Before heading out of town, one last visit to Ouagadougou’s “Grande Marches” (market) with its baskets, tie-dyed cloth – the Centre Artisanal with batiks, bronze castings and carvings. Then the street vendors selling Dogon carvings, masks and chairs. Shopping is exhausting when there is almost too much to choose from.

City tour over, we drove to the north, visiting the Mossi people and their giant clay granaries. The Mossi are one of 60 ethnic groups in the country and have the longest royal dynasty, dating back 900 years.

At every stop to stretch our legs, Roberto would run from 4WD to 4WD urging everyone to…”drinka…drinka” (Roberto has a strong Italian accent) and practically forced water down our throats to keep us well-hydrated. The 4WD’s carried boxes of bottled water at all times.

At one village, the women showed us how they grind millet and other grains on a communal stone table. It’s not as easy as it looks….

 

…and all the children, including babies, wore some sort of amulet around their neck for good luck and health.

Sunset and time for our first camp on the sands. We quickly discovered that there was always going to be sand in our food, and lots of sand in our tents. Len had mini-sand dunes in his but that was okay – the tricky part was watching out for scorpions in the night and shaking out our boots in the morning to make sure nothing had taken up residence in them. From here, we continued another three hours to Ouahigouya, a town with 37 mosques. Ouahigouya was founded in the 18th century as the capital or the northernmost Mossi kingdoms, but almost anything of importance has been destroyed.

It was fascinating watching the people carrying everything on their heads, with perfect poise and grace…. View image…

There was a one night respite at a hotel, Hotel Dunia with our last bed for another four days…then, back to camping…