Description of The Festival on the Niger Trip

The festival takes place in Segou, the former capital of the various empires that have come and gone across the centuries in the region. From Segou we will travel across Mali using the river as our main artery of travel.

Your trip can include:

Options of 3-7 days travelling Mali along the river Niger.

• 3 days trekking along the great Dogon escarpment between the villages of the Dogon people, sleeping out on the roofs of gîte-type village guest houses under the incredible stars that are so important to the animist Dogon system of belief.
• Timbuktu and camel riding out into the desert to stay in a Tuareg camp with special "meshwi" meal, music and dance.
• Option to go in search of the desert elephant around Hombori, Mali’s "monument valley".

Segou 

Site of the capital of the 15th century Malian empire, Segou is a pleasant, clam town on the banks of the Niger. We can se the pinasse to visit village of old Segou, still very much a living community.

Pinasse river boat

Segou to Djenné - 3 days. The best way to see Mali. Lazy days on one of the most beautiful and serene rivers in the world. A traditional wooden boat chugs lazily through the flood plains of the inland river Niger delta. Watery horizons broken by spits of land supporting nomadic cattle herders and Bozo fishing villages. A languid world of water, land and sky, changing light and birdlife flocking.  Stop off each day to pick up supplies in the markets of the towns and villages,  see how pinasse boats are made, check out the mud mosques.

We camp at night on the banks of the river.

Djenné

A World Heritage city situated on an island in the Bani river, built entirely in mud and home to the biggest mud building in the world - The Grand Mosque.

Djenné also has one of the best markets in West Africa.

Dogon Country Treking

3 days of trekking down and along the bottom of, and back up the Dogon Escarpment, through the villages of the traditionally animist Dogon. Landscape and  culture mix to give an experience of mystery and other worldly strangeness.

We cover about 8 kms a day, 4 in the morning and 4 in the late afternoon, with a long lazy lunch/rest out of the midday heat. At night we sleep on the roofs of village hotels, beneath the brilliant canopy of stars so important to the Dogon belief systems.

Timbuktu

Historically and geographically where the two worlds of Mali, the Sahara and sub-Saharan Africa meet.

You will have a day in Timbuktu and then take a camel ride out to the desert to sleep the night in a Tuareg camp with full meal and musical honours.

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