Malilog

[guigsy]

amazing!

thanks for another great log, todd!

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112208

Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up with a bladder bursting with the remnant of many bowls of millet beer. Still drunk and half asleep, I was struggling to contain myself such that I didn’t take time to put on my sandals in my rush to the toilet, which given the toilet’s Turkish-prison style sanitation is just a bad idea all around. I made my way down the puzzle of stairs and down the narrow hall leading to a village pathway. I turn left to walk the three metres to the toilet and bam, I go down hard. I landed with a thud and a moan, and laid there for a second or two. I then got myself up and stepped into the cubicle of walls with a hole in the middle and pissed, unknowingly leaving a large circle of blood where I stand. I hobbled out of the bathroom and looked down at my foot. In horror I initially thought I had severed my big toe, and that it was oddly dangling. In short order I found that I had in fact ripped the bottom off of my left big toe by tripping over a large rock that makes up part of the path. There was a flap of skin the size and thickness of a loonie that dangled and led me to believe my toe was off, and had I managed to get to a doctor or anything I’m sure I would have received about fifteen stitches. On the other foot I had banged up one toe pretty good and was bleeding from a crack in the sole of my foot. Moaning I stumbled up to our resting place and holding a flashlight between my teeth I treid my drunken sleepy best to clean and dress the wounds with my tiny first aid kit. I had some difficulty sleeping after that, partly because of the pain, but mostly from worrying about how damaged I really was and how I was gonna get out of this village, being five kilometres and up one cliff to the nearest road.

In the morning I borrowed a more adequate first aid kit from Martha and David and made a second attempt at cleaning the dirt and rocks out of my wounds and bandaging them tight enough to stem the bleeding. We had breakfast and bought some souvenirs and for me a cane from a shop next door, and they we headed out. I was in a pretty large deal of pain at first, but after not too long the numbness and weed worked together to give me a fairly sprightly step once I got used to the cane, and I did a fairly good job of almost keeping up with my comrades. I even went back up that amazing crevasse with the boulders perched overhead at the lead of the pack, though I suspect this was to keep me from falling too far behind.

Along the way we passed a half-dozen ladies returning to the village from some chores. They saw us and bent over mimicking some of the dancing from last night, blowing air between their teeth where their reed whistles should have been, indicating they were at the party last night. They made it clear that that they had a good time. A little farther on and we passed two older ladies hard at the millet pounding. They said something to our guide who in turn asked us if we had any aspirin, as the ladies had headaches. I ponied up Advils to both of them, while our PEI companions did one better, giving one lady their flashlight and the other their very nice Swiss Army knife. Very good presents indeed, and I think I can truthfully say that the knife might be a life-changer. Our guide told us the ladies had no children and as such had a very difficult life. It is certainly a climate where the impulse to give people things, anything, is strong. British Steve gave our guide Hama his hiking boots before he left the previous day.

After a walk that I had initially looked forward to and then dreaded that turned out to be not so bad, I hobbled in to our final village, had some lunch and were eventually ushered into a car to take us back to Mopti, via Bandiagara and Sevare. On our way out we found the road blocked by a truck that had lost most of its load and ended up buried in mud half off the road, and the winch truck that was trying to pull it out. We were stopped for about an hour, when eventually people loaded the huge sacks of rice that had been dumped onto the winch truck and it pulled ahead allowing us to get by. I can’t imagine how they are gonna get that truck out, but Hama tells me they’ll just get a bigger winch down from Mopti or something.

We stopped for beers in Bandiagara and I napped most of the way to Sevare, relishing in the hot air that rushed through the windows of the moving car. We said goodbye to our PEI friends and continued to Ya Pas De Probleme hotel in Mopti where Heather swam in the pool, I showered and properly cleaned and dressed my wounds for the first time, finding a childs-tooth sized pebble wedged in the sole of my right foot along the way, and we sent out our clothes to be washed, for the first time on this trip where I only have three t-shirts.

