This morning I woke up nice and refreshed after an excellent sleep in the Yamey. I did some last minute interneting over coffee and a croissant and then headed out. I had known there was a taxi guy outside the Yamey since every time I go by, he asks if I need a taxi. Today, I finally did. He quoted CFA 2500 (US$5). Lonely Planet says it costs CFA 2000, but fuel costs have risen since then and this guy's only job seems to be to give lifts to people at the Yamey, Appaloosa, Café du Fleuve, and Soukhothai. So I'll let him charge me the extra buck.
It is quite a long way to the gare routier. Six kilometers in moderate traffic. I got there at about 11, dropped off in front of the Bittar bus station. Tickets are CFA 3000 (US$6) for the 3 hour trip. I figured I be there early afternoon--enough time to check out Ségou, which isn't very big. But, the ticket man told me quinze heures. Yikes! That's 3pm. Oh well. So I'll be there by 6pm--still enough time to walk along the Niger and the main drag--like I said, it isn't a big city.
I had noticed a pâtisserie--the Al Barka, so there was no better way to while away a few hours than with a pastry and a coffee. The employees were all huddled around the air conditioner watching TV. I ordered a pain au raisin and a coffee. They were pretty good. About an hour later, I ordered a hamburger and fries. They weren't quite as good, but OK. It took me a while to order them since all the employees were transfixed by an episode of 24. I had time and since there were no commercials, it actually ended pretty quickly.
Then I headed across the street again to await the bus. A bus arrived and they loaded my bag as well as the bags of others. We took our seats at about 2:40 pm. At 3:15pm, I asked a guy making sure the driver's papers were in order for the police checkpoints when the bus would leave. He said seize heures. Dammit! That's 4pm. I'll get there at 7pm. It'll be just getting dark. Oh well. At 4:20, another bus came and we all had to move to that bus. At 4:50 pm, we finally hit the road. Ugh! I prefer the sept-place system. Nine people in the sept-place and the windows are open. It's much better than a big slow bus and the invariably undelivered promise of "climatisée". We stopped to get gas--CFA 46760 for 85.022 liters. It's 2:30 am--you do the math if you're interested.
When the bus was moving, there was a breeze and when stopped, it was stifling hot. Until we got on the highway--there, they close the door, so it's stifling hot even when we're moving. Oh sept-place, I miss you so!
It was hot inside the bus and cool outside. We passed a police checkpoint--the clamour of people trying to sell stuff started. We seemed to be making all sorts of stops for no apparent reason. It was driving me crazy. Then, at 5:50--an hour after we left, I reason to go outside into the cool air. There was a thud followed by a slew of whacks. Our rear right inside tire was flat. Ah, so that's why I ultimately ended up on this bus--so I could write a blog post on changing a bus tire. Well, OK, I can handle that.
They spend the next half hour--till 6:20, taking nuts off. There are 10 nuts to remove. Most of them were relatively easy--about a minute to get them off using a 2 meter long steel bar for leverage. But one was not so easy. It took 15 minutes to get that one nut off. They couldn't use muscle to pop it. They put the 2 meter bar in and stood out at 2 meters and pumped their body. Each time, it would get them a little less than a sixth of a turn of the hexagonal nut. At one point, they had the angle way too close to perpendicular. A guy climbed up onto the end of the rod which was about chest height and his companions tried to pin him to the side of the bus so that he could concentrate on moving the bar. But after a minute or so of setting up, it became pretty clear that this maneuver wasn't going to yield results. Finally, after about 5 or 6 short turns, the nut got to the point where two people brute force it by hand. Then one person.
But, there was a nut still on. I'm not entirely sure what the problem was with this nut. But after a half hour spent taking 9 nuts off, they spent the next 20 minutes putting nuts back on. It was getting dark. Not necessarily good for trying to change a tire, but good for the people fasting for Ramadan who were checking their watches waiting for 6:34. The food and water came out and people were eating. At 6:40, we all got back on the bus and went along in limp mode. We passed Korokoro after a few minutes. We went about half speed for a half hour until about 7:20 when we came to one of those towns that exists to service buses passing through.
It was dark. There was a mosquée right there and lot's of people praying. A sermon was being loudly broadcast. The 9 easy nuts were removed. Then the people fixing the bus all disappeared. I looked at the stars in the moonless sky. I've never seen so many stars. It was wonderful. And I didn't see a single constellation I knew. No Big Dipper anywhere to be found. A local guy from the town came at 8pm. At 8:04, he took a 3 cm thick drop forged chisel thing and a big metal mallet and started to try to shear the bolt off. He hit the chisel about once every 3 or 4 seconds with all his strength. After about 2 minutes, he'd stop and they would all look at the bolt with a flashlight. At 8:14, he was still going strong. At 8:24, he was dripping with sweat. At 8:34, still about 3 or 4 seconds per hammer. At 8:44, he filed the end of his chisel a bit, I suppose to reduce the surface area touching the nut? At 8:54, he was slowing down--maybe 5 seconds between hammers. At 9:04, I was wondering if this was going to work. At 9:14, a woman in a beautiful blue dress was trying to give the guy advice. Then finally at 9:20, off came the bolt. An hour and sixteen minutes this guy hammered to shear off that bolt. I wonder what Bittar paid him. He deserves something. His arm is sore right now.
It took them 10 minutes to get the wheels off. They are like those horseshoes with the ring--you need to get the angle right and twist at the right time to get the wheels out. They finally got it. But, it turns out that was the easy part. The tread of the flat tire was wedged into the axle assembly pretty good. They tried to chisel it, but I guess chiseling doesn't work so well on rubber. They eventually found some tool but I'm not sure what. It made a funny noise that I don't remember anymore. It took them 50 minutes to get the tread out. It was 10:10. The next 30 minutes was devoted to putting the wheels back on and taking one nut from each front tire since they found they were unable to use some of the nuts they'd removed. Finally, with 11pm approaching, we all got back on the bus and took off.
My eyelids were getting heavy. Then after 10 minutes, I was jolted awake by a short yelp followed by snapping and crunching sounds. Bus: 1 Dog: 0. There are quite a few stray dogs in this part of Mali. Not so much in the rest of West Africa. The mechanical crew conducted a cursory inspection of the bus to see if the dog got in a lick while expiring. Nope. No fractured bone punctured the tires. We were running pretty quickly.
I was nodding off. The woman in the seat next to me was nodding off. It was a long way. People are up all along the road--even at 1am. Finally, at 1:30am, we arrived at the Bittar station in Ségou. I was worried there would be no taxis and the hotel would be closed. There were three taxis, though. I took a cab with 4 other people to a hotel in the Lonely Planet--the Hôtel Djolibe--easy to remember since it's the first 3 syllables of "Joe Lieberman". I paid CFA 500 (US$1) but the hotel was closed. But a guide named Bako took me down the road to another hotel called the Cnar. It's OK. AC and fan, but shared bathroom for CFA 15000 (US$30). I paid Bako CFA 2000. He was very happy. Ségou seems like a nice place. We passed a night club on the way. Not too many people out at 2am, but enough that I felt completely safe walking with Bako and his brother. I signed in in a graph paper book--just name, nationality, and number of nights. No passport number, visa number, or any of the other stuff they usually (but not always) ask. At the Rama Hotel in Mamou, they didn't even need my name--just my cash.
So here I am about to finish up my post. Whew! I'm tired.
September 21, 2008 3:23 Mali local time
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