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Red hot wine en route to Timbuktu - Mali
by Julian Woolhouse | Date >
2006-09-23 | Country : Mali | City : Timbuktu
| Area : |
| Gao, Mali – 16 15 N 0 5 W
We had been in Gao for forty-eight hours and seemed to be going nowhere, at least in the right direction, in the unforeseeable future. The euphoria of the slow boat ride down the river Niger, the snatched side trip to Timbuktu, and the camaraderie with the three Foreign Legionnaires, were already receding fast. Dejected, and beginning to tire as we had now been on the road for more than two hundred days since leaving Tokyo, it began to look as though we might have to backtrack ingloriously to Bamako. Leaving the dream of the Sahara for another day. Or perhaps another life. Or never.
From Gao in southern Mali begins the more westerly of the two main routes across the Sahara desert. The piste from Agadez in adjacent Niger, to Tamanrasset in southern Algeria is well-frequented and involves a mere 500 km of off-road driving, largely through duney terrain. The sort of terrain the mind tends to conjure up when presented with the concept ‘desert’. The Tanezrouft track however – (the name means ‘Land of Terror’) – traverses some of the most desolate, hostile landscape on the planet. 1400 kilometres of rock-strewn moonscape, broken only by a sandier stretch straddling the Algerian border. And apart from a tiny Tuareg settlement at Tessalit where it is possible to buy petrol on occasion, and rudimentary facilities at the border itself, there is nothing of fixed humanity until Reggane, where a roughly metalled surface heralds the approach to the Grand Erg Occidental. Beyond which lay the Atlas Mountains and then finally, the Mediterranean itself. Passage usually takes vehicles five or six days for the open section. Prudent drivers will allow a week and carry sufficient petrol in reserve for the worst. Even so the way is littered with the carcasses of rusting cars, and the bleached bones of camels that have succumbed. (One presumes humans who perish are daintily removed to more civilized resting places).
I had read what little literature I could find on this most lonely of crossings years previous. I had set my heart on it, but it appeared destined to be just a mirage. The traveller’s grapevine had rumoured that picking up a lift – albeit probably one that would have to be paid for – would not be too difficult in Gao, since all traffic necessarily had to pass through the strategically positioned town. The roads from Mopti in Mali and Niamey in Niger converge here, and it is a major watering hole for the trading vessels that ply the Niger River. What we had failed to glean in our faulty intelligence gathering was that there was indeed significant traffic. Going south.
Everything in Gao is within comfortable walking distance of everything else, so we traipsed around checking out all of the likely and less likely places to hitch a ride. To find that there was a steady trickle of movement towards the Atlantic Ocean, almost exclusively of people driving Peugeots down from France, with the sole purpose of selling the vehicles in Lome or Abidjan, or one of the other principal cities of the West Coast. Though this might sound like an exercise on the lunatic fringe, we were assured time and again that it was a highly lucrative business, and all totally above board. In West Africa Peugeot 504s are prized as the long-distance taxi of choice, and such taxis are a well-established means of getting about, particularly when public transport alternatives are limited or simply non-existent. The sturdy 504 can accommodate as many as a dozen passengers; indeed, we had traveled in just such a fashion from Ferkessedougou in northern Ivory Coast to Sikasso over the border in Mali. Crammed in with a lively bunch of pungent Mauritanians who had been to Abidjan ‘pour le shopping’, and were now on their way home to Nouakchott laden with purchases that had the chassis of the metallic beast of burden barely clearing the tarmac.
