How Much Is A Thermostat For A Refrigerator

Christmas and Happy New Year 2010, Malian bon noel!

Segou Since we have not stopped going into the deeper Mali ..

getting out of the main roads to reach destinations across the tracks in some cases and in others something like passable roads. The first experience was to get from Segou to Djene. So we've crossed hundreds of hectares of fields and rice paddies, which are created by the Interior called Delta, which is formed in the lands surrounding the Niger in tens of kilometers from its shores, due to the natural curve which and the flatness of the terrain.

It was amazing to discover this show green, farmers, the small towns that we have crossed, with his Sudanese style mosque. the end our goal is to reach people Djene, considered World Heritage by mosque and market. A place of great color, fish, smells and people of different features and ethnicities.

We continued our journey with the question of whether to go to Tumbuktu, for everything you hear about the situation, and among the Tuareg rebel movements, but definitely we can say is that go quiet, but not in van, so we decided to leave the van in Mopti, and continue on the Patrol of the child. Once everything is on track Duentza reddish the first part decorated with mountains in the background, but most within the arid and desert, though not absent from vegetation, donkeys, Tuareg and shongais. After two hundred kilometers turundule we reached the Niger, we crossed by ferry and soon we're in the famous city of Timbuktu. You always expect to find much more, idealizes a name. Since then this city is more name than anything else. It is a city more full of Tuareg crafts vendors, offering camel rides or going to take you to a Bedouin tent a Tuareg family. that they go in making these areas, depending on some tourists who come, martyred by the droughts that have plagued the last few decades the area, drying up wells in the interior and led to wars and tensions between Shongais and Tuaregs. The city still preserves some interesting small museum with relics the time of splendor of the place and the imposing mosque with mud, but it is still a small town more.

Following the track, and determined to make a circular turn back to Mopti,

Niafunke take the path (for the connoisseurs, the birthplace of blues musician Ali Farka Toure African). From this place we say we want to take the track is closed by the flooding of the river, but maybe there is an alternative route following a small village, and that at least we have to cross small rivers or ponds within five Boat, motor and a couple others with just a few drinks from driving the background is not very deep (bakys). Enlighten us with such an adventure, and goes on the road, all that we say that the tracks are poorly marked and there are many branches without signaling. The point is that we started the adventure by night, following another 4x4 that goes to the same route, but the speed of light. With great difficulty we are able to follow, but we do it and after crossing two bakys,

we reached a small village just Kumera and foosball playing a home with half the town to relax , in the light of Chinese lanterns, and sleeping in the same plaza with shops. Given how difficult follow the path, we decided to go with someone to guide us beyond 30 km, crossing several villages and more bakys . Along the way, the car stays in the mud and are themselves farmers (who are harvesting rice) which bring straw to put under the wheels and push the car. and so we got to Ngorky and its market.

Touregs coming by camel or horseback dressed in an amazing blue and swords, blacksmiths and artisans, tons of peanuts, .. and these 4 white as milk, with the spectacle of the people .. ! as can be, right? if they tubieran camera to take pictures, I'm sure that would be worse than us!

