We got the Mali visas in Dakar and have been on the road for the last 4 days.

The first 80 miles in Mali- from Kayes (for those of you with an atlas) were bloody hard, it took us 24 hours. Hopefully the photos will do some of it justice as we had to scale some rock faces (I kid you not) and there was a particularly memorable moment when Ethel and I were in mid-air halfway up one rock face;

We are now in Bamako,the capital of Mali and have been promised tarmac for the next 500 kms which will be a relief after the dust, sand and rock we have been on.
We took what turned out to be the back route from Kayes the border town, it was mostly a footpath with various obstacles including a couple of rock faces to scale - I just hope that the photos will do it justice.
The "real" route goes to the north of Kayes and is longer but less risky - we would have taken that one if we had known about it.

The running tally at the moment is Germany -5 England -6
...... that is for the number of times we have each fallen, I have got 3 indicators attached with duck tape and it seems like more parts are falling off by the hour!

I have got dust everywhere, more sand ahead as we continue to Timbuctoo