I am up early, craving coffee, and in time to to say goodbye to our tour travel buddies. After breakfast, they are off to Bamako and the end of the tour (Sorry about cutting you out of the picture Jan - this is what happens when I take pictures while under-caffeinated).
Sunday is a recovery day for Sigrid and me. We are in no rush to get anywhere. I do some morning exploration and (with the help of some concerned local passer-bys) discover that a reasonable internet connection (both bandwidth and cost - 1,000 CFA/hour) is available at the High School, a short distance and easy walk from Hotel Azalai.
BoujBouj is left to deal with the two tour stragglers still in Timbuktu. Despite the fact that he speaks no English and we speak no French, we manage to arrange for him to take us to Hotel La Maison at 11:00, tour a family library with ancient manuscripts on Monday, and plan to get us to the airport on Wednesday.
PostScript - Two notes from Monday 3-Dec:
- The Internet access at the High School is a bit more problematic on Monday than it was on Sunday, as there is one big difference between Sunday and Monday, specifically - High School students. While the internet lab was almost empty on Sunday at 9:00 AM, it was packed to the gills with students lining up out the door at 9:00 AM on Monday. I was directed to return during a one hour block of time that students were not scheduled to use the room later that morning.
Since our tour group arrived on Saturday and departed Sunday - during which time the post office was closed - we volunteered to send all postcards for the group, in order to get that all important Timbuktu cancellation stamp. This is photo documentation of postcard mission accomplished.
No comments:
Post a Comment