We did a pretty big walk around in Mopti that afternoon and into the early evening, which perhaps wasn’t the best thing for my foot. On a tip from one of the hotel employees we took a taxi to Sevare later in the evening and caught a really good band at an even better restaurant. The food was to die for after the rice and beef/couscous and chicken cavalcade that was the Dogon culinary norm, and the band was awesome. A bass drummer who also played the tamborine backed up a stellar djembe soloist, with a really good bass player and a fantastic guitarist laying down unison grooves underneath a singer who seemed to weave his vocals intrinsically into the music in the most disconnected and surprising ways. Curiously, the guitar player never tuned his ever changing guitar strings, playing great lines so absurdly out of tune it was hardly believable how good it sounded. I mean if he tuned it would not sound any better. Not a chord was played all night, only monophonic lines, cutting down on the cringability of the guitar, to the point where there was no cringing at all. I’ve never heard of music that works without tuning in some way, and this goes some way to explaining the traditional Toureg ngoni, which is an untunable three-stringed instrument. The band was rocking and obviously having a good time, and the crowd that eventually grew to standing room only was loving it.

Fatigue prevented us from staying until the end, but my hardline wheeling and dealing for a taxi back to Mopti left us standing on the side of the road at midnight with few options. We eventually ended up getting a ride the ten or so kilometers back to Mopti in a “taxi†that I believe used to be a Peugeot and had a top speed of 30kph, and that was once it got up to speed. I mean this is the poorest excuse for a car I’ve ever moved from one place to another in. There was not a handle or know anywhere on the interior, hell the interior was missing from the interior. Anything that opened was held shut by wire and the vehicle had a sideways shimmy to it so severe that I think I lost eight pounds on the drive. The vehicle was so bad we got off where we would have to walk through a field in the dark because there was no way this car would make it through the streets of Mopit. I wonder if the car ever made it back to Sevare. The 3000 we gave him for the ride could buy him twice the car.

Back at the hotel we went to sleep looking forward to a day off to relax and the first sleep-in in forever.

[Blane]

great stuff Todd! Glad you had a great time there. Mali is definitely a wonderland.

[jaybone]

Amazing stuff! Thanks for taking the effort to share it with us. I am very envious.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112308

We awoke to find our first batch of clean(ish) laundry waiting for us outside our door. I redressed my wounds, adding some rubbing alcohol that I had purchased the day before. The pain was just short of unbearable, both hands clasped hard muffling my screaming mouth, but it subsided in short order and I felt like the healing process was going along well. Amazing how resilient we humans are. After a shower I donned clothes that had been beaten clean and felt more refreshed than I had since arriving in Mali.

Not surprisingly we had failed in our attempt to smoke all of our weed in Dogon country so I spent an hour developing a quite effective method for de-seeding and rolled a handful of joints. Our connection had assured us that smoking in our room at this hotel was fine, and rigorous testing of the theory showed him to be right. We went for a walk along the river, trying to determine how this city acquired the nickname, “the Venice of Mali.†Well, there’s a river, and though I’ve never been to Venice I hope it’s more visually attractive than Mopti. Bought some faux Pringles for a sorely needed chip fix and checked out a bit of market. Back at the hotel I lounged by the pool with my chips and a few beers, bouncing back to the room for the occasional joint, while Heather swam and read. My still sensitive and occasionally bleeding injuries kept me out of the water.

In our travels we discovered that while the rooftop terrace restaurant at our hotel was nice, clean, and comfortable, it had the worst and most expensive food. As such we were avoiding eating there until that evening when we heard live music wafting down from the terrace. Upstairs we quickly maneuvered the front table and watched as a great band played for tips in the restaurant. A killer balafon (African xylophone) player and the only in-tune guitarist I’ve seen in Mali played over the beats of a djembe player who kept it steady, leaving the solos to the others. There was a female singer who shared her time between the microphone and tending to her baby, who for the most part slept beside her on stage. The music was very up and dancy. The sole African woman in the audience spent a lot of time on the dance-floor, with the tourists occasionally joining her. This band sounded more ‘pop’ than others I’ve heard, and the wonderful guitar player even approached harmonic playing with the occasional arpeggio left hanging in the air. The balafon player appeared to be the star of this band, wailing out machine-gun melodies that sat in perfect disconnection on top of the rhythm. The audience ate it up, but it seemed the local employees enjoyed the show most, stopping to watch whenever they could and often singing along with what was obviously well-known pop songs.

