Our flight to Nairobi on Kenya Airways had a stop en route in Bamako. We landed in the Malian capital after two hours in the air, and waited for an hour while the ground staff cleaned the plane and put blankets on each seat.

After another hour there was still no sign of the passengers that were joining the flight in Bamako, and we started to worry. Shortly thereafter came the dreaded announcement that, due to a mechanical problem, the flight was going to be delayed until the morning. A replacement part needed to be flown in from Nairobi, and we would all be put up in a hotel for the night.

We unhappily filed off the plane into the dusty nighttime air. The temperature was 100 degrees F (38 C) and the airport was less than air conditioned. After the usual amount of confusion that accompanies large groups, we boarded a bus (also not air conditioned) to Hotel Olympe, Kenya Airways’ idea of a decent place to put us up for the night.

Our hotel room had a very lived-in feel, which is a blatant euphemism for the fact that it wasn’t clean. The pillows on the bed looked like someone had just used them, there was an empty water bottle on the dresser, and the bar of soap in the bathroom was, well, brownish. In addition to that, there was only one towel and no hot water to speak of.

It got worse. Dinner wasn’t ready until 11pm, and when it was ready, the hotel insisted on charging us for bottled water but not for Orange Fanta.

We slept decently thanks to the air conditioning, which was the hotel’s first saving grace (the second being free WiFi), and woke up early the next morning to try to get more information on when our flight would leave.

That’s when we got the second piece of bad news: the part that would be used to fix the plane was being flown in on the next Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi to Bamako, which wouldn’t arrive for another day. We were informed that we were scheduled to be stuck in Bamako until the following evening at 6pm. Not good.

We had already re-booked our connecting flight to Lamu the night before when we thought we would be leaving Bamako that morning, and the fare rules prohibited a second change. That meant that we were facing not only a 48 hour delay but also the loss of our entire trip to the island.

We started to work on getting another flight to Nairobi. My boyfriend and I have paid subscriptions to all of the back-end flight booking programs that travel agents use, so we figured we would find something. Unfortunately, we underestimated Bamako’s status as the world’s most underserved airport. There were only a few flights a day, and a lot of them had already left.

Undeterred, we went to the airport, blew past the check in area, and banged down the door of the Kenya Airways office. After negotiating with the chief for an hour, the best he offered us was to try to get our connecting flight in Nairobi re-booked.

It wasn’t what we were hoping for. The only other option was to buy a ticket to Abidjan on Air Ivoire and then take a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi from there. There was an unnervingly short connection time, though, and the next flight wasn’t for days. As much as we didn’t want to stay in Bamako for 48 hours, we wanted less to be stuck in Abidjan for 72.

All throughout this fiasco, we were urged to go back to the hotel and relax. Right. With the outdoor pool area taken over by what seemed like a school group of almost 200 children and a lobby area that was stuffy and will-to-live sucking, the last thing I could imagine doing at the hotel was relaxing and enjoying myself.

At 2pm we tried our final option, which was to go into the city to the Kenya Airways office in Bamako. Another person on our flight said that she had done it that morning and had gotten re-booked for free on the flight through Abidjan. What we didn’t know until later was that she was a high-ranking official at the UN and a former minister in the South African government. Without those credentials, we got the cold shoulder.

Tired of dealing with airline bureaucracy and sickened by the idea of returning to the hotel, we decided to let fate take its course while we enjoyed ourselves in Bamako. We had already seen most of the sights on our previous visit, so we walked from the Kenya Airways office up to the zoo, figuring that there’s nothing like seeing cute furry animals to brighten one’s mood.

Not so. Perhaps we should have guessed from the entry fee of 12 US cents that the zoo wouldn’t be of the particularly kind-to-animals variety. We walked from the entrance along a pond filled with beautiful lily pads and lots of garbage, and found ourselves face-to-face with what appeared to be an un-caged monkey.

I was a bit confused at first as to why they would let the animals roam freely in the zoo (maybe that’s why the entry fee was so cheap; we were food!), but then I saw that a rope was tied around the monkey’s stomach and that it was tethered to a pole on a three-foot leash. We sighed as it gnawed its tether and then again as some children threw small fruits and peanut shells at it. We kept walking.

