downside of taking the literal high road is that you don’t get to see the cliff itself with the wonderful tellum houses clinging to the side. Walking in the valley gives you that and it is flat, but the path is sandy and hot and without the endless views over the plain. We are doing a good job of mixing up the two….

Near Dourou

After an hour and a half along the clifftop we reached Dourou – a large and not particularly lovely village, but we stopped to chat to a few locals and then walked some more through the surreal rocks. We eventually started the descent to Nombori. It was hot and I was struggling to concentrate. Unbelievably it was hotter than yesterday. As I was navigating my way down two ladders hanging on the hillside thinking ‘shit this is a bit steep’, Man put things into perspective by telling me this is the route the village women take to come up to the market carrying at least one child and with a 30kg load on their heads. Yup – time for me to harden up.

Descent to Nombori
Descent to Nombori

We reached the bottom and I had to have a shade break. I’d had the umbrella up since 6.45am, but I needed both hands on the way down the hill and by the time I reached the bottom I thought I was going to melt. Even the locals aren’t moving much today! Most of the men we are passing are horizontal in the shade even at 9.30am (of course the women are still working). Ten minutes of sitting, and my core temperature had dropped below 100 and I was ready to go again. We took it ‘deggy deggy’ (Dogon for slowly slowly) and ambled along the side of a dried up river bed with beautiful red dunes on one side and the red Dogon cliffs on the other. Beautiful.

Along the dried up river bed

We made a couple of my friends along the way who treated us to some baby mangoes. We ate as we walked with juice dripping down our faces! Honestly the mangos at home don’t taste anything like this. It is almost enough to stop me dreaming about ice or cold drinks (not quite).

Lunchtime nap spot

We made it to Komokani around 10.45 and decided to stop as the next village is an hour away and it is already baking. I had two warm cokes with salt mixed in and a litre of electrolytes and lay down in the shade. They are experts here at figuring out the coolest place to rest, so I am on the roof under an awning with a mattress. Luxury, although I am still sweating buckets lying completely still.

Heading to the Tereli market

Lunch was more mutton, but this time with couscous. It tasted great but like most meals here was pretty gritty, and there were lots of bone hunks! After a bit more lying about sweating, we managed to rouse ourselves out of the heat stupor at 3.15 to head 4K to the market in Tereli.

Tereli market

The market was lovely, but I must confess that the most exiting thing about Tereli was that it had a fridge and so I had my first cold drink in three days. A coke and a sprite in quick succession. I hate coke, I never drink it, occasionally having a Coke Zero if I am super thirsty, but here it works magic to keep me hydrated and not thirsty if I throw some salt in. The chief of Tereli spent a good 20 minutes trying to persuade me to have kids…. his logic being that we all need someone to leave stuff to. I told him I wouldn’t care when I was dead, which he found extremely perplexing :-).

Ireli – the conical cliffside houses are just visible midway up

After chatting with the locals at the market in Tereli, we headed off to Ireli. It was a long 7k on the sandy track which made it feel like every step took twice as much effort as normal. Ireli is also an exceptionally long village, and it was 2k from the beginning of the village to where we are staying – it felt like a long way at the end of the day :-).

Sand dunes across the river bed

Ireli is perched on a hillside, with the new huts cascading down the hillside under the ancient cliffside houses that the Tellum used to live in. The houses are carved out of the side of the cliffs in ridiculous places and they used to climb down ropes from the cliff tops to get to their front doors. It is really stunning. The only downside is that as we are at the bottom of the hill, as I wrote this I had a large group of kids standing up the hill, on a rooftop looking down on me, chanting ‘ca va, la bonbon’ (basically asking for lollies) for a full ten minutes. There are upsides and downsides of being the lone tourist…. sometimes the attention is lovely, sometimes (especially when I am hot and tired) it can be a bit overwhelming.