We closed the place and finished off our beers before turning in for our last night in Mopti, happy with finding good quality live music four times in a row.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112408

Another nice sleep in Mopti. We woke up without setting the alarm (always a joy) and tended to shower, injury redressing, rolling our last few joints, and packing. With a comparatively late start we grabbed out stuff and walked out to where we get a collectif to Djenne. There is no direct bus service so we laid out our 2,500 and waited until they had enough people to warrant leaving. The magic number was nine, and Heather and I made four when we arrived.

We sat in the waiting area and watched Malian city life play itself out. People sit there and watch television together while other people saunter by selling virtually everything from carts, or more often from baskets perched on their heads. A boy with a tray of peanuts, a man with a string of turbans, trays of sunglasses, Mr. Fastfood with his cut-between-the-fingers meat chunks and onion served on a torn piece of paper, people wearing enormous trays of toys that dangle absurdly creating huge sombreros of dollar store squirtguns and Blandness Girlâ„¢ dolls. There are several women with traditional black tattooing on their hands, the soles of their feet, and around their mouths. A joined a small crowd engaged in watching a fierce foosball match and witnessed an innocuous fight between an old man and a younger one, who ended up running away.

Hours went by as we sat there, and when the television program “Fils De Dragon†with David Carradine came on the place filled up. Though the waiting was truly quite a fascinating experience, we were anxious to get to the famous Djenne Monday market before it ended at 6pm, so we paid an extra 2,500 and left with only eight passengers.

Our ride was an incredibly beat-up Peugeot, though not the roughest car we’ve been in here in Mali. No door or window handles, not a single moving dashboard indicator, we squeezed eight people plus driver in somehow and set off for Djenne, two and-a-half hours and a ferry ride away.

We arrived in the middle of the market around 4pm, and without a hotel booking on the busiest night in town. Heather went a-booking while I stayed put and watched the bags. She initially turned up empty but enlisted the help of Alex, a guide we met in Dogon country. We had planned on a splurge for our time in Djenne and stay at what we heard was a really nice place called Hotel Djenne-Djenno, but when we tried to prebook we were told the place was full. Alex checked the place for us and the owner took a chance (rightly, it turned out) that one of her late arrivals wasn’t coming and gave us a room. We booted it over there on motorcycles.

The place was like an oasis. Inside the old-style mudbrick compound was lush with banana trees and the lounging courtyard was literally crawling with big cool lizards. We were shown our lovely room complete with a whitewashed contoured mud ceiling, animal horns built into the walls for hanging things, and, for the first time this trip, our own bathroom, with hot showers no less. We were in bliss, but decided to burn a quickie and head into town before market ended.

The Djenne market happens once a week in front of the Djenne mosque, the world’s largest mud building. Measuring seventy-five metres by eighty-five metres, with an interior ceiling of eight metres, walls two feet thick, and a peak height of eighteen and-a-half metres, the building is a sight to behold from the outside, the only place where we, as non-muslims, are allowed.

Even though the road to town was made unbearably dusty by all the merchants pulling out of town as we pulled in, the market was still remarkably colourful and an absolute feats for the senses. About everything one could buy in this country seemed to be for sale at one stand or another in this mayhem of micro-capitalism. I purchased this notebook (the Alphasmart is deemed deceased for the remainder of this vacation) and then we did a city walkabout during sunset.

We ended up at Chez Babas, a bar/restaurant we heard was hosting live music that evening. After not eating all day my meal of boiled potatoes and two edible chunks of meat was a big letdown. Heather chose more wisely and seemed to enjoy her chicken, and when she threw in the towel I ravenously ate her remaining cold boiled potatoes. At 7:30 the band showed up, two djembe players and a bass drummer. The music was very reminiscent of my drumming classes, a very steady rhythm with impossible counter-rhythmic soloing on top. Occasionally a local would get up and dance, and eventually a group of young girls showed up to dance. They acted like flirty-blushing schoolgirls, sticking their asses in front of the musicians and shaking them for all they were worth. The musicians in turn tried to keep up and play the girls asses off. Tired, Heather and I left about an hour and-a-half into the show, walking the kilometer or two back to our oasis, and went straight to bed.