Many of the drivers had made the trip on numerous occasions, since the sale of the car at the end of the trip would make it worthwhile financially several times over. Once the transaction was completed, often after a few days of R and R on the beaches of the Ivory Coast, or what were formerly known as the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and the Slave Coast (now Togo and Benin), the rugged entrepreneur would fly back to the fleshpots of Europe. Which process, while yielding much pelf for the aforesaid perpetrators, left us well and truly up the proverbial Swanee, aka as the Niger. Although we were assured that trucks and even private vehicles did sometimes cross northward, they were few and far between. Anyone headed up the continent would be far more likely to choose the Niger route as it is considerably faster. Which begs the question, why would drivers opt to come down the Tanezrouft? The answer is twofold. Firstly, the geography; the western route leads most easily to the Ivory Coast, where the vehicles will usually fetch the best prices. And secondly, the language and paperwork; by coming this way, the whole journey is kept Francophone – one can cross from Marseille to Algiers or Oran with ease – and the necessary carnets and other documentation are easier to push through in France before the voyage begins. The need to grease palms in Africa is an unfortunate fact of life, and having one’s papers in order will reduce if not obviate the occurrence of daylight and moonlight robbery.
My notebook of the time somewhat incoherently describes the events in Gao, though the frustrations come across unmistakably:
Monday 2nd
Arrived Gao at 5 a.m. Felt utterly exhausted. Caroline got up, switched the light on and started farting about………could have wrung her fucking neck. Eventually lay down again at 6ish but she was whipping us into action again by seven. Dragged off into Gao and checked into the Hotel Atlantide (as did the rest of the ‘gang’………except for Christophe, Bruno + Laurent who went straight back to Mopti, their legion leave being up). Feeling dreadful I collapsed till almost 11 a.m.; meanwhile Jane spent the morning at the bank. Wandered first to the Gare Routiere (via the Post Office)……no joy, then to the Algerian Embassy………little hope except for a French man, married to a Camerounaine, in Gao on business, driving a blue Landcruiser and supposedly heading back sometime. Commissioned Idris, our young guide, to keep his eyes and ears open for him.
Thirsty, we stumbled on the “Oasis” bar/restaurant, at that time being run by a (weird) French couple – Philippe + Janise; steack + frites, beer, postcards, and cards. Beginning to become resigned to the prospect of having to abandon the desert crossing and a retreat to Bamako or Niamey.
Back to “HA” – 2 x love in the afternoon. Evening drinks with the ‘gang’ + met “El Bechir” (The Lucky One) – a French married to a Tuareg (Hamahaq) woman, who eulogised his life in the desert.
Went off to “Oasis” again for more food (steack frites again). E.B. romanced us with tales of camel caravans, then offered to take us to Timiaoune, then changed to Tin Zaouten………for the piddling sum of 20,000 CFA per day (about $70 US)………x15 to the Algerian border, or x 25 to Tamanrasset; so much for rejection of the capitalist mould.
The thrill of the idea bit for a few minutes, but it soon became evident that it was – at any rate financially – a wild dream. Left about 9:30 p.m. Crashed 10/10:30 p.m…………in the same bed. A very poor night’s sleep………grabbed a shower at 2 a.m. but to little avail.
Tue. 3rd
Neither of us woke in brilliant mood. Breakfasted, then trudged off to register with the police; kept my passport and said they’d let us know of anyone going across………(some likelihood!?………). Retired to ‘Oasis’ for a beer for want of anything better to do, then gloomily back to Atlantide where we sat in the reception chatting to Bunny. She had ‘passed’ on the camel riding (not feeling too good) as had Caroline; Philippe, Monique and Tod had gone off to ‘play’ in the desert with El Bechir. About 12:30, Mohamed, a bearded, Negroid Malian turned up; he seemed to know Bunny. He said that there were two French lads (with scrambling bikes) waiting for a chance to go north; they were out at “camping Bangu”. (This was the “camping” Philippe + Janise had suggested we might move to earlier in the day. We walked out there; from the very start the vibes were totally wrong – Philippe was there with several other whites looking very shot away. One of the French lads – Jerome – was there, crashed on a mattress waiting for a 10 a.m. appointment with the driver (it being 1:15 p.m.). He seemed O.K. but nothing more. Who was the driver? Where was his vehicle? What were his credentials? How much, how long, when, how many seats, how much space………?
