Dogon Country and Tombouktu!

Sunset after the massive sand storm Janel and I got stuck in-Kamona

The 4 banditas in Timbuktu, about to ride off on our camel adventure!

Me on the roof of the manuscripts musuem, in front of the oldest mud mosque, or the biggest?

Trekking through the Sahara

Camel Riding!

Dogon houses- Day 1 of our 3 day hike

Alright, so now that I've got your attention, here is the explanation of why I haven't written in almost 1 whole month!  W'allahi! I've had my friend Janel visiting since late May.   It's great when having a visitor because I get to be a tourist in my current country of residence, and explore explore explore!  For attention span sake, I will be brief on what we did- as we really got to see and do many things here:

In Segou, Janel got to meet all of my wonderful friends.  We went boating, made Bogolan (malian art, using mud and all natural dyes to decorate all natural cotton).  We also did a lot of shopping for gifts and hanging by the pool.  The calm before the craziness!

From Segou, we bussed up to tour Dogon Country.  It's on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list (I always try to visit WHsites).  We met up with a fellow PCV-Hannah and her friend Kat that was visiting her.  It was a great 3 day hike through the villages.  Dogon villages are built in the cliffs and the people disappeared a long time ago, in short-due to deforestation and lack of food (they were hunters, not so much farmers). 

From Dogon, crazy Monica thought it was a good idea to go to Timbuktu.  My friend convinced us we should go up there to visit him.  Timbuktu.....why not!?  It took us 7hrs to get there in a 4x4 car-which that in itself was an experience.  It should have only taken 4hours.  Thats life here in Mali.  We got there, and I thought Mali was hot....but this place was SOO hot.  Like 120 degrees.  Thank God my friend has A/C in his house and we just got to relax on the 1st day there.  The second day we did some more shopping, and then started off on our camel ride.  The camel ride was fun, of course I got the 'special' camel.  First my saddle wasn't on correctly, then the camel kept tripping over it's feet (just like me!), then he just couldn't make it up the his and boom.  Down he went.  I'm alive and it's an entertaining story to tell.  No more camel rides for me though.  

Overall, it's been an amazing 3 weeks.  I now need to get focused on my work and get some things accomplished.  I'm sure I'm forgetting tons of things that I need to add, but I'll have internet access for a few more days.