Clouds threatening at Ireli

We stayed with the Chiefs son in a lovely large compound which actually had a tap with hot water to wash in – amazing. A couple more salty cokes, some delicious couscous and even more mangoes later and I was ready for bed.
However it was a bit of a challenge deciding where to sleep. The sahel winds had whipped up a sand storm off the Gondo plain and it was impossible to be outside with all the dust, we were also possibly expecting some rain, but I just couldn’t bear to sleep in the room as it was a baking hot sauna. So, we waited it out in the chiefs living room which at least had a breeze until 8.30 when I really wanted to sleep. The room was still a furnace so I took my chances on the roof with the dust, but left all my stuff in the room as the chief was pretty sure it was going to rain. I had to stop writing on the roof as couldn’t see anything with the dust howling in my face and getting in my eyes.

May 19, 2017 Ireli, Mali

Mali – day 2 in the Dogon – Soninghe, Ende, Yabatalou, Doundjouro, Aindelou, Begnimato (30k, 42 Celsius)

The donkeys started braying at 4am and the cocks joined them soon after. I hadn’t slept brilliantly but at least I was cool and had no mozzie bites. It was blissfully cool this morning. I started packing up at 5 as breakfast was scheduled for 5.30, and we were supposed to hit the road by 6 west African time. So, we did pretty well heading out at 6.30.

 

Chief in the Togu na (talking house) Soninghe
While it had felt blissfully cool, the moment we started walking I started sweating, and didn’t stop all day. After an hour or so we arrived in lovely Soninghe, a tiny village with no road access. I went to visit the chief, and the various talking houses (togu na) where the locals resolve disputes….all manned by old men with pipes and wonderful wrinkled faces. We also visited a lovely Animist temple. I love how the muslims, christians and animists can all get along peacefully.

 

 

Animist priest in front of temple at Soninghe
We strolled along the escarpment saying good morning to the women pounding the sorghum, one got me to have a go – it’s a decent arm work out.

 

 

Pounding sorghum in the early morning- Soninghe
After an hour we descended down a steep canyon and through a natural tunnel to get to the valley. It was stunning, like Utah but with a few more trees. I was lucky, most tourists aren’t agile enough to come this way apparently, it was steep, rocky and baking hot but worth it.

 

 

Men in front of the Toguna in Soninghe
We stopped for an hour in Ende. Man caught up with his relatives and I climbed up the hill with a young guide to check out the amazing village wedged in the side of the cliff. The views were stunning and it was worth the baking heat to get up the big hill. Ende is a big village with road access, and you can see they are still hopefully awaiting the return of the tourists, they still have souvenirs shops.

 

 

Beautiful dogon gate – Ende
A few women tried nicely to sell me some things but I politely declined…. given I am carrying everything myself I don’t want to add to the load. From Ende we set off up the valley in the baking heat along the cliff base.

 

 

Traditional house paintings – Ende
Animal teeth embedded in the walls of the cliff houses – Ende
By the time we had arrived in Yabatalou (20k from Djiguibombo) at 11.30 I had drunk 6.5 litres of water and electrolytes and was still thirsty…. not surprising given it was over 40 degrees. I poured a cup of water over my head, blew up my pillow and lay down in the shade to cool down and wait for lunch. Lunch is a long affair as they have to make a fire, and we aren’t in any hurry as Man doesn’t want to leave until 3 at the earliest as neither of us want to bake in the heat of the day!

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Lunch was preceded by the wonderful local tea. It’s so strong I am pretty sure it is thoroughly cleaning out all my pipes, and so sweet it sets my teeth on edge. I find it amusing to share the same glass with everyone in the courtyard, and it is obligatory to drink three cups, I hope I am not giving them any germs!
Lunch was another good greasy salty pasta, just what I needed. Followed by another astoundingly good mango. Then Man sorted out a mattress on the roof in the shade and sent me off to lie down and do nothing for a few hours. Doing nothing still made me sweat :-).

 

Doundjouro Market
We summoned up the courage to leave the shade at 3pm. Man had tempted me by talk of a colourful village market at Doundjouro, 2.5 k further on. It was fantastic. I got mildly freaked out by the stares at the beginning, and then realised it was my shorts that were causing the problem (even though they went past my knees) so I whipped out my head scarf and tied it round my waist to cover any inkling of my lady bits and the locals became much more friendly. After a couple of just ok meals, Man used this as a good opportunity to make sure we had a good dinner tonight. Fresh mutton! So fresh they offered to throw in the head too. Hmmmmmm. And some more mangoes.

