and the rest.....

where were we....oh yes. we had just left timbuctu. when we arrived back in bamako, lp and i promptly took the longest (and best) showers ever. it was glorious. words cannot describe a steaming hot shower after 3 days of cold showers and then 3 days in the desert- bask in the thought. we ate a HUGE lunch (all i requested were veggies. that's it) and we watched a movie with tim, then went to bed early. also glorious- sleeping in a bed after basically camping for a week. on monday, lp and i did absolutely nothing. we woke up late, ate breakfast (that the cook made for us!), and laid out at the pool pretty much all morning/early afternoon. we showered (2nd best shower ever) and then walked to the store to get a beer and then back to laying out and reading. that night we all went to dinner at a great little outdoor place where i had fish and fries - that was one of my staples in mali. the next day, lp and i decided to go to kangaba, which was supposed to be a hiking/camping area. tim let us borrow the car and as we drove we saw the greatest place in the world:

(it says "no stress" and "pirate club" on the sides)

the day was really hazy so this is what we saw when we hiked

the next day we decided to meet tim for lunch at one his favorite places. this place had yams that were smashed and mashed into dough-like balls and then covered with a sauce (peanut or spicy tomato). you then tore off pieces of the dough ball and dipped it in the sauce. pretty good but really weird texture. anyway, they gave us some water:
yup, it was in a bag. hilarious. you had to tear it open with your teeth and then suck the water out. after that lp and i went to the national park and museum. it was pretty and we stuck around for a little while and then went back to tim's to hang out and read more. the next day (thursday) tim took off work and he, lp, cheik and i went to a fancy french restaurant. it was pretty adorable and had interesting things to eat, like porcupine. that's what i ate. seriously. it was pretty good. no spikes. and the restaurant was super cute!

inside (yes, we were the only people there. cheik called and told them we wanted to come for lunch, so they opened for us. so vip.)

these were the "christmas trees" that were all over. it was totally made of tinsel. of course, i loved it.

there were also lots of animals around outside. like a monkey.

after lunch, we went to cheik's village and his family home. it was small but pretty (like a lot of the other landscape around!).

his family house

backyard

the rooster that lived there

cheik's brother, tim and cheik

as you can tell, it was very rustic. it was also very cool that we got to go to the village, as there aren't too many white people (or "toubob's" as we're called there) that get to visit. when we got home, my feet were KILLING me with itching. apparently because about a million mosquitoes bit me.
on friday, we left around noon and flew to senegal, where we had an 8 hour layover. we left the airport and tim's friend's came and took us to their house where we hung out for a while. then lp and i went to find a late dinner on the beach. fresh fish!!
the end of our story is that we got to the airport and were almost first in line but our emailed itinerary didn't have our full names on it, so we had to run around to a get an actual ticket. when we got it, we'd obviously lost our place in line and ended up getting the WORST seats (the sucky middle seats-yuck!). we got on the plane and they came to ask lp to come look at our bag- because we had batteries in a flashlight. are you kidding? when we finally get home, our luggage is not there to meet us (of course). luckily, it got here the next day, but we were glad to get home!!!!!