Day 19 - BAMAKO!
We made it! The 5 of us and 1 car to donate have made the finish point!
After a market stall breakfast its another long day of hot driving south through Mali. We give the last of the footballs away to 2 delighted kids on a bicycle. The footballs have been a real highlight of the trip for us all, loads of happy recipients along the route…..so many thanks to Junior Soccer Coach for supplying them.
After a tricky getting lost approach towards Bamako we pull over at the Welcome to Bamako sign for a photo call in the late afternoon, and find our way to CRES the vehicle donation point and accommodation at dusk.
We will not be handing over the faithful Green Machine just yet, as 4 of us will rely on her to get us up river to the Festival Sur Niger at Segou. However, Rob needs to head home now from Bamako and so this our last evening together as a group.
We park the Audi proudly on the campus lawn and have a few celebratory beers with the Boxy But Good and SafariSoGood teams. Over 5000 miles and with 3 vehicles abandoned on route, we made it to Bamako - something which seemed pretty unlikely at various points over the past 3 weeks!
The Green Machine has been brilliant…..funny really given all the preparation we put into the original 2 vehicles, the only one which got us here was grabbed with zero preparation several hours later than the last minute and we have not had to do anything to her the whole trip!
She is starting to show some wear and tear from the battering journey though - the tape player packed up some time ago and the rear passenger window has just stopped working and is now wedged shut with gaffer tape, the front right wheel sounds a bit odd and she is drinking about 5 litres of water a day. But otherwise driving like a dream!
We say our goodbyes to Rob - its a sad to be splitting up, and generally quite a strange feeling to have suddenly reached Bamako after the insane last few weeks we have had - and get some sleep before the drive up the Niger river tomorrow.
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