Never ending bus ride...

The bus was supposed to take off from the main station in Bamako at 6pm on Saturday and it did take off on time.

The part to get to the Senegal/Mali border that was supposed to take about 12 hours took 21 hours!

The whole trip from Bamako to Dakar which was supposed to take about 24 hours, ended up taking almost 34 hours. Scandalous!

The bus was this old reconditioned bus from the years Mali got its independence. No AC and no ventilation system. For a ride that long, this is a huge disadvantage.

The driver took a half hour break every half hour. I am not even joking. It was absolutely ridiculous and beyond any logic. Pure waste of time. And the passengers, despite always complaining about how delayed we kept on being, always got out of the bus at each and every stop.

It was such a long and uncomfortable ride.

The seats were to narrow for the passengers to fit in. I am not a big guy with broad shoulders at all, and yet, I needed at least a seat and a half just for myself. But I didn't have such luck and had to share two seats with a big Malian, who never understood that because I had a window seat, I didn't have any other choice but to take some of his seat space, and the fact that he had an aisle seat meant that he had plenty of space on the other side. But no, the whole ride he kept on insisting that I stay in my seat space and kept on crushing me against the window wall, and fall asleep and spread himself all over the whole time. And this guy was disgusting. Peeing and eating at every single stopped the bus made. Not in a clean or elegant manner. Trust me.

Anyhow, as we were getting close to Dakar, time felt even slower. As if each 50km we drove forward, the distance was being extended by 70km. Ufff...I just wanted to arrive.

People in the bus were all boiling of impatience, yet didn't seem to be bothered by how late it was in the night and yet how many km we had to go. Just like it had been all throughout the Pays Bassari and Mali when talking with people about their challenges and society's problems: that's the way it is. Just accepting it and getting over it without any kind of attempt or will to change or improve things. Pure carelessness.

At 3:30am 33.5 hours after having departed from Bamako, we finally arrived in Dakar. A totally new bus station. A mega huge station, far away from the city. It was so late I told Astou I would take a cab. I managed to negotiate quite down the fare all the cabbies wanted to charge me and boarded a cab with two other families.

4:00am I was at "home". At last!!!

Mali, you are a gorgeous a country populated by the kindest of people, but I am quite happy to have left you. Thank you for everything.