West Africa Autmun 2009, advice would be much appreciated!

[dleufer]

Hi everyone,
I'm planning on travelling to West Africa this October to spend a few months travelling around drumming and experiencing West African life and I was wondering if anyone who has been there before could give me some advice. My rough plan of the moment is to fly to either Bamako in Mali or Ougadougou in Burkina Faso. If I start in Mali then I'll go to Burkina second or vice-versa. I want to get in contact with some good teachers over there and do maybe a month of training. Then I plan on doing Famadou's course in Conakry on December 16th.
Anyways, here's a list of things I would be very grateful to receive advice about:
Flights from Ireland to either Mali or Burkina, what's a good route? good airlines?
Contacts for teachers?
Prices? How much do teachers usually charge in Mali and Burkina?
Anyone else planning a trip around the same time? Wanna meet up?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I 'm particularly confused about how to get there. One option is to fly to Casablanca and from there to Bamako but maybe someone knows a better way.

Sorry about the rambling format of this, it's a reflection of my rambling state of mind about the whole trip

[rachelnguyen]

I flew to Bamako through Casablanca in January and it was fine. Flew on Royal Air Maroc from NYC and had a 15 hour layover. They gave us a hotel room in downtown Casa and we had a nice day hanging out, eating DELICIOUS food and enjoying a little stroll through town.

It is a little weird because Air Maroc doesn't tell you anything, so we kind of wandered around the airport for awhile before we figured out there was an office set up to arrange lodgings. I think they do it for any layover over 12 hours. It definitely helps if you speak french at the airport... but once you get to the hotel, they spoke english.

Flying out in the middle of the night is a bummer. All the flights from Morocco to Bamako leave at 11 or so and get in to Bamako at 3am. When you arrive, there will be a great crowd of people hanging around outside trying to get you to hire them. I think it would be much better if you had someone arranged ahead of time.

The guy that runs Rootsy Records puts people up for a low fee ($30 a day, I think, including home cooked food.) He will also arrange lessons for you if you want. I would guess he'd figure out about picking you up at the airport, also. His website is:

http://www.rootsyrecords.com/

A friend stayed there a year ago and her feedback was that it was small and pretty spartan. (Dorm style rooms, with bunkbeds.) She also said it was a little claustrophobic because you are in a compound in the middle of a residential neighborhood and there wasn't too much going on in the immediate area, so folks didn't really go out on their own. I think that may have had more to do with the fact that she was only there for a couple of days. I think if you were going to stay for a few weeks, you'd certainly get to know the neighbors and start to get to know the neighborhood enough to feel comfortable wandering around on your own.

When you do go to Mali, I HIGHLY recommend the National Museum in Bamako. It is stunning. The artwork is simply gorgeous. It was one of the highlights of our trip.

If you want to connect with teachers, I have a few friends I could probably set you up with. I worked with a great dance teacher while I was there. I could probably also hook you up with a drum teacher... or dun duns.

As far as cost per teacher... I am not sure because I paid a lump sum for the whole trip, but Jeremy at Rootsy says folks are charging about $10 per class. That seems like a huge bargain.

I wish you luck on your journey. I LOVED Mali and can't wait to get back. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

[dleufer]

Thanks for all the tips Racheal. I had a similar experience to what you describe when I flew into Morocco. I just got swarmed by touts and taxi drivers and had to do all the arguing in very rusty French! It would be good to have someone there to meet me for sure.
I had a look at the Rootsy Records Djembe Hotel and it looks good but the price seems a bit steep. 30 dollars a night is a lot more than I was expecting to pay for accomodation but the classes to seem to be cheap. Does anyone konw what the usual price for cheap hotels is around Bamako? Or are there any alternative accomodation options like camping or anything?
Watching that video of Ibrahima Sarr got me very excited about Mali!

[rachelnguyen]

Hotels in Bamako are surprisingly stiff. I didn't stay in one, but when I was looking online it looked like they were in the $80 to $100 range and up. I understand there is a guest house run by some Catholic nuns that is very inexpensive... about $10 or $15 a night, but only includes breakfast, which means you'll be on your own for the rest of the meals.

http://hotels.lonelyplanet.com/hotel/Ba ... 60581.html

Maybe someone else has other suggestions for hotels.

[James]

I did a similar trip a couple of years ago. Ended up in Famoudous after going to Gambia and Senegal first...

Cheapest way to West Africa is via London - Banjul.

Otherwise I think you have to fly Air France or similar to get into Mali and Burkina (maybe I'm wrong here?).

We spent some time in Gambia, which is pretty touristy in comparison to the west of WA. They speak English too, which is handy for the lingually challenged, such as myself.

If you want to head East from there you face either a gruelly 24 hour trip with 6 in a little car as you travel across country or an African Airline. We chose to fly Air Nigeria to Guinea and we made it successfully.

There's a list of airlines that aren't allowed to fly into Europe because of not reaching certain safety standards. I'd advise getting a hold of that list (can't remember where) and checking any internal flights against it.

If it was me about to do what you are about to do I'd talk to Keanie about getting a hold of Mr Sarr's number or Bubudi about getting ahold of Zoumana Dembele's number. I wouldn't organise any accomodation until you land, unless there's a festial on or you arrive late at night... (even better try not to arrive late at night )

Talk to a teacher, get them to sort the accomodation...

It's not in the realm of possibility that I'll be in Africa at the end of the year, thought probably a little doubtfull