15/1/07

Bonjour to all you mighty Tuaregs and smelly Toerags

Well, we are now back in Sevare in central Mali after arriving from a week in Timbuktu which included the 3 day music Festival au Desert in Essakane… And all we can say is that getting to Timbuktu was easy, but getting back was FRIGGIN AWFUL!!!

Man… the last music act finished at 4am yesterday morning, but we only made it through to 2.30am since we were so knackered… and THEN after only 2 hours sleep, we had to get up at 4.30am ANYWAY to take down our tent and pack up the campsite!

And to make a long story short… after 22 hours, one busted tyre and several malfunctioning headlight repairs later, we rolled into Sevare at 2.30am this morning which SUCKED even worse than you can imagine since I had a migraine the whole way back on roads so bad, that our truck almost vibrated itself to pieces.

Basically it was a fucking ROTTEN trip, which was sad since it was actually a very depressing way to finish what was an absolutely AMAZING experience at the Festival. Continue reading →

10/1/07

Bonjour Tout Le Monde

Hey Holy C’rap!!! We thought that if we were sitting at home in an office, then it would be really cool to get an email from Timbuktu!!!! ….So here it is

WE ARE IN FRIGG’IN TIMBUKTU!!!!!!!

This is only a short email since the internet is a bit crapp’y and slow, and we actually have a blog about our last week here in Mali but it is still on our laptop… so we will upload it later along with the story about how Avril got threatened by a crazy lady with a machete…

But for now all you need to know is that Mali ROCKS!!!

Mali is really hot, dusty, dirty, and poor with open sewages everywhere… And the capital city Bamako is so polluted that our noses have been bleeding, but we love it!!! Continue reading →

9/1/07

Bonjour and I ni sogoma to all you funky cats and grande femmes d’Afrique

Well, we are currently in a dusty little town called Sevare in the middle of Mali, and after 5 days here Mali is DEFINITELY living up to its reputation as a hard travel destination.

So far we have sat in a chicken bus to a fishing village called Segou on the Niger River, choking and coughing and covered in fine red dust since the wheel arch of the bus was completely rusted open with holes filling the bus up with dust…

And we also managed to ignore the guidebook and get on a bus NOT recommended by locals, which then broke down leaving us stranded in the scorching sun on the side of the road for 3 hours while the driver completely dismantled the engine.

And THEN since the normally 6 hour journey ended up taking 14 hours, we got dumped a cross roads on the highway late at night where we had to hire a decrepit Peugeot with no brakes, which we then had to push onto a river ferry since it could only be started with a push start! Continue reading →

1/1/07

Just click on the picture to see the bigger original size.

Bonjour Mes Amis and a snappy new rear to all

Well, we are currently at Casablanca airport in Morocco en route to Mali and today is one of those days where we will have had breakfast in Dublin, lunch in Paris, dinner in Casablanca, and a nightcap in Bamako, Mali… which may sound like fun, but HOLY CRAP we are way too exhausted to appreciate it!!!

Anyhows, we have now finished up working in Ireland, so for the last few weeks, we have been totally stressed out packing up all the bucket loads of shit that we have somehow accumulated over the last year and a half, and are now paying a fortune to have shipped home!

Not only that, but the overnight on call doctor work that I have been doing has now been changed, so I have been working 94 hours a week in 2 rough and unpleasant industrial towns called Tralee and Listowel which sucked BIGTIME because I have had my arse worked off since around Christmas and New Years, the Irish tend to decompensate completely with Asthma, respiratory infections and alcohol related violence… Continue reading →