Mopti/Sevare

After Segou, we headed to Mopti, the commercial center of Mali. The Bani River comes up from the south and meets the Niger there; they continue northeastward.

Mopti has a very nice and expensive hotel just north of the port; we stayed in nearby, more affordable Sevare instead.

Sevare

Goofing around in the courtyard of the Hotel Sevare. That red dirt—that red dirt is everywhere in Mali. It covered my clothes and shoes. Lizards like the one in the far right photo were everywhere. I tried to take many pictures of them, but they were fast little buggers, as you can see.

Mopti

Many people leave from Mopti to travel by river to Timbuktu, Gao, and beyond. The larger, covered boats are used for long-distance travel. The slim boats are pirogues used by the Bozo for fishing.

The covered boats are also used to take tourists up and down the river. We took a short tour on the river, which was shallow enough for these boys to walk their sheep into it and wash them.

On the island we visited a Bozo fishing village. There were also Peul and Tuaregs living nearby.

The man in green is teaching the boys to make a pirogue. Fish dries in the sun nearby.

Our favorite thing in Mopti was the salt. Our driver, Achmed, told us how it is mined under the Sahara in Tauodenni, in big slabs, two feet by three feet. Sometimes the miners build their shelters out of these slabs. The salt travels by camel caravan to Timbuktu, because camels are still more cost-effective than trucks, which break down in the sand. It is shipped on the Niger River to Mopti, where it can travel by road to the rest of West Africa. Salt from Tauodenni is said to taste better and have healing properties, so it fetches a higher price than sea salt.