I found Saga Tours, a tour operator in Mali with a good website, and with good user reviews. I took bits and pieces from a few of their tours, and created a custom itinerary, which they were happy to accommodate. It was just the two of us, Kone the guide, and Mohamed the driver.
Bamako
The best flights to West Africa are from Paris. It turns out to be cheaper and more convenient in some ways to fly to London, and take the train to Paris, which is what we did. We flew from Paris to Bamako, the capital of Mali, and spent a few days there before the tour actually started.
Bamako has more than 1.5 million people spread out over a large area. It's a very poor city, and its downtown area does not have large modern buildings (except the BCEAO Tower, which houses the bank which controls the currency of the French West African countries, including all of them we visited). More pictures...
Segou
Segou is the second-largest town in Mali, and with around 100,000 people is much smaller than Bamako. It was the capital of Mali when it was occupied by the French, and the colonial mansions they lived in are carefully preserved so everyone will remember. We arrived in the early afternoon, took a short nap, and then walked around town as it got cooler. More pictures...
Mopti
Further down the Niger River was Mopti, slightly smaller than Segou. It is located at the confluence of the Niger and the Bani River. It has a large industry catching, drying and smoking fish for export all over the area.
As we drove along, Kone explained the various tribes in Mali: the Bambara, traditional inhabitants of the Segou area; Bozos, the fishermen; Somono (Kone's tribe), who are Bambara that Bozo taught to fish; Fulani or Peul, nomadic cattle-keepers; Tuaregs, desert nomads; and others.
Kone stayed with his wife when we got to Mopti. He has two wives and seven kids. With his first wife, in Mopti, he has three sons and three daughters. He said he didn't ever intend to have more than one wife; but then six years ago his oldest brother died and it is the custom to marry the wife of your late brother. I think he said that he and his second wife, who lives in Bamako, had a daughter 3 years ago.
More pictures...
Djenne
Djenne was a day trip from Mopti back down towards Segou, and across the Bani River. In the rainy season Djenne becomes an island surrounded by the Bani. More pictures...
Timbuktu
In America, perhaps most people haven't heard of Mali. But hardly anyone hasn't heard of Timbuktu, which symbolizes a place so remote that, well, you don't really know where it is.
Timbuktu, located close to the Niger River, is at the edge of the Sahara desert, and was an important transshipment point for salt caravanned on camels on monthlong journeys from the desert. Now it's pretty much a dusty old town with not much going on. More pictures...
Dogon Country
The Dogon people live in the area of the Bandiagara Escarpment, a cliff 1000 ft high and 125 miles long. Dogon villages are located atop the cliff, at the base of the cliff, and in some cases, on the side of it. The Telem people lived there before, high up the face of the cliff; the Dogon use these sites to bury their dead. More pictures...
Ouagadougou & Tiebele
We left Dogon country and headed into Burkina Faso, formerly called Upper Volta. More pictures...
Niamey to Agadez
The rest of this tour was more transportation than touring. We spent one night in Niamey, the capital of Niger on the Niger River. Niamey seemed to have many more modern large buildings than Bamako or Ouagadougou, built in Niger's uranium heyday. The following night was spent in Tahoua, a small town about halfway to Agadez. The drive there had some interesting sights along the way. More pictures...
Agadez
Agadez was the end of the tour from Mali, and the beginning and end of the desert eclipse expedition. Mohamed and Kone found us a hotel (there was some problem with our original reservation), and then gave us a tour of the town. More pictures...