It didn’t get worse, but it didn’t get much better. The enclosures were tiny and bare, and the animals looked as unhappy to be there as we were to be missing out on our first day in Lamu. The only redeeming factor was that the animals looked well-fed, some of them very much so. The male lion was in fact the largest I have ever seen.

As we moved along, we discovered that the feline feeding area was littered with donkey ribs, femurs, and even a few heads, and the hyenas and jackals were in pens so small they could barely walk around. The manatee was non-existent, presumably dead, and the chimpanzee was holding an empty plastic soda bottle when we walked up to its cage.

When we had finished walking through the zoo, we bought a bottle of water, which disconcertingly cost 10 times the amount of the zoo admission price.

On the way back to the hotel we received our first piece of good news in two days: Fly 540, the airline with which we were flying to Lamu, was willing to re-book our flights for a second time despite the fare rules explicitly prohibiting it. Relieved, we once again started looking forward to Lamu, even if we only had half as much time as originally planned.

The rest of the evening and the entire next day were spent at the hotel. We killed time talking to the other passengers, using the Internet, and reading. Our meals all started to blend together, not least because lunch and dinner were the exact same meal every time: chicken, beef, or fish in a tomato sauce with a side of rice. It was incredibly bland and unappetizing. We called it the Bamako Diet. Stay tuned for the infomercial.

Our bus to the airport was supposed to arrive at 3pm on Sunday. At 4pm it was still nowhere to be found. We eventually took a taxi, checked in for our flight, and started hoping for the best.

Miraculously, the flight took off only 45 minutes after the scheduled departure time, and after six and a half hours we landed in Nairobi at 4:30am. After arguing for what seemed like an eternity with the Kenya Airways staff, we were finally given access to the lounge (but not the best one) and vouchers for breakfast (but not the full menu).

Then came the next stroke of bad luck. We walked over to the domestic terminal to confirm our booking for our Lamu flight on Fly 540. When we arrived, we were promptly told that we had not actually been re-booked on that day’s flight. Despite our having received an email confirmation, they had no record of the change.

To make matters worse, the flight that day was full. We were devastated, not to mention furious at Kenya Airways for not making sure we were re-booked like they promised a million times in Bamako.

After more arguing and a bit of guilt tripping, we were finally guaranteed one seat on the flight to Lamu. The staff assured us that another one would most likely open up before the flight took off.

Things started looking up at that point. We ate breakfast, which substantially improved our moods, and eventually we both got seats on the flight to Lamu. As if that wasn’t good enough, Kenya Airways actually paid the re-booking fee. It was a small miracle.

At 10:40am we boarded our flight and, two days after our original departure date, we left Nairobi for the island. I’ve never been happier to be on a small prop plane in my entire life.

I very much hope that our bad luck is now behind us, and I learned several important lessons from the situation. First, I will never again take a flight that only runs a few days a week. Second, I will never again fly on Kenya Airways. Third, while it’s often impossible to avoid connecting flights on separate airlines, I will make sure to leave more time between them so as to avoid a re-booking situation like the one we had with Fly 540.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the island paradise and the beautiful beaches for the two days I’m lucky enough to spend in Lamu.

Fast-forward a few years and my boyfriend and I found ourselves in need of some winter sun. We booked a trip to Nairobi using frequent flier miles and discovered that for a mere 50,000 Delta miles we could book a round trip ticket from Nairobi to Bamako and then on to Dakar. The ticket costs well over $1,500 in cash, so was a bargain with miles. We started planning our trip.

Then we looked at the State Department warnings, which told us of kidnappings and terrorist activities in Timbuktu and the Dogon country, which were on our itinerary. Disappointed, we transformed our five day stay into a two day stay and decided to only visit Bamako, the capital of Mali.

We arrived in Bamako two days ago following a six hour flight from Nairobi. After clearing customs and negotiating with a taxi driver at the airport, we headed into the city, a bustling home to a million people. As we left the airport, we were surrounded on all sides by red. Red dirt, low red brick buildings, and red roads were everywhere. It was as if we had landed on an inhabited part of Mars with its rust-hued iron rich soil.

After twenty minutes we arrived at our hotel, The Sleeping Camel. We had found it online and weren’t sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a complete gem. The owners, Claire and Matt, welcomed us to Bamako, showed us to our enormous air-conditioned room, and brought us two cold beers on the outdoor terrace to help us settle in.

