Trouble Off-road in
Mali
Today we hit the road at 7:15am hoping to make up time after we had fallen a bit behind schedule over the last couple of days. The horrible dirt track that we had been on the previous day improved marginally. We were able to maintain about 40KM per hour in between Volkswagon sized potholes. Mali began to grow on us. The sheer wilderness is unbelievable. The terrain is quite varied and we traveled along several canyon like hills and valleys. Interspersed throughout were very small villages, usually with no more than 20 small, round, clay structures. Traditional thatched roofs and a central well were also common features. Kids would run out to the road as we drove by. Many waved and acted as if they had never seen outsiders before- certainly not American ones. Some asked for gifts, which is pretty common in much of West Africa. We gave out a few pens and pencils and some drinks. Paul and I admittedly got rid of a few cake like desserts too. They were not exactly big hits with our crew; maybe the kids will like them more.
As we drove deeper into Mali wed realized two things. One:
it was getting even more remote and rugged. Two: we were never going to reach
Bamako in the three days we had allotted. Things took a turn for the worse, as
the road we needed to turn off on quickly became a track that 4-wheel drive was
necessary. Given that our very old Land Rovers have already had quite a few
problems and the fact that they are extremely overloaded complicated this drive
further. The road was so bad we lost
our way three or four times before arriving in a small village where I quickly
became helplessly stuck in a sandy riverbed. The locals came out in droves and
helped us and Shane out and then told us we were going the wrong way.
One of the guys volunteered to guide us to the right track
and hopped on my hood. An African guidance system sure beat all of our crummy
computers! Unfortunately our hopes were short lived. The correct route was far
worse than the wrong one that we had been on. There were several very tricky
rock inclines. Shane discovered that he was having a problem with his diff lock
and got stuck several times before making it up one hill. I began to develop a
problem with my four-wheel drive back in the riverbed and now it was getting
worse. We suspect I have blown out a front hub. Jim sustained the worst damage
of all. He blew up his rear differential going up an unusually difficult
section and that stopped us in our tracks.
We quickly found out we don’t have the spare parts to fix it, so we
removed the drive shaft and axles and he is now stuck with only front wheel
drive.
We were forced to turn around and try to take an easier,
although longer, route toward Bamako.
Not 2 miles into the new route I nearly lost complete control of the
truck over some heavy ruts in the road.
We found my steering box had loosened up and was nearly falling
off. Another hour stop and that was fixed. We camped several miles down the road. Very
much behind schedule, not much closer to Bamako and extremely worn out. Our showers felt good- although nothing gets
the African dust off too good. I let Wilson give me a haircut tonite. Looks
pretty good actually. It cannot be short enough. Today temperatures reached 109
degrees F in the shade!
-Michael Ladden