Neither do they get up with the sun! We were up before the villagers – but this was not surprising as their night was longer than ours.

Packed away, we asked for those villagers around us to thank the ‘chief’. He was still in bed!

Yesterday had been quite tough and we hoped that today wasn’t going to be worse…We were looking to head into Satadougou. Sitting just in Mali and only 5 Km from where we’d slept last night – what we didn’t’ realise, as its not very clear on the map or GPS, was that we needed to cross the river – a big one – that acts as a natural border between Senegal and Mali in this area. At the river there was no bridge in sight! After talking with a couple of locals we were politely informed that there was no bridge in either direction for several hundred Km and certainly no where shallow enough for us to ride across….Mmmmmmmm….Ohh Shit. The thought of riding back the way we came was stomach churning. A couple of pirogues (dug-outs, tree trunks with the centres dug out, which by some miracle float) were sitting down at the waters edge at the bottom of a steep bank. Well there’s no way our bikes will fit in those. There has to be a different way across….please…By now we’d been approached by the boatmen, who’d insisted that he could take us and that it would be no problem as his pirogue could handle a ton load. Now, this may be doing him a disservice but I couldn’t help thinking, how do you know it’ll handle a ton? Do you know ho much a ton is? A Half hour later and no miracle solution had presented itself. It was decision time. Either ride back or load the bikes one at a time into the pirogues and trust that these men can get them across. In all our time travelling, this was the first time I’ve been genuinely scared.

OK, lets do it! With a decision made we unloaded the bikes and we stripped both machines of the fuel tanks. We’ll take the most difficult bike first. The big R1100 was walked down the step bank and introduced to the pirogue. Neither of them looked terribly happy with the meeting and the pirogue almost protested as we enlisted the help of five guys to lift the GS up and into the centre of the floating trunk. The pirogue sank deep as it took the weight, with the water only now 3-4 inches from the top. By now I was already getting panicky. The bike was balanced very precariously sideways in the very unstable looking dugout. Two boatmen performed a balancing act as they climbed into the pirogue, which instantly gave up another inch of depth to the lapping water. This is madness I thought. Lisa wasn’t saying anything. The paddling started and the pirogue slowly left the relative safety of the riverbank. I thought - If this goes bad there’s no way to get the bike out of the river, its just too deep and moving too quickly, Christ I hope this works! The pirogue was moving painfully slowly. On the other side and 10 minutes later two relieved boatmen let out a big cheer…I think they had had doubts about making it! I was jumping up and down with excitement and relief. Now it was Lisa’s bikes turn. ……Please let us be lucky twice. I knew the anxiety Lisa was feeling as she watched her GS loaded into the unstable pirogue. Her bike appeared to lean over even more than mine and the boatmen worked hard to counter the weight of the leaning bike with their own bodyweight. Safely on the other side we now had to reassemble the bikes, load the kit and connect the fuel lines. The entire exercise had taken us 2 ½ hours. By now it was approaching midday and very hot. We hadn’t had any breakfast and nor had we had enough water – we were already feeling fatigued. The price arranged had been 10,000 CFA - expensive – but with the effort and time it had taken to bring us across it seemed more than fair. We paid and then there were the usual requests for ‘cadeux’ (gift). This time however we didn’t’ mind but as we don’t have much it was a little difficult. We ended up giving out a few cigarettes, an almost empty tube of ‘crazy glue’ and a key fob….but we had nothing for the two ladies that had helped.

Leaving teh river behing us, the track once again became very narrow. We entered Satadougou to frenzied cries of ‘cadeux, cadeux’ from everyone, children and adults alike. Dozens of children enthusiastically chased us through the village. Everyone we pass on the track (this is the main route through from Kedougou to Kenieba) says ‘bonjour’ and acknowledges us – they probably think we are mad! We crossed many small riverbeds (dry) all with very steep gullies and most made more difficult because of stones or rocks. We made a conscious effort to stop regularly today for fluid but with the heat and exertion it’s impossible to replace the fluid we’re loosing through perspiration. By mid-afternoon we were exhausted and over heated. The situation is made more uncomfortable as we’re still riding in full kit, what with the biting flies and likelihood of falls, riding without them was be fool hardy.

The track continued to get worse (Ooooh yessssss) with steep banks and grooves of thick mud now hard packed, volcanic shale (nasty stuff) and sharp volcanic rocks. As the afternoon went on we both were desperate for it to stop. We didn’t want to do this anymore and needed a rest and a good piste…but on and on it went. The concentration it took was high but also the physical exertion with all the slow manoeuvring round some tricky tracks was worse. It made the BMW off-road course and green laneing at home seem like a picnic! (and these you don’t do with a fully laden bike!). Exhaustion was setting in. Lisa really needed to stop and had dropped her bike several times due just to tiredness. Stopping to set up camp was impossible as small bush fires were dotted all around. We needed to get to Kenieba by this evening and never had 30km been so long! As Kenieba approached the views around us opened up and the semi-claustrophobic scenery changed for mountains and a wonderful plateau to our left.. This was the first time in a while we could admire what was around us as we’d been concentrating so hard on the 10ft in front of the bikes. Two small villages came and went prior to reaching a good piste and suddenly we were in Kenieba, what a relief.(by the way our categorisation of roads/piste has now changed and our ‘good’ is now comparable to a building site rubble road). We found an ‘encampment’ in the middle of this dusty town/village (at GPS N12 50.406 W11 14.087) where we took a room for 5,000 CFA – two foam and very dirty mattresses on the floor (I didn’t want to think about this however) but at this point we were just too tired to really care.