 

 

Aindelou village from above- with the animist temple to the left
Man gave me the option of a steep uphill climb to the top of the cliff to the next village, or an easier route to our eventual destination. Up the steep hill we went. It was a stunning well hidden path from the valley to the top of the escarpment through a narrow cleft! And Aindelou was worth the climb, a lovely red village!

 

Benigmato village camouflage in between the rocks – the one on the left represents the catholics
From there we wandered through the surreal rocky landscape to the village of Begnimato. The village has three sections – christians, muslims and animists. And there are three towering rocks in front of the village to represent each religion. We stayed with Daniel the village chief in the Christian section. By the time I arrived I had already drunk 11 litres of water and was still thirsty. I had sweated so much that my tshirt was white with salt, and I hadn’t peed for four hours. Luckily Daniel sells coke, so I had two with salt thrown in which seems to have helped.

 

 

Monkey skulls on the animist house at Benigmato
I had a chat to a few local women. Like much of the world the women here work harder than the men! They dont stop from when they wake up to when they sleep – carrying water, gathering wood to cook, managing the garden, cooking, cleaning, going to market. These women are as strong as oxen and I saw many of them breastfeeding on the go, while carrying substantial loads. The men here work quite hard too, and most men were busy a lot of the day, but the definitely had time to lie around drinking beer and smoking their pipes in the village talking houses.

 

 

Men walking home from the market
Dinner arrived eventually around 8.30. The stew was delicious, the mangoes even better. By nine pm I was on a mattress on the roof ready to snore! I lay there watching the stars and the lightning far in the east and tried to ignore the donkeys. What an amazing day!
Begnimato, May 18, 2017

 

Benigmato at dawn with the ladies carrying the first water of the day

Mali – day 1 in the Dogon, Kani Kombole, Kani Bonjon, Koro and Djiguibombo (20k, 38 Celsius)

After just one afternoon I was in love with Dogon country….where I was the first tourist in six years to visit one of the more remote villages! I can’t recommend a visit more highly!

 

Classic Dogon door Kani Kombole

The Dogon is a world apart from Mali, even more traditional, and I suspect many customs haven’t changed in hundreds of years. I am lucky, as I will get to see all of the tourist highlights of the Dogon during my trip…. four days, 125 km of hiking. Not much by my standards but the average temperatures at the moment are in the 40s so I expect it might be a bit more challenging. It is a huge shame that tourism has all but stopped here since the war broke out in 2012, and the foreign office still advises against all travel here. I was lucky I had had some friends who had visited earlier in the year and assured me it was extremely safe and one of their highlights of west Africa! They weren’t wrong!

 

 

Cows and carvings – Kani Kombole

I came into Mali over land from Burkina Faso, a border very few tourists cross. It was weird entry, they didn’t believe the visa stamp I showed them was actually from Mali and they kept trying to point to the Turkmenistan stamp. After several people scrutinised it, including the station chief, then decided it was ok. Oddly, they then didn’t give me an entry stamp.

 

 

Mud Mosque – Kani Kombole

We were the only car on the road between Koro and Kani Kombole, the start of the hike. There was a smattering of motorbikes but most people were in wagons drawn by donkeys or emaciated horses. It set the right scene for arriving in the Pays Dogon.
I met my charming guide, Mamadou (‘Man’) in Kani Kombole, a decent sized village with 4wd access to the highway. Man has an enormous friendly grin and legs as long as a giraffe. By all accounts he is the strongest walker in the Dogon, and seems happy to do some decent distances (significantly more than most tourists do).

 

 

Cliffside houses – Kani Kombole

We had a quick look around the village – my first sight of the houses built into the cliff side. As the dangers from animals and people have receded the villagers have started moving down to the base of the cliff.

