Mariel and Ben's Big Day in the City

Hello again!

We are spending the day in Bamako being tourists. This morning we visited the National Museum, which was surprisingly nice and had air conditioning - also very nice. There were displays of Malian archaeology, art, and textiles. At the museum cafe we ate our first sandwich in a month, which was glorious. Then we petted some adorable puppies that were lounging in the scale models of the famous Djenne mud mosque outside the museum. We've now made our way to the embassies and nightclubs part of town, called Hippodrome. We've located what may be the fastest internet in all of Mali, but we didn't bring the cable for transferring photos. Rest assured that we know our way back and have enough free time that there really will be photos soon.

In Bamako, we are staying at the house we did before - Fanta's house. Her house is always full of visitors from somewhere and this time we've met a guy our age who goes to college in Toronto and is from Senegal. He speaks flawless English and is fun to talk to. The house is a refuge from the heat and action of the city.

Tomorrow we plan to head back into the city and wander around the large market at its core. They are supposed to have anything and everything there, from dresses to milk to car parts to dried monkey heads, the latter being part of the fetish market. There's some info herehttp://community.iexplore.com/planning/journalEntryActivity.asp?journalID=52267&entryID=53888&n=Artinasat+and+Fetish+Market for you to check out. Put in your requests for souvenir sheep brains and powdered snake teeth now!

That's all for now, more news and photos tomorrow!

Mariel and Ben