Sitting down in the ‘bar area’ ( a couple of make-shift chairs and a shelf on the wall with two bottle of beer covered in ancient dust)we ate fish which was cold. We think it was the regional ‘Capitanne’ swilled down with coke and beer whilst bizarrely watching the film Desperado (dubbed in French) on a double DVD player! As the film got started the number of locals increased. We were in Mali had had a dreadful day but now had beer and a DVD!

Lisa writes: It was at this time that Simon got very bad cramps and a couple of the guys had to help him to de-cramp them and walk whilst I made him a salt-water drink. He had sweated so much that his motorbike suit is ‘crispy’ with salt and my helmet is white inside with all the salt. The room was dusty and too hot but we were unable to open the window as mozzies were all around and there was nowhere to hang up the mozzie net – not a good night!

Only the 3rd day but it seems so much longer. We woke up still knackered and walked through ‘town’ to the Gendarmerie in order to get our passports stamped. The Gendarmes were still asleep and asked us to return a little later!

The bikes needed looking at and my left (still mangled pannier) was in need of repair. With the help of Gabriel, a local guy, I managed to track down the local metal smith who was able to ratchet together the pannier after I’d spent ½ hour bashing it with a huge hammer in order to make it as straight and as unbent as possible – it had taken a real whack! We managed to do a few odd jobs on the bikes but took it slowly as we’re still very dehydrated and need lots of water.

By late afternoon the bikes were loaded again as we’ve decided to bush camp, we’d hoped it would be a little cooler and by camping we can save a few CFA, besides we’d rather use the tent anyway. As we left the compound, Kenieba erupted with cheers of jubilation, drums and dancing. The streets were alive with what looked like thousands. Mali had just won their quarterfinal match in the African Cup – With the cheering and shouting we could easily have been back in the UK. Football is the same world over.

Lisa writes: We left at around 4:30pm – it was not that much cooler but we only wanted to do a couple of hours as still both tired and not able to catch up with water intake. Loads of kids watched our every move. As we left we headed out of town towards the Douane (customs) but they weren’t really interested as they were all watching the football but we still required our Carnet to be stamped. We explained that we hadn’t been stamped-out of Senegal for the second time as there were no customs anywhere before we crossed into Mali…when we told them our route they were not surprised. The customs and next official ‘guards’ (of what we don’t know) all advised us that the road to Bafoulabé is really bad and that we should go Kassama – Koundion – Mannantali. OK – they were the locals and should know and so we headed off to Kassama, which was towards the large rocky escarpment. Camped the night in the bush (at GPS N13 01.519 W11 09.477) – made a great chilli using corned-beef – must remember to buy more tins!

Lisa writes: Up early as we need to travel when its cooler – even the couple of hours we rode yesterday were draining – there is no reprieve from the heat.

Still heading to Kassama – the ‘track,’ if you can even call it that, is awful – just rocks. If you go too fast you hit rocks that pull violently at your handlebars and can have you off – but if you go too slow and have to start ’paddling’ you can miss your footing (or like me you can’t reach the ground) the weight of the bike becomes very obvious.

It began to take all our strength and concentration and we’d only just begun this morning! As I was manoeuvring a tricky section of sharp rocks a guy on a little moped-thing came alongside me and moved into my path in order to say ‘hello’ –Unable to get my footing, the bike began to lean over… I flattened him completely! I was so angry with him – my other wing mirror was now off (we should have taken them off but we forgot).

Simon writes: Anyway – after picking himself up, brushing himself down and now wearing a smile from ear to ear he politely asked, “where are you heading”? When we answered Kassama the smile vanished. For the next 5 minutes all we heard was how terrible the track was. “I think with bikes this big it will be impossible”, he added in closing, as if we needed any more persuasion.

Apparently, even the small mopeds have real problem and besides there were 3 more ‘mountains’ from here to Manantali. OK, we’re convinced. It had taken us 2 hours to do just a few km we were desperate to find something better to ride on. A decision was made and although our new route was longer we hoped it would be faster and easier. With this in mind we headed back to the ‘main’ route from Kassama in order to go directly to Bafoulabé. Ha! It was another cycle track with holes big enough to swallow a truck, with ruts, soft sand and thick dust piles, volcanic rocks, shale etc…. splitting headaches due to dehydration were taking hold, making the riding even tougher. Worryingly our water was also getting very low – there had been no villages for water pumps or wells. This was taking longer than we had estimated so our water estimation was way out.

Lisa writes: Simon pushed me on – this is the first time I have sat on my bike, looked at what was in front of me (impossible!), turned the engine off and cried. Later I hit a tree (with my bike). It seemed like the thing to do!

We had completed 29 km in almost 8 hours of riding! With our evening water check complete we knew we had a serious problem. We only had 4 litres of water left. We’ve had to ration what we have left and can now only sip at our supplies – we’d never been so thirsty. There were no rivers, no ‘lakes’, no villages and no pumps. We cooked rice with water from the tins of veg. we added.

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