Caution: Dangerous Rocks aka The Elephant Entry

So we took our trip out to Paul’s site to see the wild elephants. It was me, Corinna, Mark, Danielle, Scotty, Molly and Yik. So the trip out there was epic. I was with Molly, Scotty and Yik and we left from BKO. To begin with, we went to Gana Transport at 5am because we thought they had a bus out there but it turned out they didn’t have one until the next day. So we got another taxi and went across the river to Binke Transport. Where there was nobody selling tickets or providing info for like 2 hours. Oh wait, let’s back up. So it was Yik’s genius idea that we stay up all night the night before we were leaving since we had to go to the gare at 5am anyway and once it got to be 1 or 2am it didn’t seem worth it to go to bed so we didn’t. BAD MOVE.

So after waiting hours at the Binke gare, the bus finally leaves. And we have pretty good seats! Right by the back door and under an emergency exit hatch, which they keep open during the trip. There are no windows. This trip is supposed to take 18 hours on a good day. So Molly and I are pretty slap happy from not sleeping and we are laughing so hard about ridiculous shit that isn’t even funny to the point where our stomachs hurt.

So this bus breaks down in Segou, which is like 3-4 hours from BKO. Like, it breaks irreparably, which is really rare here. Usually they just tie some shit together with a strip of rubber and we go on our waybut not this time. So they send a bus from BKO to come get everyone. We end up stuck in Segou for seven hours. Awesome. We almost gave up and just went home. But we didn’t and we’re really glad we stuck it out.

After the new bus got there and we headed out, nothing really went wrong and we faded in and out of fitful, uncomfortable sleep all night. We finally arrived at Paul’s site at 7am the next day, and his counterpart Lelele met us as we were getting off the bus and took us to his place (he runs a small hotel), where Mark, Corinna and Danielle were already sleeping, having arrived a few hours earlier. We didn’t sleep. Just bathed. And had breakfast (sweetened Seri).

After lunch we piled into a Land Rover to head out into the desert and find the elephants! We drove all day. The elephants were really far out there at this time of year but Lelele was DETERMINED to find them and said he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if we didn’t find them. As the sun is going down, we make it to this big watering hole. You might even call it a lake. And what’s on the other side of it? ELEPHANTS!!! Dude it was so cool! I mean, yeah, we’ve all seen elephants in the zoo, but seeing them out there in their natural habitat doing what they do is amazing.

So we drove around the lake to get closer to them and took pictures and watched them until it got too dark. Or…until I noticed a big elephant coming towards us from our right and pointed it out to Lelele and he told us all to MOVE right away. Apparently that elephant was the chief and he had smelled us and was coming over to see what was up. Once we moved he went up to the water and bathed himself. It was cool.

Funny enough the chauffer was scared of elephants and once we got out of the car he drove away to safety. Heehee.

So then we set out to find a spot in the desert to make camp for the night. We found a place that looked good put our grass mats on the ground and watched the stars while waiting for dinner. We also ate a bunch of melted chocolate Scotty had on her (still tasty!). Lelele’s wife had made us couscous with chicken and sauce for dinner and it was DELICIOUS. I wished I could eat more when my stomach was full, it tasted so good.

We got ready for bed and laid down and chatted and watched the stars until we all started to drop off to sleep. The night sky is amazing out in the desert. You can see SO many stars and for some reason there was no moon so eventually we could even see the Milky Way. SWEET!

So at some point during the night I wake up and see Yik and Danielle standing up, pointing their flashlights out into the night. And I’m like, “what are you guys doing?” They say there’s a big animal out there, they can hear it moving around and after a second I hear it too in addition to a growling sound that sounded more like it should come from a lion than an elephant. Yik’s like, “I’m waking up Lelele!” So he wakes up Lelele and he bangs pots and pans to try and scare the elephants away so they don’t come step on us. This, obviously, wakes EVERYONE up. Eventually he thinks they have started to move away so we settle to go back to sleep. And then, from another direction, there is this loud trumpeting sound and a pounding of feet and we’re like HOLY SHIT they’re coming for us!! At first I was just going to sit up and get ready to run but then I see other people running to the car so I was like EEK!!! And got up and ran. Corinna is trying to get in the back of the car and Molly is pushing on her like HURRY UP!!!! I climbed on top of the car, followed by Danielle. Everyone else is at least on their feet. Except Paul. Who is still laying on his mat, covered by a blanket, hands twined behind his head. The chauffer says the elephants are fighting. Then Lelele says, “Get up!” So Paul begrudgingly gets up and we have to leave the vehicle to pack up our stuff because we are going to move camp.