The hotel itself was only three months old and was housed in the former Moroccan embassy. It was sandwiched between the German and Senegalese embassies and across the street from the Egyptian one. An EU ambassador lived just down the street. The location was perfect.

Leaving the hotel on foot, we walked down the red dirt road and crossed the Pont des Martyrs, one of the two bridges that connect the southern half of Bamako, where we were staying, to the northern half, which is where the city center was located.

Crossing the bridge, we navigated the furious onslaught of motorcycles, cars, trucks, bright green taxi-buses, and bicycles as we took in the serene views of the meandering River Niger and the pirogues paddling peacefully downstream.

Once across, we headed for the grand marché, the main market in Bamako. It was intense. Everywhere we walked there were men selling Chinese-made goods from stalls along the streets, women winding their way through the crowds with huge buckets full of peanuts, carrots, spices, and straw balanced atop their heads, children selling cigarettes and phone cards, and boys washing their hands and feet with striped plastic teapots before aligning their prayer mats with Mecca for their five-a-day.

There were markets selling clothing and suitcases (so many suitcases!), and food markets full of pungent-smelling fish and tiny bright red peppers with crinkly edges. There were spice markets selling powdered soaps and herbs. There was a market that consisted solely of animal hides, some stacked in tall pallid piles and others stretched out on wooden boards with thick black nails lining their perimeters.

We entered a small plaza surrounded on all sides by wooden stalls, and found ourselves in the middle of an artisan workshop. All of the stalls were clinking with the hammering of metal, and the courtyard was filled with traditional wooden masks, musical instruments, crocodile skins, and metal motorbike parts.

When we reached the point of sensory overload, we turned back and took a taxi to The Sleeping Camel. We ordered two delicious chicken sandwiches for less than £2 and spent the evening relaxing and talking with the other guests and staff.

Our second day in Mali started out similar to the first. Again we walked through the bustling markets, making our way north up the Boulevard du Peuple. Our goal this time was to reach the traditional medicine market, which we had missed the day before due to a poorly made map in our Lonely Planet guide.

The visit to the medicine market was a unique experience. Located in a crowded parking lot and consisting of a dozen or so stalls, the market was chock full of shrunken monkey heads, crocodile skulls, tusks from various endangered animals, wild cat and dog heads with ears missing but whiskers still intact, and a variety of headless birds with their plumage still protruding from their stiff bodies. The market gave a whole new reality to the word ‘poaching’.

We asked permission to take some photos, and went to work trying to capture the grotesque fascination the market inspired. It was a far cry from my previous weekend’s photography session at Borough Market in London, but it offered perhaps even more interesting subject matter.

As we zoomed in on monkey skulls, snake skins, bird beaks, feline femurs, and horse heads, we started to wonder how exactly these symbols-of-death-turned-powers-of-healing were going to be put to use. We had many guesses, but in all of our inquiring we never found out for certain.

Shrunken heads and poached endangered animals didn’t exactly help us work up an appetite, but we knew we needed some lunch if we were going to last until dinner without food. At the suggestion of the owner of The Sleeping Camel, we headed back towards the bridge and stopped for lunch at a little place called Bistro Baffing.

Bistro Baffing was packed. There were local businessmen, families, tourists, and expats all crowded around tables in the courtyard behind the rather small-seeming façade. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to sample the local cuisine, I ordered the daily special, a northern Malian dish called fakouhoye. Somewhat akin to pureed spinach in color and texture, the taste was much more earthy. Paired with rice and a few cubes of beef, the fakouhoye proved to be an acquired taste. I ate as much as I could, but unfortunately failed to acquire it. But at £1.20 for the whole meal, it wasn’t such a big loss.

Later that afternoon we went with the owners of The Sleeping Camel to the Musee National du Mali, a fairly new museum that showcased sculptures, textiles, and historical artifacts from Mali and around West Africa. Aside from being followed at point-blank range by the museum guards, we enjoyed the permanent collection, which was the most well-curated I’ve seen in Africa.

We also tried to visit the new temporary exhibition on Malian furniture design, but were unceremoniously booted by a staff member. Apparently on opening day the only people allowed to view the works are the artists and their guests. Tourists need not apply.