 

 

Cheeky kids – Kani Kombole

In Kani Kombole the village in the valley was lovely with a lovely mud mosque, some wonderful carvings and beautiful baobabs.
We headed off on our hike. Luckily it was not too hot i.e. It was only 37 degrees. When there was a breeze and I had my umbrella up it was bearable on the flat, but climbing up the cliff in the full sun without a breeze was a killer. On the way I learnt the Dogon way of saying hello. It’s basically hello, how are you, how is your father, your mother, your children, your goats, your cows etc etc, with a full set of responses, finished with a ‘everyone is good’. It’s long winded, but sounds very musical, and they have made it efficient as you don’t have to stop when you talk, you just keep walking.

 

 

Sacred baobab – Kani Bonzon

We hiked up the cliff to Kani Bonzon – the very first village built in the Dogon in 1100. It is not on the tourist circuit and they hadnt seen a tourist for six years. The kids were terrified of me, but eventually warmed up. The village folk are principally animists but the three Muslim families had joined together to build a mosque. Sadly there was no well or pump, so I had to eke out my 1 litre of water for the next 7k.
I was extremely happy to arrive in Koro as was out of water and my lips were dry. I am not at all acclimatised to the heat!

 

 

Traditional weaving – Kani Bonzon

Apparently most tourists use porters to carry their mineral water, but it has created a problem where every village has kids asking for the ‘bidons’ – the bottles, literally the greeting is ‘ca va, bidon?’. I am carrying all my own stuff and so am drinking treated well water. But unfortunately my water treatment bottle cracked and I have no chemicals left, just as well I bought a back up sawyer filter. Fingers crossed for no giardia! The village kids watched in awe as I sucked down 2 litres in ten minutes.

 

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View of the Gondo plain from the plateau

They were not expecting us in Koro – there is no phone signal here. Man gracefully let me know lunch might take a long time and will be very simple. I assured him that I was happy that we would get food, whatever it might be, whenever it might come, and would not be surprised if it took 2 hours. Apparently he has had a few tourists who were surprised to show up in a remote village and not be able to order from a menu. I have been in west Africa before and am just grateful that there might be some food.

Male barns – Koro

I was given a seat of honour outside the village chiefs house and was surrounded by kids and and eventually by most of the adults in the village….., We sat in the shade and were entertained by the kids until a pretty decent pasta lunch arrived. We shared from one bowl and ate Muslim style with our right hands after having a quick wash in the bucket. And then we waited 40 minutes for the kettle to boil to make tea :-), and good tea it was, though in African style it had a bucket of sugar in it and we shared one cup between is (although being the guest of honour at least I get to go first :-))

the cool boys of Koro

From Koro it was a short stroll to Djiguibombo, 5k took us an hour and it was blissfully cool (about 32 degrees). Djiguibombo is lovely but has definitely seen a few tourists as within about five minutes I was surrounded by every kid in the village asking for bonbons. I had some fun chasing them up the street, and then played the usual game of taking their photos and showing them to them. This is genuinely the easiest way to entertain west African kids who never get to see photos of themselves.

Koro girl

I stayed at the chiefs house, as that appears to be the custom. I had the luxury of an African shower (half a bucket of water and a cup – which is all you really need). The chief is a lovely dude with two wives, twelve kids and too many grandkids to count. He is also the local healer and while waiting for dinner he treated a variety of local kids to some traditional healing (to an outsider it looked like he was stroking them and then spitting on their chests). Man had a go too, but I wasn’t in need of any healing.

Koro church

After a dinner of rice and fish sauce, and the best mango I have ever eaten, I climbed up the precarious Dogon ladder to sleep on the roof. There are a few mozzies about so Man had marshalled a small army of kids to use all of the available furniture to configure a mozzie net for me on the roof. I am being totally spoilt! It is only 8pm but we are leaving at six tomorrow and besides there is no electricity here so not much else to do once the sun goes down. I went to bed hoping I wouldn’t need to pee too much as the ladder looks dodgy enough while awake!

Nap time in Djigibombo

May 17, 2017 Djiguibombo