We left details about where we could be contacted if anything materialized and made our way back to “HA”. Conflict of opinions: I very reserved and cautious, and certainly not prepared to pack, buy provisions, etc. on the strength of nothing; Jane eager to get up and go. Moreover, Jane gave Mohamed an astonishing ‘tip’ of 1000 CFA. We ended up arguing, then retired to ‘Oasis’ in a glum, resigned mood, minds inexorably orienting to Niamey. Fatalism: but surely something must turn up………. More steack frites, more beer, more cards. As the third beer bit, began to entertain thoroughly untenable ideas as usual. Such as getting back on the river and trying to ride it all the way to the ocean, where its mouths become the Niger delta. Even my enfeebled grey matter, fried as it had been all day by the merciless sun, managed to figure out that the scheme was bordering on the psychotic. Didn’t bother to share it with Jane. Probably for the best. Mohamed showed up at 5:10, just as we were set to leave; embarrassing situation. Amongst other things, he asked if we wanted to ‘smoke’, which sharpened my earlier inhibitions.
Wandered up to the tomb of Askia Mohamed Ture, which we just caught before the sun died. Back to “HA”; Philippe, Monique and Tod arrived with El Bechir, full of elation about their day out. We wallowed. 7 p.m. We wallowed further, uneven able to justify a drink.
The Sahara seemed to have gone south.
The getting to Gao itself had taken far less time than we had estimated, which ironically was also working against us. We had not expected to arrive until mid-November, when the weather should have been slightly less hellish, and there would have statistically been a little better chance of hooking up with transport. There had been a forced itinerary change when the president of Burkina Faso had been assassinated and the country’s borders were immediately sealed two days before we left Accra. That meant that the week or more we had planned to spend in Burkina Faso necessarily went into the dustbin. Coupled with the fact that Abidjan turned out to be seriously expensive, with prices comparable to those in Paris, we found ourselves at the bottom of the Sahara well ahead of schedule.
Having celebrated my father’s birthday well into the wee hours of October 20th, we arrived at the STC bus station in downtown Accra well before dawn feeling less than sterling; feeling like shit in fact. The bus filled up within seconds of its doors being opened, the driver started the engine and it seemed we were off. We waved our final farewells to my parents, only for the bus to suddenly erupt in a clamour of voices screaming in heated argument. There were two opposing factions, one determined to squeeze six to a row in the bus, as new boarders attempted to scrum their way in, the other equally adamant that five was quite enough, (if not one too many), already. Naturally our interests lay with the latter, but we remained stoically silent, having “seen it all before”; though had anyone attempted to jam six in our row, my voice would have been up there with the loudest. Vehement protestations continued for fully 20 minutes before a kind of compromise was reached, whereby some rows took an extra and others did not; ours did not.
When we finally got under way, the seven hour drive along the Ghanaian coast to the Ivorian border was relatively painless. At one point the jovial fat mammy who had been sitting next to Jane got off, only to be replaced by a slimy looking, well-dressed Ghanaian in his mid-twenties. He sat down and immediately shoved his feet in Jane’s footspace which irritated me, but I was too tired to kick up a fuss. Later, when Jane tucked her feet upon the seat his trousers got dirtied from the soles of her flip-flops, and he gruffly brushed the dirt off and withdrew them. I smiled inwardly; he took out his Bible and piously began to read St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians. We rolled up to the border at 1:30 p.m. and exited Ghana without significant delay. I had been concerned about our dodgy currency form, as we had been living on the black market throughout our stay, and was fully expecting to have to pay a little sweetener, but the customs officer did not even give it a cursory glance. We drove across the short strip of no man’s land where any entirely different scenario awaited us.
