A Week in Bamako

Time for another stop for visas, this time for Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Again we managed to hit a weekend making our time in Bamako just over a week. The Burkina Faso visa was fairly easy with a simple form, half a day’s wait, and CFA24000 (€37).

The Nigerian visa was something else though. To begin with the price was different for different nationalities which made it a bit of a pain to organise for a group like ours. Within the group it ranged from CFA31000 (€47) for Norwegians to CFA75000 (€114) for Americans. On top of that there was a three page form to fill out and a processing time of three working days.

While waiting for all this to be done there was plenty of time to explore Bamako. First stop of exploration was the hospital. My throat was getting pretty bad and after a few days of living on Coca-Cola, ibuprofen, and water it was time to see a doctor. He had a quick look in my throat, prescribed some antibiotics and antibacterial mouthwash and already the next morning I could swallow without pain. Surprisingly quick, a bit too quick for antibiotics, so I guess the mouthwash was enough, or that I just got better by myself after that extra day. The hospital was a positive surprise though. Way cleaner and more efficient than I expected of West Africa and fairly cheap as well.

Bamako is built on both sides of the Niger river with two major bridges of about one kilometre each crossing it. The traffic across is terrible most of the time and seems to shift between being one-way or two-way every now and then. The city centre consists mostly of markets and gets kind of tiring after a few days seeing the same stalls over and over again.

Considering all you hear about Mali on the news Bamako felt like a relativly safe place. I did however run into a bit of trouble. While walking around taking photos an older man with an automatic gun walks up to me and, non-threateningly but firmly, asks for my phone. It turns out that the building I just took a photo of was the central bank, and banks are usually pretty high up there on the list of buildings that are illegal to take photos of. After deleting all photos of the building in front of him and a lot of apologies in a mix of broken French and English I got the phone back at least, but unfortunately I don’t have that many photos left of the city.

The highlight of Bamako was a Saturday afternoon river cruise with a great view of the city. The cruise took us down a bit along the river, stopped for a while for anyone who wanted to jump in for a swim, and then headed back up again. Of course the boat also had an esky with cold beer to enjoy in the hot weather. I also managed to get a few new pictures of the city, including the central bank (see the top photo), and this time I got to keep the photos!

In the evening after the cruise our hotel/camping organised a barbecue (amazing beef ribs!) and some local live bands. Malian music is definitely worth checking out. Fast and intense rhythms and a great way to end a good day. A week is however more than enough for Bamako. Time to get going towards Burkina Faso!