Things are clear!

Remember I told you all how I believe everything happens for a reason. Well, now everything has become clear. While this thing just kept on going, and the police and procureur just kept me waiting, last week  a girl with a landrover drove into the auberge, and immediately I was lost. One week later, me and Anita are a couple and she has realy got me through this ordeal.She is traveling to Namibia and as this is where I'm going we will take on this adventure together.
 This morning, it was my last chance to get the bike back before she had to leave, and after waiting for 2 hours at the 'tribunal' the miracle happened. They said I would get my bike, camera and gps back.

Now I'm sitting in the auberge and still it hasn't sunk in, I'm free. In one hour I will pack my stuff and leave the place where I stayed for 5 weeks and then we're off to the Segou festival and monday towards Burkina. Bye bye Mali.

Thanks for all the support! Next blog from Burkina! 

Update: Just arrived in Bobo-Dioulasso,Burkina Faso, tomorrow I will be in Ouagadougou to arrrange some visa, work on the bike and wait for Anita, Thomas (Swiss in a 4x4 van) and Matias/Matea (Slovenian in a van) to arrive. I'm just very glad to be out of Mali, and in the next weeks will travel downwards towards Nigeria and Cameroun.

Arrested

After my friends left the auberge for another bush excursion to a waterfall near Sikasso, I thought it was time to make that instructional video of 'how to pack the bike for overland travel' that I was planning for a long time. For that I needed a peacefull and quite place outdoors preferably without people staring at me. This prooved very hard to find in a capital of millions, and the day before I didn't find such a place around the auberge at the riverbank, there's always people around, lots of people. So today I drove 15 km out of town towards the airport. It still took me an hour but finally I found a reasonable spot behind some trees in a field. The video only took 15 minutes to make and just when I was packing the big tripod and camera, a complete delegation of military personnel turned up. This is a link to the video:
how to pack your bike
  About 10 people, with different uniformes and even some white people with big camera's. They didn't looked too surprised to see me and the whole group kinda ingnored me, but the big chef 'de la gendarme de l'aeroport' immediately confiscated my passport and camera, telling me I was in a restricted area. He sent an armed guard on the back of my bike to escort me to the gerdarmerie. There followed 4 hours of interrogation, me trying to explain the term 'instructional video' in vain, and then they escorted me to my auberge, as I told them I was sick and needed my medicine. Next day I reported back to the station at 9 am, to be told at 1 pm to come back the next day, my camera was still being examined by the technical labo and my passport still conficated.
Today it took a turn for the worst, after waiting for 8 hours going from one high ranking official to another, they actually locked me up. This was at the ' service investigation judicielle'.
The only reason I was able to type this is because I convinced the doctor I got a medical problem so they had to bring me back to the auberge for my medicine.
I have to present myself tomorrow at 9, hopefully I can contact the Belgian embassy by then.
Update: almost 1 week later and still no real solution, they keep telling me I don't have to worry, because I didn't commit any serious crimes, but even though the consul of the Belgian embassy does a good job, and me turning up every day, things just seem to take forever. For somebody like me, who was impatient all off his life, this is a big lesson and I'm trying to look at it from the positive side as I'm a strong believer that 'everything happens for a reason' in life. Things will become clear very soon.

Update from Bamako

After returning from Bandiagara, camping on the piste near Segou, I discovered the open wound on my foot was infected, and worse, this had triggered an allergic reaction in the skin of my hands and feet, called dyshidrosis. It was like every finger had 20 mosquito bites, and it was very itchy and painfull. The next day I could hardly close my hand and found the rash spread to my arms and feet, so I was of to the hospital. After being treated with anti-biotics, anti histamine and some other stuff things are looking better now, but it will take the rest of the week to fully recover.
In the mean time, I met up with some other Belgians here in Bamako, Max & Marjane, who are driving a KTM motorbike and are on the same route southwards as me. I was in contact with Max for months now and was quite surprised to find hilm here in Bamako, as he left Belgium six months ago. This newly wed couple sure take their time and I will be happy to travel together with them when we meet again in Burkina or Nigeria.

Max & Marjane

My other travel partners, Tony and Charlie, will go their own way in the next few days, driving towards Accra, Ghana with Heidi and Jens on their diesel Enfields, to catch a freightship to Namibia, effectively skipping the most dangerous and hard going part of Africa.

Mali in pictures and video

Getting things sorted

'Nigeria closes borders after unrest about fuel prices and Boko Haram attacks'
This news got the overlanders here in a bit of panic, as a group of Australians were already waiting for a week for their Nigerians visa's, to no avail. I got my visa application in the day before, and was not expecting much when I went to the embassy today, but to my surprise, I got the visum in 20 minutes, after I explained I was only transiting Nigeria on my way to Cameroun. Maybe the fact I got my DRC visa already, made them give it to me, but there is no logic to it, like there is no logic in Africa anyway.
My friends, Charlie and Tony, were already planning another route, invalving container shipping their bikes from Ghana to Namibia, but I prefered the road option, and today it seems, the Nigerians are going to let me have my way. One happy Tony!

Yesterday was a succes also, with me and Tom going into town and buying a new chinese BT 125 Super Nr 1 motorbike.

Now we are ready to get going for an adventure through the villages and sights of Mali, at the pace of the locals, eating their food and sleeping where they sleep.
The night before we left the owner of the 'sleeping camel' had a special treat for  us, roasted pig.