Light rain had already been falling for an hour on and off, but at his juncture the heavens suddenly opened unleashing a deluge. The language in use in the bus had now changed to French, though most of the speakers’ accents, pronunciation, elisions and idiosyncrasies made the garbled product almost totally incomprehensible to our ears, both being accustomed to a gentler, textbook variety of the Gallic tongue. In spite of listening hard for many minutes, I could not be sure that this was not an African language, not French at all. The first bout of screeching seemed to concern how we should clear customs in view of the downpour: one of the “couriers” suggested we ought to go ‘cinq a cinq’. Once again, inevitably perhaps, the crowd was riven into two vociferously warring mobs. Before the hubbub and confusion had abated the rain had stopped. People drifted off the bus, no one apparently certain what to do, some queuing up with their baggage, others loitering without intent in the parking area, others wandering off to no apparent purpose. We joined the first group, stood about 15 minutes and then inexplicably, people began to load their bags back on the bus, without having cleared customs; baffled we followed suit. For a long time nothing at all happened, (and Godot did not come): people got on and off the bus, ambled aimlessly and we were none the wiser. I ventured to ask one or two people what was going on, but they had no ideas either. I asked an elderly, besuited Ivorian businessman, who explained that this was the first time he’d made this journey by bus, having previously always flown. With a, “c’est la premier fois et la dernier fois”, he excused himself and urinated by the roadside. Finally, I approached our ‘Biblical’ companion and at least he had a plausible explanation. The Ghanaian tradeswomen on the bus frequently made the journey to Abidjan to sell their wares; by a tacit ‘arrangement’ they would pay a bribe to the customs in order to get through quickly and without a fuss. The next haggling match to erupt devolved on whether this bribe should be paid for only by the traders, or absorbed by everybody on the bus. The reference to ‘cinq a cinq’ began to make sense. Some of the other passengers were prepared to fork out to keep the peace, others – amongst whom the Ivorian pissing businessman and the Biblophile – strongly objected. Mentally we sided with the latter, but it made no difference as we had no CFA in any case.
Eventually a whip round was made for 1500 CFA each; we were amongst those who passed. Those who were paid in had their passports and Ids collected in a plastic bag, while the remainder of us had to get our passports stamped individually. We wandered over to the passport control where a nasty-faced soldier directed us to the “commandant”. At first he was very unpleasant, evidently displeased by my dreadful French, rust-encrusted as it had become through lack of use, but he mellowed a little and when Jane fronted up was quite pleasant.
(He had asked where my visa was. I replied that I understood UK passport holders didn’t need visas. He looked at me as if I were some subspecies of cretin.
“UK, qu’est-ce que c’est ca?”
“Oh, pardon…le Royaume-Uni”.)
Our passports were soon stamped and we were through.
Despite various police and military shakedowns on the short stretch between the border and the former capital – the bus was turned out, luggage and all, three times in attempts to attract supplementary rhino to pad out the doubtless pitiful state wage – we were dumped in Treichville in one of the poorer quarters of Abidjan shortly after 8 p.m. We found a bad room for an abysmal rate – the equivalent of $30 US a night, which had been accommodating us for the best part of a week in East Africa. The view from the single barred window was of a half dozen or so prostitutes, though the “Hotel Le Prince” did not seem to actually do double service as a brothel, unlike most cheap dives in sub Saharan Africa. The hotels in the French quarter of the city on the other side of the lagoon were many times more expensive, and well beyond our tight budget. On going out for a bit of supper we discovered that food and drink were equally pricey, though the area was lively and there was good local music in the place where we filled our bellies. Ivorian music is famed throughout West Africa and the ubiquitous dance sounds were a big plus in what was an otherwise uninspiring stay in the country’s principal city. Had it not been for the need to cash some traveller’s cheques in Abidjan, possibly the last opportunity before reaching one of the larger towns in northern Algeria, we might only have stayed one night.