That’s what, five live shows in a row?

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112508

We woke up early in our sandy oasis and saw a breakfast table elegantly set for two in the courtyard. We sat down and were served a marvelous small breakfast that included warm fresh bread, butter (a first), peanut butter (another first), and real coffee served in a bodem (you guessed it, another first). We met the European lady that owns the place and had a lovely chat.

For a late morning excursion we walked a kilometer or two to the Djenne-djenno museum. We checked out the exhibits and picked up a very informative guide who walked us to the Djenne-Djenno site.

In the 1970’s a pair of western archeologists did a dig here and found what carbon dating showed was the oldest known settlement in West Africa, countering the then-accepted theory that Arab nomads first settled in the area. As we walked over the flat, hard-packed fields towards the site I wondered how archeologists could have thought to dig in this specific area. Soon it was clear that the answer was underfoot. To stroll around the Djenne-Djenno site is to constantly trod on and around thousands upon thousands of pot shards, pieces sometimes bigger than your face, just sitting there. Most of these decorated pieces of pottery are about 4,000 years old, and here we are unable to avoid stepping on them.

We were shown the original city walls, which were several feet thick, and the remains of a few dwellings. There were several large clay pots seemingly intact, though only the top few inches stuck up from the ground. Most of these were coffins – the people placed their dead inside these clay pots in the fetal position facing west, towards their final sunset. The burial pots have a hole in the bottom so rotting yuckiness could seep out, but also allowing a means of escape for the interred soul. One of the pots we saw had bones on top of it, where, according to our guide, animals had dug down to get at what the pot held.

Our tour went over the sunbaked lunch hour so we were very hot by the time we started walking back towards town. We decided to stop in at the hotel for a rest and chill out until the sun arced a bit and found that our room had been cleaned while we were out (a very unexpected first). Our ashtray had been cleaned of roaches and our last two joints sat on the table, neatly lined up with our papers and other belongings. As I had never dreamed our room would be made up I hadn’t thought to put any of that stuff away, and we were rewarded with a feeling of anxiety. I wasn’t too worried, thinking if there was going to be trouble it would have been waiting for us already, but I wasn’t carefree about it either. I’m sure Malian prison would be an interesting experience, but I suspect it would grow tiresome eventually. Though we assumed we were safe, we decided to getting rid of the meagre remainder of our pot right away was apropos, rather than following the plan to save one joint for sunset tonight and one for the morning. So on our stroll to the city centre we burned the evidence.

In town we did a walkabout and checked out the incredible mosque again. We went to a restaurant but decided on just a Coke, changed some Euros to CFAs, checked and found the Post Office closed several times, and walked back to the hotel. Earlier I had spoken to the owner about the guitar I had with me, which was given to me by the good folks at The Ottawa Folklore Centre to play during my trip and leave here in the country as I saw fit. She told me they had a guitar there at the hotel and there was a man, a welder, who sometimes did work for the hotel, and he would come by often to borrow the guitar and practice. After his long days at work he’d get on his scooter and drive to the hotel and sit on the roof for hours, learning songs and writing songs. I asked the owner if she would call the guy and have him come over, and he came by around 6pm. We got both guitars out and jammed together for an hour, which consisted almost entirely of him showing me things. Completely monophonic, as was all the guitar playing I’ve heard in this country, I think I discovered one of the keys to the Ali Farke Toure sound. They use E pentatonic minor when they play in the key of A, so relative to the key you get R, 2, 4, 5, b7, which makes sense. Given that there is no 3rd to identify the quality of the key, it’s vague, yet immensely versatile.