We stayed around for a bit longer, waiting for a free concert that the museum featured every Thursday afternoon. The concert started an hour late, as most things do in Mali, so we entertained ourselves by people watching. The crowd was mostly made up of locals, with the odd hippie tourist mixed in. Children ran around with bags full of juice and hands full of mango and peanuts while mothers fastened babies to their backs by wrapping long rectangles of colored cloth around themselves and the children and tying them in two knots at the front of their chests.

The concert finally started. We had great expectations after reading the glowing review of the singer in the leaflet that was handed to us by one of the staff. Unfortunately, we weren’t overwhelmed by the quality of the performance, so we took off after not very long.

From the museum we headed up to Point G, a hilltop vista point behind a large hospital. The city of Bamako is in a bowl, surrounded on all sides by hills, so we spent some time at the top of Point G, making what we could of the smoggy views of the city below.

After a dinner of traditional Malian stew with rice, we piled into The Sleeping Camel’s brand new air-conditioned van with ten other people and headed out for a night of live music. Mali is known throughout Africa and the world for having some of the best live music anywhere. We knew that no stay in Bamako would be complete without an evening of live performance, and were excited when we learned that one of the owners of our hotel was planning an outing for the evening.

We drove across town to a small club that was part open-air, part self-contained. We arrived at 10:30 and the place was deserted. By 11, there were a few more people there, and when the band started playing, the place filled up quite nicely. We were entertained for several hours by a trio of musicians and rotating singers, the highlight of which was a boy of no older than 12 who played the drums like a pro.

We left for the airport right after breakfast this morning, and waved good-bye to Bamako’s rusty red streets. It was a shame that we didn’t have a chance to head further into Dogon Country and up to Djenne, which we discovered upon arrival weren’t as dangerous as we were told. We’ll just have to return again another time. Until then, the fabled areas outside of Bamako and the elusive Timbuktu will remain just that.

Sometimes.

Other times, it’s not so easy. For example, my upcoming trip to Africa has proved to be a less-than-thrilling experience in terms of procuring the proper documentation to enter Mali, Kenya, and The Gambia.

First it was Mali. One would think that Mali would have an embassy or at least a visa office in London, but no. It doesn’t. The closest Mali embassy to London is in Brussels. The Brussels embassy offers a service whereby you can mail your passport to them and they will give you a visa. However, it requires a courier service to return the passport, which is astronomically expensive. So are expediters.

My frustrated boyfriend and I solved this problem as creatively as we could. I called the Mali embassy and put my French skills to use by asking them if we could bring in our passports in person. Yes. So we cashed in some of my boyfriend’s Eurostar points and sent him on a day trip to Brussels to get our visas. We benefited from the pay-less-in-Europe rule, forking over only 30 euros each instead of the US price of 131 dollars. And my boyfriend got to spend a lovely day in Brussels visiting the Horta House Museum and eating his fill of Belgian waffles and chocolate. Not bad.

The second issue was with our Kenya visas. Kenya has an embassy in London, and the process seemed pretty straightforward. We printed the forms, attached our passport sized photos, and got cash to pay for the visas. Then we read the fine print. Only UK passport holders can obtain multiple-entry visas for Kenya. Seeing as how we will have two separate sojourns in Kenya during our trip, that wasn’t very convenient.

We decided to solve that problem by ignoring it. When the woman at the embassy told us that we could only get single entry visas, we decided to beg. When that didn’t work, we left the embassy frustrated that we would have to get a second single-entry visa in Kenya, and it would cost $50 each (in addition to the 20 pounds for the first one) instead of the multiple entry fee of 30 pounds. Sigh.

The third problem came with the visas for The Gambia. UK citizens don’t need a visa to enter The Gambia. US citizens do, and the visa costs $100. Seriously? $100 for a country that small? It made me feel like visa fees should be proportional to the size of the country, and therefore The Gambia visas should cost around 3p. It would really be more fair that way. That said, I’m sure the Gambians that have to pay exorbitant fees to enter the US would argue that it should be based on per capita income of the country of origin, and I see their point. What a dilemma.

So with just four days to go until we leave for Africa, we’re still waiting to pick up our Kenya visas and the jury is out on whether we will pay $100 to get visas for just one day of travel in The Gambia. But even with all of the visa hassle and being-a-foreigner-is-so-frustrating moments, I’m very excited to travel to Africa and I can’t wait to explore Kenya, Mali, Senegal, and perhaps The Gambia.