continue the trip by asking every few meters, pastors, and people who appear with their cars, and little by little we are closer to Ngomu, that's where the track signposted. We arrived to a small village called Dabale bambara. There are a Hammadu who explains that the river waters have risen (not speak anything but bamabara!), Said that we came to where there is less water, and perhaps be the most appropriate step. About three kilometers from town is this way, with not much water but plenty of mud, and after looking at it and looked again, everything and be convinced that not happen, the child gets a running catch in the water .. but only a few meters because the mud is thick and not allowed to proceed to the Patrol. We tried to get the car good, but there is no way forward is impossible to move the car or using the hoist and there behind a tree where the cable tie. NI plates, or branches, or mats and move it each time is more hollow. getting dark so decidimso go to sleep Hammadu house and the next day to fetch a 4x4 Ngum, which is about 25 km on foot from the place. On the way we explain that the other side of the river are more water, so the only way to continue is going back, and the solution going to recruit young men from the two nearby villages, one Badala of Bambara, and another, can not remember the name, but of ethnic the Peul. Barto child and remain camped by the river, watching the car and seeing anodadados as camel jockeys across the same river in which the Patrol sleep more brown than white. At the same time Jordi Jose and go home for the family and enjoy a night on the African family, bebindo milk, millet eating, drinking tea and trying to find a solution, they are clear. Fortunately, the younger brother of Hammadu, Amadou, was fortunate to go to school, and is the only one of the few people in place who speaks French and that makes us a little things, as well as they explain their idea. So after planting the tent, under the watchful eyes of someone who has never seen anything like it, slept in a mud house in the village, protected from mosquitoes, and in the morning after a hearty breakfast of toasted rice and millet, we recruit. Amadu has been commissioned to do so in Badala, and now all together, with axes, hoes and shovels, we went to the adjoining village of the Peul, house by house, searching for the young who want to come to help. Among them scream, argue, talk, greet and resaludan, and finally agreeing a sum of sefas Franks, we track the car, at a distance of a couple of miles. When we arrived, there is already an advance Barto and talking to Jose, so maybe we are in total about 25. Shoes off (the wearer), the water .. four screaming and lots of energy ,.... do not know if they were ten seconds or five minutes, but the car came at a time! Go joy, the whole world at a time step of the seriousness to laughter, jumping and laughing .. and how it spreads! The car is outside, the car is out!

gradually be spreading joy, and everyone goes back under his own home .. us a hand, others on the other, others are sitting, others can not stop talking .. but the car is already out! We turn to say goodbye to the family of Hammadu, which have been the most hospitable, and remake the way back, thinking that some day we must return to this place, who knows when.

The road is not easy, and one of the branches we are lost, and asking in a small village, Omar, school teacher, says he has to go to Niafunke and we could follow .. so the path becomes easier and unforgettable.

Go sigh Niafunke reach after crossing the small ferry last .. we have arrived! tumbuktu retook the road and back to Mopti, where you enter this small chronic. And with that, without more, whether or not Christmas is or is not happy new year, a thousand kisses and hugs to everyone as always, without exception, ... by the way, feel what the 4 below zero .. the 40 is not bad !!!!! love!

Chamomile And Valerian Root Tea

we're in Mali! December 11, 2009

(... we could not download all the pictures by technical problems ... I'll post them on the next blog .).... imshaala !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... and finally found the means and time to continue our blog. These past weeks were not easy, especially so that we will back at the border of Mauriania, (not to have a valid visa), all and since then we take a lot of philosophy, for a trip to Africa so required, but the plane ticket and visa renewal are unpredictable costs that hurt the pocket. Remains as anecdote and experience to the next. The lot was to have good friends on the palms, which are Corina and Blanqui who have benefited from the Jordan while performing the steps of Mauritania visa on the island. Milllll thanks for your hospitality!
So it was while resting Barto Joses and relaxed on the beautiful beaches of Dakhla eating knives swelling sea, Jordan flew in a ten-seater plane with a mission to get the visas.