Dit Weah was a pretty good player and we both had a good time jamming tunes. I thought the owner had told him that I was going to give him the guitar but it seemed not. Heather took a couple of pictures of me with him playing the guitar for the OFC newsletter, but when I handed him all of my picks and an extra set of strings Weah looked baffled. When I made it clear that the guitar was a gift for him the man actually screamed. He could not have been any happier. He thanked me and thanked me, pumping my hand with both of his, a look of wonder and amazement in his eyes. I went downstairs to sit with Heather leaving Weah on the roof where he played on and on. I think I gave the guitar to the right guy. When he came down off the roof to leave he thanked me profusely again and said the next day everyone in Djenne would know of the gift I gave him. He started by telling the other table of tourists before leaving for home on his moto a happy, happy man, with his new guitar held tightly under his arm.

At 8pm tables were set up with lanterns in the courtyard for dinner. We had heard that this was a fancy place, but when we saw the meal! Pate and fresh tomatoes with warm bread to start, pepper steak and potatoes for a main and fresh in-house yoghurt for dessert, and all under a canopy of stars and surrounded by lush tropical trees and scurrying lizards. It all sounded and looked so good but I had a hard time finishing my meal for some reason.

After dinner we had a drink and soon went back to our lovely room for bed.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112608

After lasting the whole trip with no illness whatsoever, the previous evening’s fancypants meal had me up at 3:30am vomiting and horribly diarrheic. With little to no sleep from then on I was up three times to expulse. After watching the most beautiful sunrise through our little window, we got up at 6am and sat down for another wonderful breakfast, where I only managed to get down a banana and two bites of fresh bread.

With much trepidation but little choice we faced a long travel day. Very concerned about keeping my insides inside and kicking myself for not having a joint left to smoke to quell the nausea, we walked to town straight after breakfast. In the town centre we bought our tickets to Carrefour, the crossroads that leads to Mopti in one direction and Bamako in the other. The collectif leaves when it’s full, and we waited about three hours for it to fill. And when a collectif around here is full, it’s full. A Toyota minivan barely held together with tape, wire, and hope, with nineteen passengers. I had a glad baggy in my pocket in case of vomiting and hope in my soul in case of diarrhea. When we got to the ferry we had to wait again. At one point I thought for sure I was gonna turn inside-out, telling Heather I wasn’t going to make it, but I held it together somehow. At 10:20 we made it to Carrefour where we then had to wait to see if a bus would come by with room for us to get to Bamako. First came a bus for Mopti, no good for us. Then came a bus for Bamako, but it was full. Finally, after two hours on the side of the road we got our bus and were exhaustedly ecstatic to be on the road back to the capitol.

The bus from Bamako to Mopti had taken us nine and-a-half hours, and as Djenne is two hours closer to Bamako, we figured we were in for a seven to eight hour ride (no bathroom or air-conditioning on board of course). The bus stopped incessantly to pick up and drop off passangers and for prayer time, but mostly to allow the roadside merchants to rush the bus and scramble aboard screaming their wares. I never have to hear another person yell Benubebenubebenubebenubebenube!†It was about forty degrees on that bus and the only air movement came from the ceiling hatch, which brought with it debris flying off of the ever-changing roof load. At one point we were stopped for well over an hour while the bus guys repacked stuff they had mistakenly unloaded.

Too fearful in my ginger condition to eat any of the mystery food being pushed roadside, by late afternoon we were both hot and hungry, and I was approaching a very miserable outlook. As the heat became more and more unbearable I brought a frozen drink just to on our bodies to stave off heatstroke, and I stared at the sun begging it to go down. As time crawled on at a pace just slower than our bus we became more amazed and irritated that the bus had to stop every forty-five minutes for more road merchants. I mean, really, if you want a banana in an hour, buy one now! Do we really have to stop again?!?! Finally, finally, finally, we arrived in Bamako and got a taxi to our hotel after enduring a sixteen hour travel day.

It could have been worse though. The twenty or so live goats that were piled like luggage into the lower luggage compartment with their bodies bound up in rice sacks probably had a pretty rough ride too.

[Hux]

Thanks for these, great read.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112708

We slept in for about the third time this vacation, this being our last day in Africa.