The Barclays Bank we had to visit is in the heart of the Plateau, the rather soulless, Europeanised business quarter. Walking across the Pont Houphouet-Boigny the skyline is impressive, bearing not unfavourable comparison with Manhattan on a slightly reduced scale, but there is little of interest to the traveller in the area. There is a plenitude of French-style supermarkets replete with goodies flown in from Paris to cater to the rich expat, but as we had been living high on the black market hog in Ghana, we were in no immediate need of more luxuries. After a torturous transaction at the bank, where they could not get their heads around the fact that our cheques were issued by the Bank of Tokyo, and wrangled for the best part of an hour as to whether they were even prepared to cash them, we settled in a bar with Ivorian jazz in the background to review the plan of action. Taken aback at the exorbitant prices we decided to bypass the new capital Yamoussoukro, which has drawn attention only for its bizarre attempt to rival the Vatican by building the world’s largest church in the middle of the tropical jungle. After supping up we took a taxi down to Abidjan central railway station intent on taking a train as far north as possible, not being in a great hurry for another African bus ride.
The imposing front of the Gare Centrale looked promising, but inside the main hall there was not a soul in sight. It seemed absolutely deserted, but we eventually roused a sleeping clerk at one of the guichets and extracted from him the information that the international service to Ouagadougou had been discontinued for some time. We had expected the service to be truncated before the border because of the political crisis in Burkina Faso, but had anticipated a regular service at least as far as Ferkessedougou, which is only a couple of hours from the Malian border. Our less than loquacious informant said there was one train a day to Bouake, a few hours up country. He also avowed that we would be able to get a connection but had no idea when. The tickets went on sale one hour before the 5 a.m. departure. Minded of a stupendous scene of mayhem at Cairo station several years previous, I unilaterally insisted on the bus.
We later ascertained that an overnight bus service leaves Adjame each evening for Ferke, the largest habitation of any size before Mali, so we resolved to push off the following night in the hope of finding things cheaper in a new country. As it turned out the reasoning was based on a false premise; that the cost of living in desperately poor countries must necessarily be low.
A couple of hours before getting on the bus we searched out the Restaurant Senegalais, which had a glowing write up in the LP guidebook. We found it not without a little difficulty, and when I pulled back the heavy curtain acting as a portcullis in the doorway, a dark, windowless, airless dungeon was revealed. Wherein a very large woman was sleeping on a mat on the floor. In attempting to get up, to speak to us one supposes, she spilled quantities of her vast body out of her wraparound dress, a sight both singularly not erotic and distinctly unappetizing. We beat a hasty retreat to another eatery where an excellent steack frites was only once marred by a flashback to the giant Daliesque mammary by which I had so recently been traumatized, triggering thoughts of one man’s meat being poisoned.
Contrary to expectation the bus journey was outstandingly smooth, being on fast motorway for almost the duration, and arriving in Ferke two hours early at 3 am, which was almost too good as we had nowhere to go. Considerately passengers were told that they would be allowed to remain on board until sunrise at six if they so wished, an option almost universally welcomed. As the sky began to lighten a little after five a tout came on to the bus and announced that a 504 taxi would be going to Sikasso that morning. We had planned to spend a night here before moving on, not least to be able to say that we had seen a little more of the Ivory Coast, but as the opportunity had presented itself, and we had no idea of how often transport departed for Sikasso, we signed up. Somewhat reluctantly I will admit as we had no bona fides as to the honesty of the outfit. Jules, a Burkinan student who had befriended us on the bus said that he thought it was probably kosher, which was about as much of an assurance as we were likely to get. Having enlisted, the tout drove us to the central taxi rank where we were told the departure would be when the “chargement” was complete, meaning when there were sufficient passengers to pack the vehicle to bursting. We sat in the shade under a large flame of the forest tree, anticipating a long wait, but by 10 am, replete with the aforementioned Mauritanian men and an exceedingly frail black man who appeared to be at death’s door, we were on the road. We made slow but steady progress on a perfect road to Ouaugolodougou, occasionally being stopped by police who wanted to see our papers, at which times the Mauritanians invariably had to cough up a bribe. The sight of the crescent on a mosque we passed on the outskirts of Ferke reminded me that we were back in the predominantly Moslem world. Though the policemen and our fellow travelers were probably coreligionists, the bond was evidently not deep enough to waive the silent levy.