So we move camp a hundred meters or so to this more raised ground that actually had softer sand and fall back asleep. I wake up to see Danielle standing up pointing her flashlight out into the night again. And I’m like, “what now?” I can hear something out there but it doesn’t sound nearly as close or as dangerous. I swear I nearly wet myself when I heard that elephant trumpet and start to charge. Lelele is up and he tells us it’s elephants again but they aren’t coming closer so we should go back to sleep. The next day he tells us it was jackals but that he didn’t want to say anything at the time because he didn’t want to scare us. I was like yeah. I am SO less afraid of wild dogs than I am of wild elephants, thankyouverymuch.

So in the morning we go try to find the elephants again but by the time we get to the watering hole they’ve already gone into the forest and it’s too dangerous to follow them in there. We go look at the elephant tracks around our original campsite and the closest tracks were like…half a football field away, if that. Too close!!! And sure enough there was one set of tracks that ended in a skid. That was probably the one who we thought was trying to charge us. He sounded angry.

So we saw a bunch of touareg herders who were all nice about pointing which way the elephants had gone that morning but ultimately it was fruitless. But we saw more camels!! Camels are sweet by the way!!

So we headed back to town which took several hours and went to Paul’s favorite bar where they have cold beer and good food.

The next day, we decide to go hiking out to the red dunes. The walk out there wasn’t so bad, and then we climbed the dunes and Mark threw himself down them several times. We got sand everywhere. There were these weird silver ants up there…I’m curious what they were! One of the coolest things was getting up on a ridge and stepping on the edge of the ridge which would cause a little avalanche of sand that lierally looked like liquid running down the face of the dune. Really cool. But any disturbances we made in the form of footprints or sandfalls were quickly washed away by the sand and wind.

The walk back was a lot harder. It was only like 10am but the sun felt like about 1. Molly was getting heat exhaustion. There were a few points when we didn’t even know if she would make it back. It seemed to take FOREVER, but we did finally make it back and then Danielle and I chugged cold Cokes at the bar.

The next day we went to the animal market to look at camels up close. They are the weirdest creatures!!! HUGE!!! And their back legs are so crazy. They are just totally weird looking. Like a cross between a giraffe and an alien.

That afternoon we caught a bus and went to Sevare, where we spent the night. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel, Mac’s Refuge, which serves an all-you-can-eat pancake and French toast breakfast for 1 mille for PCVs. Crazy good deal! And really good food.

So then we waited at the side of the road for a bus to the Carrefour that goes to Djenne, which is an entire city made of mud. You are not allowed to build with anything but mud in Djenne, by law. It is also the home of a huge mosque made all of mud that has been there over 100 years!! If anybody remembers the opening scene of Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey (why would you?), that takes place in front of the famous mud mosque.

So it was pretty cool to see all that and we had lunch with the PCV who lives there. Mark told us a story about a little building we passed called “The Tomb of the Young Girl” or something like that. Apparently, when they were founding Djenne (which was founded as an Islamic center but for some reason wanted to perform this animistic ritual – just in case), they needed to find a young virgin girl to bury alive to consecrate the land. So the story goes that all the eligible girls were put into a lottery except for the chief’s daughter, who was considered exempt. But she didn’t think that was fair, so she volunteered to be sacrificed. So they buried her alive under this tomb. And she cried for 30 days. Then they went and called in to her basically, “Look, we really need this site consecrated. You need to die or it doesn’t count.” So she stopped crying and died. Legend has it you can still sometimes hear her crying inside the tomb. Freaky, right?

So that afternoon we took a taxi back out to the Carrefour and right away a bus to BKO came by and picked us (me, Molly and Danielle) up. It was practically empty so we each got two seats and were able to sleep pretty well.

We made it back with no further problems. Except that we all ran out of money. Luckily, Peace Corps deposited our June allowances early this month so it should hopefully be there soon! That’s going to save my ass, for sure.

Anyway, all in all an amazing trip with amazing people and I knocked two more things off my “to do in Mali” list. Now it’s just Manantali (Fourth of July), Dogon (September or October), a Niger river trip in a pirogue and Tombouctou (Timbuktu)/time in the desert (after COS – it’s not allowed for PCVs). I’ve also decided that after COS I HAVE to take a trip actually out into the Sahara. I mean, to be this close and not do that would be a mistake I’d regret for the rest of my life! So I’m doing it.

Inshallah ☺.

Note: Caution: Dangerous Rocks refers to something Mark said when we were out hunting elephants in reference to the Touareg herders who see those elephants every day and in fact follow them because their herds eat the stuff the elephants drop. Mark was like, “To them they’re probably just like rocks…very dangerous rocks.”