Inquiring at our hotel we found that the bag of clothes we had left behind had been indiscriminately amalgamated with a huge pile of clothes, and that my jacket and one of Heather’s t-shirts were missing. “No problem,†said our hotel guy over and over. He was baffled when we tried to explain that we were upset, indicating to us that there were many more clothes in the pile to pick from. “But we don’t want to take someone else’s clothes and do the same thing to them.†“No problem, these are hotel clothes, you can take anything you want.†“But this is where our clothes were, so these can’t all be hotel clothes.†Blink-blink of non-comprehension. “No problem, you take!†Needless to say, we took nothing.

Another worrying point was the absence of the djembe that I had purchased and paid for in full back on day one of this trip, which was supposed to be waiting for me upon our return to the hotel. I made some phone calls and was assured all was well. I went to the bank machine to draw some much needed cash on my Visa, a chore that turned out being very simple, and Heather and I went for lunch. As we were eating Sandy (the drum guy) walked up to us (I wonder how he knew where to find us) and handed me my drum. He didn’t have the cover, for which I had paid 10,000, explaining that the seamstress wanted 20,000 to make the cover. I told him that was too much and that I’d rather have my 10,000 back. “No problem,†he said (of course), he’d bring the money to the hotel at 6pm. No problem.

Heather and I wanted to buy a few souvenirs before leaving the country so we got a cab and went to the market. Though the cab ride was fairly long and quite cheap, the cabbie was eager for our return fare, even when we said we’d be an hour or more. We parked and he joined us on our shopping trip. Despite being constantly approached by hawks trying to secure our CFAs I think we did some good bargaining. Once you have a bag of purchases in your hand the hawks go into overdrive, and even as we made our way back to the taxi we were surrounded every step of the way by a moving phalanx of people pushing their wares, dropping the price with every step towards our cab. A couple of guys all but crawled into the taxi with us, and just as we pulled out I bought a mask for 3,000, the starting price of which was about ten times that.

Back at the hotel there was no Sandy and no 10,000. I went to find a payphone and ended up borrowing the cellphone belonging to a waiter at the place we had lunch. I got in touch with Sandy and he said he’d meet us at the airport at 9pm. Showered, packed, paid the hotel, and went to the airport.

Heather went inside while I waited for Sandy. An hour late, he showed up and came up with an excuse at every turn, suggesting I should hurry up and clear security for my flight. He was picking up a couple of tourists so I got it in my mind to let those tourists know that this guy cheated me out of money. As soon as Sandy read my mind he found a security guard he knew and they had words, looking over their shoulders at me. I took that as my cue to drop it and clear security.

We were both very hungry and thirsty and disgruntled at having our final few hours in Mali wasted on a small ripoff, and left without time to refresh ourselves at the airport bar/restaurant. As we boarded the plane we were surprised to find that we had both dinner and breakfast to look forward to on our five-hour flight, not to mention the free drinks, so we made it okay. Did I mention that I love Air France?

It was a frustrating and seemingly out-of-character final impression of a country we had enjoyed so much, but in comparison to the great time we had, it was a trifle.

We hunkered down for the flight with lovely visions of a few days in the relative luxury of Paris to look forward to.

[Ms.Huxtable]

Todd, I know you;ve been home for a while, but reading the end of your saga actually made it more real than seeing you from afar at Neil Young!

Thanks again.

[phorbesie]

good story Velvet! i had such a great time on the trip with you! amazing.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112808

Following a much anticipated and relatively luxurious overnight flight that included both a dinner and a small breakfast in less than five hours, we arrived at the Paris airport even earlier than we expected. Our visions of having to wait several hours before being able to check in to our hotel were dashed by the (according to Heather) consistent remarkably long wait to get through the Charles De Gualle airport terminal. Over an hour waiting for customs tried our patience, but when we were corralled back and forth before exiting due to an unattended bag somewhere in the building, our frustration level was set to high.

Finally free to enter the airport common area, we inquired about leaving a couple of bags, but due to a fifteen Euro per bag per day fee, we decided to haul the drum and the goat sack to our hotel after all. We trained it to the metro and then metroed to the hotel, arriving an hour-and-a-half early for our noon check-in time. We drastically enjoyed an eight Euro breakfast (continental but well appointed) at the hotel next door, then utilized our hotels free internet until finally, at 11:30, we were admitted to our room.

