I will be going to Mali next week. I quote from the Internet: “Mali is bordered by Algeria to the north, Niger to the east, Burkina Faso to the south, Guinea to the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania to the west. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of just over 1 240 000 km2.”
Also, Mali is the latest country to report a death from Ebola. It was this item which has created worry among my consulting practice staff. In vain, I do tell them that the major causes of death in Mali are, as for much of Africa, Aids, interpersonal violence, malaria, stroke and tuberculosis. It is Ebola which worries them.
Thus, I thought, I would give all my readers out there the Machoy Guide to Travel in Africa. At the beginning, let me state that ‘safe travel in Africa’ is a paradox: the only true safe travel in Africa is if you walk; even then, this is area and company dependent.
Traffic deaths are high in Africa. The current risk leaders are those who travel from Nairobi, Kenya, into the Great Rift Valley. It is a two-lane road and, commonly, going down, a taxi will overtake a truck to be in line of a truck coming up, which also has a taxi as a wingman, so to speak.
For these vehicles to avoid each other, they must pass, at minimum, three abreast. This is achieved by one truck grazing the cliff face and the other putting the driver’s wheels onto the sand strip above the precipitous drop below, with the taxi in between. Many of the drivers are of the Masai tribe and driving along the Rift Valley road has taken the place of their traditional initiation ceremony of killing a lion with a spear.
Previous traffic risk leaders were the Gaborone, Botswana, traffic circles of death. These were traffic circles where you had to enter and exit at high speed. Survival was a miracle. My advice to travelling in traffic in Africa: either do not or sedate yourself. Vodka helps.
Travelling by air in Africa is generally very safe. It is the airports that are the problem. Do not think that the baggage reclaim area is not open to the public. Any number of wide boys will gather there and try to steal your baggage and/or mug you.
A very good tip: get a small clip-on identity card – best is a photo of you, head and shoulders, wearing sunglass and some sort of uniform. Clip it to your shirt or dress. Do not smile. If somebody touches your bag on the conveyor, shout loudly. When exiting most African countries, expect to have to give up all your local currency and any perfume in your hand baggage. Do comply if you want to depart safely.
The water in Africa should be safe – but it is not. But, if you drink bottled water, your body will run out of mineral salts, since the water is made by reverse osmosis. Thus, to avoid collapsing into a heap, take mineralising salts.
Avoiding disease: malaria, hepatitis A and B and yellow fever are all available at no charge in most African countries. You can get vaccines for all of these but not all the vaccines are proof against the latest version of the disease. Avoid shaking hands, wear long pants and long-sleeve shirts and about a kilo of bug repellant.
Wild animals: most of these have been eaten to extinction in Africa and, thus, the lion sleeps in the national park rather than the jungle. The jungle does have snakes, as does the savannah and the backyard. Africa has nine species of poisonous cobras, five species of poisonous mambas and about 20 poisonous vipers plus the adders and the boomslang. Walking in flip-flops could be hazardous to your health. Given poor transport opportunities to the nearest hospital, your only hope, if bitten, is the book of common prayer or similar.
So, Ebola? Well, I really hope I do not get it. Africa is bad enough as it is . . . and yes, I will give your best regards to Mali.