Let the tale begin

Over the last 6 weeks, Kim and I have been spending more and more time planning our West African adventure. We had book the majority of our air travel on points back in January 2007. We knew that December was the best month to travel in West Africa since it is the dry season.



Let me take a step back first - why West Africa. Kim and I had really enjoyed our East and South Africa experience in 2005. We also enjoyed Egypt in 2007. So Africa was certainly a place we wanted to explore more of. Since Kim is fluent in French - although she thinks she isn't most of the time - we thought French West Africa would be fun. And who wasn't told when they were a kid that they were either going to get sent off to Timbuktu or they were going to drive their mother to Timbuktu!



We had booked our travel to start in Dakar, spend 3 weeks in West Africa and depart from Accra, Ghana back to Frankfurt where we had 5 "open" days. During these days we were planning to visit the Wrigglesworth's in Libya. You can imagine booking a trip almost a year in advance can be a bit anti-climatic. Get the tickets booked...and wait.



August 21st came around, by instinct (with 3 months to go) Kim and I started to get serious about booking "stuff". First we had to figure out what we wanted to do with our 3 weeks. After much consideration, we decided that after 3 days in Dakar, we would travel to a nature reserve south of Dakar for 5 days. We found an article in the New York Times profiling a couple of nature lodges. One was very expensive, the other not so much. Surprisingly, we choose the cheaper one - Le Lodge de Niassam. After this we are heading back to Dakar to fly to Bamako, the capital of Mali.



Mali is a country that Kim has really grown fond of. We planned to spend 10-12 days in Mali. I will tell the tale of picking a "tour" company in a later post. Our journey through Mali will consist of a flight to Timbuktu, driving to Mopti, camping on the banks of the Niger River, hiking in the Dogon country (sleeping under the stars, on a roof!), spending a day at the famous Djenne Market and finishing off with a couple days in Bamako. From there we fly to Accra, Ghana.

So far we haven't made firm plans for our 5 days in Ghana, but we think we'll travel to Cape Coast for a few days and then back to Accra for our flight back to Frankfurt.

From Frankfurt we are hoping to travel to Tripoli, Libya to see our friends who live in Benghazi. This part of the trip depends partly on travel visa's. Libya is trying to develop a tourism industry, but they don't have all the parts in place currently.