Donkey power!!

[Niva Say Never]

Hi all,
My sister and i are starting to hatch a plan to get to Segou, Mali for the Festival Sur La Niger next year. We've driven to Mali before and loved every second of it, however, this time we won't have the time to drive there and back.
Our favourite plan would be to jet into Bamako a week or two before and travel up to Segou with our own donkey and cart, seems like a crackin way of traveling a bit more slowly and hopefully getting to know the people & places a bit better as a result.
Which leads me to the point of this post.......maybe a long shot, but here goes!!! Does anyone have the first clue what the going rate for a donkey and cart would be around Bamako?????

Happy travels
Sam

[wilco]

Have you tried Avis or Hertz?

Ok, that's the obvious humour out of the way. If you know Bamako you'll know donkeys and carts are no longer a common form of transport in town. You will have to get out to a village to start asking. Then you have a lot of bargaining to do.

Have you any experience of travelling with a donkey? How to feed it? What skin/hoof/intestinal problems to look out for and how to treat them? It is not quite as simple as maltreating a hire car.Think long and hard about the potential problems before going ahead.

Sorry to dampen your parade.

Dave

[Niva Say Never]

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply
Don't worry, i'd certainly be treating it far better than any hire car i've ever had!!
I agree we'll certainly have a lot to learn, but learn it we will. We wouldn't want to be responsible for the misstreatment of any animal, let alone one we'd be relying on so heavilly.
The plan was to head out to one of the villages on the south bank of the river and try our luck there. Would be nice to have some idea what a local might pay for said beast before we turn up though, obviously i don't really expect to be able to bargain down that far, but it might give us half a chance of paying a fair price in the end.

Cheers
Sam

[petefromberkeley]

I've met two travelers who bought animals to travel with on a whim. One bought a horse in Guatemala and didn't know much about horses. The horse died. The other bought a donkey in Pakistan and really had a great time. YMMV.

[Niva Say Never]

I certainly hope that by starting to plan 6 months in advance we will be able to avoid the 'buy it on a whim and end up killing the donkey' scenario.
My sister does have quite a few years of being responsible for various horses behind her as well, hopefully a fair bit of that experience should help

[chickcharnie]

I'm going to the festival

I'll give you a lift

My car looks like a donkey anyway

John