all goes well, and the return, we have taken back the way already known to no man's land, the 5 km of track potholes and sand, with hundreds of crosses losers that separanla border between Mauritania and Morocco. This time the child has achieved two passengers with whom to share expenses. They are a young French couple have been planted in Dakhla and continue hitchhiking road Burkina Faso.
This time I passed the border without any problem, only thing is that we heard just a day ago to have kidnapped a group of three English of Catalan Ong. With the news to the surface, we changed the plan to spend a few days Nouadibou, and decided to cross the country as quickly as possible, taking advantage that there is a French traveler in another van, and we can make a small caravan in which we are somewhat safer. In reality it is still all relative, people crossing in different directions 4x4, trucks equipped to routes in the Sahara .. "paranoia" no longer very personal. It always happens in any country in the world, foreigners about the Basque country. "Some of us have stopped going to Bilbao for fear the ETA? Everything is relative to the actual knowledge of a country and the situation of media in each place, and what happens .. 4 as it could affect us insignificant little characters .. difficult to guess, as always in the hands of fate or destiny.
Thus ráaapido, with prevention and rocket in the ass, half hitch cross Sahara, stretches of dunes, small villages of fabric stores, small Haima, and desert . Those places where one finds it difficult to understand how people can live there, why are there. The real torture on this road, which have been about 600 kilometers, have been the roadblocks, sometimes only separated from one another by a few hundred meters. Perhaps we have crossed 20 controls, perhaps 40. Some are gerdarmerie, the other soldiers, the other police, other Duane ... a really crazy, having to give each time data, photocopies of passport and negatives to each of the demands of giving a gift, either a pen, a shirt, a bottle of water, among others. The need when the south is becoming more visible. the evening we came to Nouakchott, capital chaotic, strange, but African. Mauritania's population is mixed between Arabs and black Africans, with their dresses in white robes and blue, mixed in a radical Islamic Republic. Here even continue with our small caravan, which are the 4 españolitos and three Frenchmen, well good people. Our story begins in an area of \u200b\u200bmosquitoes and so we take a "camping" in the city to prepare the anti fragon mosquitoes, installing three individual nets. The thing is that this van is getting smaller. Could it be that is shrinking??
From here, we have taken the route that goes into Mauritania, Mali due to the so-called highway of hope. say that for many years this road was unpaved and unmarked, so many people got lost and perished, without finding water or the right direction. Today is just impossible to miss, but you do not stop thinking about being in the road, this must have been in the past in order to earn such a name .. la route de l espoir. Certainly police checks have not fallen to our despair.
We spent the night at a police checkpoint, and we are finally in Mali. After a thousand papers, visas, car insurance, the lesse passe touristic vehicle, change money again, and pay toll (lots of money in total over the tip of the bad cop) enter the fantastic world Mali. Finally, the sense of us ventured into black Africa, the Africa that all we have ever seen on TV, on film, or maybe we just imagined. Those women carrying bundles on their heads using the pure balance, walking along roads, tracks solitary red, giant baobab trees, donkey carts, large horned cattle, adobe villages with round huts with straw roofs .. We finally reached Africa. Input and decided to leave the main road that goes to the capital, to get into a track of 300 km. The first anecdote is in the first policing of this track. At the commencement there is no problem and everything goes with humor. But to see a baobab giant about 200 meters from the police station, we stopped to enjoy his imposing figure, who surrounded and took some photos, denying climb can not enjoy such beauty giant, for having known that it is a sacred tree. What we did not know beforehand is that the tree is so sacred, to have to have permission to the village chief or authority before taking a snapshot. This very interesting novelty when a cop found those bad, there is wondering what he has given us permission to photograph the baobab. Another interrogatory answer as .. eing?? So without anything stronger than his own authority takes the camera's Jose. We were speechless, and semi-paralyzed, .. What do?. We tried to explain, justify, defend, and of course get the camera, but it's not going well. After our attempts and the small feeling that the cop wants to stay with the camera, he invited Joseph to go with him to his small garrison with passport in hand. One of the Frenchmen who have joined us to interpret it and takes care to talk about football and telling bad jokes, and the good cop loosens the situation, returned the camera and offers guests white tea, while the bad points the name and number passport in a role that probably disappeared instantly. So everything is like learning a scare, and that there remain many things to learn when you get back to a country completely different culture.

From there we continued our way through the red door, where people have found a pretty, smiling, it is also true that very poor, but a big heart and a big smile on their faces. While camped under a tree, get a guy in his car and brings two watermelons, little by little is drawing people to the people, the more grandparents, many children, a woman, and of course, anyone who was working in Almeria Plastic seas. Just by sharing knowledge, especially the most knowledgeable in agriculture, entering the school, making a small show a recess, concentration and work a little education and village life. It was a real lucky that our first contact with the country has been such. The village is called Kasan.

keep going to Kitta, and then we head to Bamako, the capital of a million and half people. Once inside, the chaos has a completely opposite feeling that we had had so far. Jams, pollution, people everywhere, street vendors, hustlers to everywhere .. ie, stress! but we have no need to stand one day as we have a small problem in the direction that causes it to wear excessively fragon wheels. So after two days to fix supestamente get the new tires to change direction and continue our way. So today we are in a town called Segour, about 200 km from the capital, and quietly enjoying the waters of the Niger. And if it goes well, this will be our road to Timbuktu, Mopti, Dogon pays ...

And here we leave our newsletter, our blog fragonafricano from Malian land, as always handing out hugs and kisses saying goodbye to our beloved, love pa all .. and waiting for you to continue enjoying the fragonafricanussssssss

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