At Ouaugolodougou, (names don’t come much better than that), we had to complete a fiche and our passports were stamped – only later did we realise that we had passed exit procedures in a matter of minutes. From Ouaugolou to the border the road was dusty red laterite, often in pretty poor condition. This section took an inordinate time, partly because of the surface, partly because we were constantly stopping and starting, either to pick up or drop passengers – at one stage we were 13 in the car (not counting two small children) – or to inspect and help broken down vehicles, partly because of an extremely pugnacious, shitbag of a soldier at a military police road check. He had us empty everything out of the taxi and went through the baggage very thoroughly, then stood grinning like a Boschean gargoyle as the gear was restowed. (To be fair though the men from Nouakchott did seem to have an astonishing amount of booty to show for their jaunt and even with the bribes and harassment were likely to turn a good profit). The border transit on both sides was swift, though we, but not the others had actually cleared Ivory Coast at Ouaugolou. The reason for this dual processing never became apparent, but we were not about to question it. The two Malian border guards were very amiable, though one of them was rather surprised at my parting, “Vous etes tres jolis”, having temporarily forgotten the distinction between “joli” and “gentil”; at any rate he was not inclined to kiss me. A little farther up the road at sundown we stopped again for the Moslems to go into a small roadside mosque and pray. The village was of mud-brick huts surmounted by roves of thatch; typical of the villages in this region are tall, tapering silos topped with conical “hats”.
Apart from a couple more brief police checks we reached the outskirts of Sikasso without event, only to get a puncture within a hundred metres of the signboard heralding the town. Not knowing that the Gare Routiere and the Hotel Solo Khan were no more than a few stone throws up the road, we hung around while the tyre was repaired, using a very peculiar jack, before being set down at the Gare Routiere a minute later. We rapidly found a filthy room in the hotel compound, its pale green walls splattered with daubs of blood where mosquitoes or the like had been extinguished. I have a photograph of the room of which I am very fond, as it almost always elicits questions concerning why I was in prison. After a massive platter of beef and fried onions washed down with a passably cold Castel, the night in the “cell” saw loglike slumber right through to first light. There may have been bugs and vermin of all kinds swarming in, on or under my bed, but I was thoroughly oblivious to their presence or absence, proving once again my outstanding ability to sleep anywhere when sufficiently exhausted.
Barring the necessity of reporting to the police in the morning, the day proceeded along the same lines as the previous one. at the Gare Routiere we established that a 504 going right through to Mopti would leave some time during the day, and as we had thought this section would need three stages, Sikasso – Koutiala, Koutiala – San and finally San – Mopti, we again elected to press on. Our “guide” – there will be someone available to steer your hand to your ringpiece if a bit of dosh is in prospect – escorted us to the assembly point at noon, assuring us that the “chargement” was likely to be instantaneous as half of Mali was champing at the bit to get to Mopti – some 500 kilometres away – for reasons as mysterious as they were non-existent. As I had managed to secure a brace of ales and an icy cold Coke, we were well content to sit in the shade and wait for a while, munching groundnuts and generally doing nothing, which is apparently a full time occupation in these parts. And lest the reader be in any doubt, by ‘these parts’, I mean most of the so called developing word, and I do not say this in any sense derogatory. I find it quite admirable that a great percentage of the planet remains unhurried, entirely indifferent to the chaotic frenzy that passes as civilization. For a time it was utterly good to fester. Fester, by the way, is perhaps the best gift my father ever bestowed on me. I mean of course, the word, and a thorough knowledge of all its implications, though I acquired deep knowledge of its meanings through intense practical training, initially in the bars of Chamonix, and later in all places that we happened to be together.