We had booked at the three-star Novotel La Defence on Priceline for $55 a night (posted prices started near 200 Euros) and were given a corner room on the 11th floor. Walking in to our room we threw back the curtains to find the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance and we danced ourselves silly at the comparative luxury of our accommodations. Pillows, comfy, comfy bed, no mozzie net, in-room toilet and shower and bath, hot and cold running drinkable water, coffee maker, fridge, desk, couch…it was glorious. We literally danced, arm-in-arm, falling on to the bed with comfort that tingled.

We both dozed off for about three hours. We awoke and had coffees and felt like we had just enjoyed our first night. After some relaxed puttering about we lackadaisically headed out to the metro and made our way to the Eiffel Tower. Walking through the streets of Paris we rounded a corner to find the Tower before us. It really is quite a beautiful structure, and is of course incredibly popular with the tourists. We found the very long lineup to get in and waited in the cold, both of us underdressed for the weather.

There are three height levels to choose from, and we decided on the second. We ascended in the two-storey elevator and enjoyed the perfectly romantic night-time view of the city of love. Springing a line that I’ve been saving since Grade 4, I held my girl and whispered, “Voulez-vous couches avec moi?†and it worked. We walked around the level and enjoyed the view from all sides. Eventually we walked down the stairs to the first level (good to know – one can pay for the first level and walk up the stairs to the second free of charge) where Heather mailed a postcard to me and we considered sharing a snack. With visions of our cosy and warm room back at the Novotel we skipped the snack and left the tower, stopping for dinner at a restaurant near the metro.

Our waiter was the perfect Frenchman. We each ordered the onion soup and a beer and shared an order of fries. Mmmm, I love French food. The soup was burned such that the croutons were black, dramatically increasing my enjoyment of it while lessening that of Heathers. I think it’s the best French onion soup I’ve ever had. Swooning arm-in-arm, we headed back to the hotel and quickly went to sleep, enjoying the first truly relaxing holiday-style day of our trip since the pinasse.

Contrary to popular belief, the ladies do wear pants here.

[timouse]

:::: applause ::::

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112908

We woke up early and easy, wrapped deliciously in the cool comfort of our swank hotel room. I cast back the curtains to find the top of the distant Eiffel Tower shrouded in mist and made us coffees. We decided with only a short time in Paris we had to get on the tourist stuff right away, and before long we were on the Metro heading for the Louvre.

We stopped for coffee and pastries, still reveling in the comforts of Western society, before heading for the entrance. We entered from the indoor attached food court/mall, robbing us of the splendor of first seeing the museum from the outside. Paid our nine Euros each and made for the entrance.

We came first to the sculptures, Italian and then ancient Greek. The work was, of course, unparalleled, and to my untrained eyes it was hard to track the improvements made in the 1,500 years between the collections. As we were leaving the area there was a room undergoing construction off to the side that had lots of statues under plastic, along with a forklift or two. I don’t know why I found that room so alluring, but I did. We eventually found the Venus De Milo, and again, these untrained eyes failed to see why this piece is so much more famous than the others we saw. It is fun to wonder what mischievous things the missing arms were up to.

Passing through the halls of this magnificent gallery it is easy to begin dismissing heralded works of genius because of the sheer quantity of pieces that hang from the already adorned walls. It is hard to miss the truly big stuff though, as crowds tend to gather around the unmissables. Here were five Da Vinci’s hanging side-by-side, including the wonderfully dark androgynous John The Baptist, and the unfortunately unnamed Girl. Right there on the wall is a third of the surviving paintings by history’s greatest painter. Wow. And that doesn’t even include the Mona Lisa, which lives in another room altogether, under constant security supervision and crowd adulation. The most famous painting of all time, and we waited long enough to get a front row stand. A damn fine piece, but again, I’ve no idea why it is so famous. I am glad my eyes have finally seen it though.

