Exiting Senegal was easy and we experienced no problems or issues at the border.  We were a bit nervous when arriving at the Mali border post as we had not gotten our visa’s ahead of time and decided we would get them at the border as we had heard this was possible.  When we handed the policeman our passports he noticed there was no visa and we explained that we wanted to get one at the border, he said it was possible and was 15000 CFA each – we quickly counted our money and realised we were 2000 CFA short.  We were told we could change money at the local bank in town so back we drove only to experience some problems in trying to exchange dollars as no one wants them now.  A local businessman stopped us and asked what we wanted to exchange and told him what we needed.  He was happy to exchange the small amount for us and we were soon back at the border post.  We handed over the 30000 CFA for the 2 visas and explained the difficulty in changing money and that we only managed to change what we needed.  He proceeded to then ask us for another 5000 CFA each for stamping our passports with the entry stamp – we responded by laughing and saying that we had no more money on us.  Passports were handed back and we were on our way.

We drove to Bamako where we would spend the next few days relaxing and applying for our Burkina Faso visa.  The first day we just relaxed, washed our clothes and enjoyed not having to drive anywhere.  On Monday we walked into the town centre to the Burkina Faso embassy, where we completed the application forms and were told to go for a walk and rendezvous at 2 pm.  So off we went in search of a bank as we still had no money and spent the day walking around the town visiting the local markets and artisans craft market.  We collected our passports with visas and headed back to camp.