Chasing 4x4 leads

Day: 25
Location: Bamako, Mali
Weather: HOT
Health: perfect
Accomodation: Auberge Lafia
Price, room: 10K CFA
Price, water: 500 CFA
Shower: yes
Morale: 9
Total spend: 41K CFA
Song of the day: "Put it on me" Akon

AW: Today we tracked 5 leads for a 4x4:

Brehima - upscale legit rental place, first price was 75K, very quickly followed by 55K and finishing at 47.5K with us not satisfied. 1998 Toyota Landcruiser.

Moussa - guy met in the internet cafe, came back with 40K for a Pajero (no way, burn me twice, my fault), and later a Toyota Tacoma, which was a little wimpy, and a single cab.

Shek - met him in the street, and he brought us a Landcruiser pickup, but for 50K CFA. Expensive for any year!

Balde - this guy was a baker, literally. We were asking around, and were shown into the office of his bread bakery. He was a little flighty, never done this before, and agreed to 25K CFA before reneging the next day, saying he didn't know where prices were supposed to be. 1991 Toyota Landscruiser, just imported from France. This is old, but it had enjoyed and easier life in France than a comparable African version. We wanted 30K, he refused to go below 35K

Mahamadou - I was ogling his truck, a 2001 Toyota Hilux 1.8L diesel double cab pickup, when some guy on the street introduced us to the owner. No he had never done this before, but in typical African fashion he happened to be cash strapped right now. We couldn't get under 45K no caution 150K upfront, chauffeur (chaperone) compris.

Winners announced tomorrow.

Fine, it turned out to be Mahamadou. The bulk of our spend today ended up being on nightlife. The main strip was far from the center, so we took a cab to check it out.

GB: We initially wanted to go to Bla Bla Bar, if only for the indispensable pleasure of getting in a cab and asking for "bla bla" and actually meaning it. But once we got there, we found a geriatric leisure facility. No offense, but not quite the "nightlife must-do" the guide mentioned. So we went to "La Terrace" bar and got a couple of beers there. As we are now accustomed, a girl came up to us a couple minutes after we sat. From Ghana originally, she was in Bamako to study computer science.

After a small misunderstanding around tip (you mean NY standards have not been adopted internationally?), we talked a bit with the waitress in order to get a sense of the good places. Conveniently enough, the place she indicated was just downstairs from the bar.

Once we got there, we first got the impression that little was different from NY: large dance floor, hip hop music, gorgeous waitresses. We were largely mistaken, as we would soon discover. Once again flanked by girls who seemed to appear from nowhere, and not quite sure how to handle that part, we danced for a bit, before we were stopped in our tracks Guinean army style (see previous post on encounter with Qaddafi). The dance floor was emptied by security, and at this point it seemed something bad had happened, but unclear what.

In fact, this was a joyful day as there are only too few: it was the birthday of an ORTM journalist, and the inauguration of a new concept of a show from Ivory Coast. In the end, after a 1hr succession of shows of mediocre to low quality, we put an end to the night. But not before our new friends insisted on giving is their numbers, request to which we obliged of course, despite the pointlessness of doing so. Between 4x4 sourcing and random contact exchanges my phone now has more African contacts in it than not.