Room after room of the world’s great art, and a duck down a hallway jolts my heart from its cage. There, on special exhibit, is a book of hand-written snippets by Igor Stravinsky for his masterpiece of rebellion The Rite Of Spring, one of the most revolutionary compositions of the 20th Century. I was all aflutter.

Around the corner, also as part of a temporary exhibit was a nifty little Picasso presentation. He had done a series of pieces based on Delacroix’s ‘Women of Algiers in Their Apartment’ and they had about fifteen of them here, along with Delacroix’s original. I love Picasso, and I found the modern stuff a refreshing change from wall after wall of classic.

Other highlights from the visit were the coronation crown of Louis XV studded with hundreds of the biggest diamonds you ever did see, The Club Footed Boy, Medusa’s Raft, and others. Along the way I caught glimpses of the outside of the buildings and the stunning architecture that I was walking around in, so when we were too tired to explore further we made a point of exiting into the main courtyard, which is a sight to behold in and of itself. The classic architecture appointed with dozens of sublime statues looking down upon us mortals is offset by the modern crystal pyramid at its centre. I found the juxtaposition odd, but what else could one picture being added to such a perfect trio of buildings without being, at the least, atavistic?

Meandering through the gift shops along Rivoli, we stopped for a small lunch before heading to Notre Dame Cathedral. Just walking the streets in this beautiful city is pleasure enough, but to come across standing works of art like this cathedral is breathtaking. Entrance is free, so we took a little tour of the place, and I can say it is truly majestic. One thing about those Catholics, they sure can commision a piece of architecture. Walking where people have walked for over 800 years, I was saddened that I’ve never read the book, and I’m sure when I do read it I will be kicking myself for not taking more notice of this part or that.

Just across one of the seemingly hundreds of bridges in the city we found the Latin Quarter, which was basically a series of winding cobblestone streets housing a thousand restaurants spotted by the occasional gift shop. We found ourselves a bottle of cheap wine and hit the metro.

Relaxing back at the hotel with the wine and the cozy made it difficult to leave, but as the evening wore on Heather convinced me to join her for a little more sightseeing. We headed to Montmartre, an area I was hoping to check out. We wandered the streets made popular by the bohemian set of the roaring 20’s, where Picasso and Satie discussed the merits of acts like La Petomane while sucking on absinthe, and just felt the history ooze out of the pavement. We shunned the funicular and climbed the steps to Sacre Couer and briefly toured this smaller but equally grand cathedral. We checked out the area atop the hill including a walk through a small market. Where yesterday started with a petit petit dejouner and ended with a toure tour, this evening we enjoyed a small marche marche in Montemarte.

Ultimately we made our way back to the Latin Quarter for a lovely dinner amid the extremely active Friday night partiers that were out in full force. Back at the hotel we snuggled in for our last night of this wonderful vacation.

In the morning we woke up early enough to rush out and catch one final museum before rushing back to check out by noon but y’know what? We said fuckit and lounged in bed all morning, casting occasional glances out the window at the Eiffel Tower. We’ll be back in Paris someday, no need to pack it all in in one weekend. Frankly, I think we did okay on the sightseeing front with such a short amount of time to see the city.

After checkout we hauled all of our stuff back along the metro and train lines, and after a slight delay on the train (they must have called ahead and found the airport people were too busy to hold us up) we were back at the airport, perusing the duty free and cringing at the costs in the cafeteria. Extremely satisfied with our vacation and happy to be heading home, we squeezed onto the packed plane and lofted our way back to Canada. A brief wait in Montreal for the bus and we arrived back in Ottawa to a slight snowfall that just made everything perfect.

In the end, I highly recommend Mali (and Paris for that matter) to any intrepid traveler. It’s not Club Med on the beach, but then it’s not Club Med on the beach either.

[Velvet]

fin

[jaybone]

::applause::

[timouse]

::applause::

:::: thunderous appluase, stamping feet :::::

thank you for a very entertaining read! ever thought of organizing tours?

[phorbesie]

now with pics by phorbesie

more pics will have to wait till next month when stupid flickr lets me upload more!

[Davey Boy 2.0]

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