Dogon Country is a small, isolated section of Mali about 10 hours away from where I live. It is famous for its dramatic cliff faces, resilient people and hiking trips. This is a place where people come from around the world to hike these paths and see "how they live".
Now, I will be the first person to admit that I am not a hiker but when the opportunity presented itself to take a three day hike i couldn't turn it down. The ten hour journey there turned out to take three days but when Mark, Dorian (a good Peace Corps friend from Guinea and Mali) and I got to Sanga (the village where we would start and end the hike) we were ready to start on the hike and stretch our legs after three days in buses and vans crammed in like clowns.
Hike, Day One
At 8:00 am the three of us set off with our guide, Adjoro, with a change of cloths, three liters of water, cameras, and enough bug repellent to last us a week. Sanga is at the top of an amazing cliff, overlooking the encroaching desert, a river and what little farm land there is.
Our first stop took us to an ancient (+3000 year old) village inside of the cliffs. The people who first settled here chose to live inside of the cliffs because it was the safest places. Water was available about six months a year within the cliffs and then women would have to go down into the valleys to get water the remaining six months. No-one knows exactly why theses people moved out of this particular cliff but its assumed to find water would be a key reason.
We continued to walk down hill and threw peoples millet fields until noon. Even though it was not hot season, in the direct sun between the hours of 12-3 can still reach well over 100 degrees, so every day we took our naps, eat lunch, and rested the feet. After already walking about 8 miles that day we get to a cliff and Adjoro points up and says "We will be sleeping up there in the cliffs that night" AHH!!! My feet were already killing me, i felt like i was going to die, walking on flat land, now i have to hike up another hour STRAIGHT UP!!! Thank God Adjoro found me a local Malian man who helped pull me up and he took my heavy bag. Now when I say that this man, also named Adjoro, pulled me I literally mean he pulled me up. We walked hand in hand, him about a pace or two in front of me and he would pull my arm. But we made it to the campsite and there was warm water to bath and mattresses to sleep on and food was on the fire! I wish i could say i slept well that night but the truth was that there was a lot of "commotion" going on in the village. There was signing and dancing, along with loud clapping of the hands. Normally I probably wouldn't have even noticed this but for some reason i kept thinking that the village was doing human sacrifices (the Dogon people are more traditional animists as opposed to the rest of Mali which is Muslum). Oh course there was no human sacrifices going on and in the morning I found out that the local teenagers, after all the daily chores are finished have dance parties around villages to encourage kids from doing drugs.
Hike, Day Two
After a terribles night sleep i was refreshed and ready to start the next days hike. I knew we were going up the rest of the mountain and then back down. I was dreading the up, but very much looking forward to the down part of the day. I was also relieved to see Adjoro, my porter, waiting to help me up. On the way up its just steps of wobbly rocks and having an extra person (who is highly skilled at balancing these rocks) saved my knees from meeting those cold hard rocks several times.
At the top, there was a breathtaking view of the valley that we walked the day before. It gave a true sense of accomplishment. However the sun was rising and we had a long day ahead of us still so we had to keep moving. Now this day was really going to show me what I was made of. I never thought i had a fear of heights but on day two i think a fear was born.
While on the top of the mountain there are endlessly deep crevasses in which you have to cross a bridge made out of sticks and rocks (I KID YOU NOT). In order to continue i had to have Adjoro, the porter, and Mark take my hands and push/pull me arcoss. I say a fear was born because if i fell I was at
LEAST 17 hours from a hospital which here, means curtain death. (Sorry Mom) Needless to say, I can only write this seeing as I survived, so lets not focus on that.
After going up and over the mountain it was time for the going down, this is the part that I always thought was the easiest. Boy was i wrong! Remember how i was saying there are countless crevasses, well now i had to climb down one!
Now mind you, I'm a girl from Ohio, we don't do this kind of thing... EVER! And my two California friends who did this kind of thing every weekend I was with thought I was hilarious. But the only way to move was forward, so Adjoro and Adjoro helped guide me into the crevass and down a very narrow rickety handmade latter. Now remember I survived!
Inside the crevasse there was a man made dame that gathered rain water so a local village would be able to get water 10 months a year and the other two months a year the women and girls would take a 5 1/2 gallon bucket painstakingly down the cliffs to the well and carry these buckets back up to their homes without spilling a drop.
I had to say goodbye to Adjoro, my porter at lunch. I thanked him profusely for his services, and making sure i stayed alive. I paid him the equivalent of $3.00 and he merrily went back up and over the mountain to his house.
Hike, Day Three 
On the start of the third and final day i was more rested but my body felt like it was dying. Within two days we had walked over 20 miles in triple digit heat up and down mountains.
At one point Adjoro, the guide, pointed out a village in the mountain, barley noticeable and was explaining that now the more remote cliff villages are used as burial grounds. If looking in the exact spot you can see the sun-bleached bones of the dead overflowing from long ago abandoned houses. Men scale up the cliff attaching ropes and pull the dead bodies into place. This may sound morbid, but when you live on rock... you can't bury.
After lunch we had to climb the 1,000 steps back up to Sanga where we started the hike two and a half days earlier.
We are back on the climbing wobbly steps and this time i was more tired and didn't have Adjoro my porter to help me. Mark was so nice and took my hand and walked with me up the steps. To my surprise it only took about an hour and a half to make it up with several small breaks
This three day hike was one of the hardest yet most rewarding experiences of my life. I struggled, fighting off fatigue and dehydration but for me, this was only a three-day mini-weekend. The villages that we walked threw live these lives day in and day out, living in one of the host in-hospitable environments i have ever seen.
