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Douane Stop

Segou is a historically important city.  It served as the capitol city for the Bambara Empire and the French Colonial era.  Since Mali’s success on the international music stage, the city has become popular for its annual music festival where musicians perform just off shore on a special barge.  To get there, we left the capitol city of Bamako and headed northeast and arrived in Segou about 3 hrs. later.  The road to Segou is peppered with douane stops where a small toll is collected for the privilege of continuing on.  These stops are opportunities for travelers to buy food and drink from the local women who offer prepared snacks for sale.

Tree lined road entering Segou

Entering Segou, we encountered the tree lined streets the French are famous for creating.  This was a welcomed change from the dry sandy landscape that accompanied us on the journey so far.  After making our way into the city, we secured our reservation and set out again to do some site seeing.

Donkeys

We stopped to walk along a strip of road that served double duty as a market.  We found many donkeys taking on various burdens, all strapped to their carts with make-shift materials in remarkably similar fashion – strips of rubber wrapped over shoulder padding to provide tension all held together with rope and leather strapping.

Waiting patiently for next assignment

Pretty in pink

Straining to move 1100 lbs.

Mass Transportation

Mopeds

Those who can afford a moped live life at a faster pace.  Buzzing through and around the donkeys, the mopeds hurry passengers to their evening destinations. They carry couples, girlfriends and sometimes whole families.

Going out

Family of three

Girlfriends and baby

Family errands

Sunset by the river

Slowing down after a day of travel and site seeing, we headed back to our hotel by the river to enjoy some quiet night life and pizza.

Niger nights

More on that in the next post…

Enjoy! Ed.

Tags: Bambara Empire, French Colonial, Mali, multicultural coexistence, Niger, Segou

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under West Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.