But by and by, even the most indolent of creatures tires of festering, and by 3 pm we had had our fill. So much so that I was actually beginning to do a bit of lurking, without menace, this being the second best activity handed down to me through the genes. Lurk as I would the taxi was still short of a passenger. As the prospect of going dimmed, the driver proposed that we all pay a little extra shilling for the off, and after some half-hearted grumbling, the wheels were in motion.
The road to Mopti came only in gradations of awful, but it was still pleasing to be always leaving stasis behind. It was three in the morning when we finally alit, but we had along the way increased our store of experience by one more magnificent sunset, the sky a glorious riot of pinks and mauves, deepening into a deathly Catholic purple with glissando overtones of indigo. As the stars burst through the inky panoply above the chicken in fiery red sauce, a faint breeze wafted the scent of bougainvillea across the dusty truck park. And it was for some stalled moments most very excellent. To be alive. There and then. In heaven on earth. As things were intended to be. Before the fall. Into what was unquestionably a brothel in Mopti. As evidenced by two women of the night promenading stark bollock naked in the corridors amongst the warren of rooms in the Hotel Bar Mali when I groped of for a slash in the wee wee hours. Thinking of Larkin’s
“….reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.”
The Hotel Bar Mali, where we were holed up for four days waiting for the next boat to Gao – the service was twice weekly and the previous one had left a few hours before we arrived – was a marvelous place to luxuriate in squalor. For the squeamish, it was indubitably a mirror on hell, a place where six of the seven deadly sins were practiced continually, or more accurately, continuously, since there was no significant interval in the on and off of coitus uninterreptus and other frenzied debauch. The only element that was conspicuously absent was the pride, a deficit that in this humble visitor’s review, immeasurably enhanced the domain. (Pride dead is a step toward humane life). Nobody on the premises, at any time, seemed to give a monkey’s toss about anything – excepting perhaps Jane, who was not wholly impressed methinks. Such was the lack of temporal concern that when we finally evacuated we were presented with a bill for only 3 nights residence, yet so enamoured was I of the establishment, I would happily have squared for five. The management simply didn’t know what day of the week it was, far less how many days constitute such a period.
Filth and indolence were the hallmarks of this splendid abode, followed closely by laughter and insanity. Scrawny chickens had the freedom of the roost, at least until unceremoniously dispatched when some drunk required a lunch; their eggs, (presumably), were offered in pools of slithery jam to break the fast, reeking as though recently expelled from some dinosaur’s cloaca. The charred bread that masqueraded as toast simply would not go down without a glass of blood-warm, red wine that was provided as a substitute when the Nescafe ran out.
On the first morning of our enchanting sojourn.
The bare-breasted ladies proved not to be a hallucinatory figment of a hypercharged imagination. They were, so to speak, a part of the furniture, some Sheraton and Chippendale, others rather more DIY, but plump and plenteous. The vestals were not doe-eyed as a rule. Seventy two they were not too, and likely they did not answer to Mahomet, but certain of their nobilities, Nubian in spirit if not ethnicity, will haunt me to the unengraved grave. Those who claim that the pre-apple Eden existed in ancient Mesopotamia have evidently not done their scholarly homework; paradise is alive and well in the heart of darkest Mali. Neither malignant nor malicious. To all intents and purposes this was the Christian paradigm of hell, the very walls themselves probably raddled with the pox, yet it was one of the most comforting, if not comfortable spots on earth. So crammed with sinners of every stripe that I began to feel myself a saint. And then, as more liquor transubstantiated in my liver, came to feel that all the denizens of this hole without hope were lining up for canonization, so deep was their innocence.
The most fabulous of the assembled cast was Suleiman, night watchman by night, barman by day. Unfortunately the good Lord did not appear to have correctly wired any circuits into his consciousness enabling distinction between light and darkness. He was frequently to be found slumped in the main doorway, truncheon-like object at his side, fast asleep, in the broadest of daylights; and almost equally often to be heard, roaming the hallways at the dead of night, doing something that might charitably be described as speaking in tongues, punctuated by interludes of singing and wailing. Not t |
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