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Friday, October 30, 1998
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Ségou to Niger River (East of Ségou), Mali
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| Niger River (East of Ségou), Mali: | |||||||||||
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Got to the ferry just as it was pulling in. I found the head guy almost immediately and asked him to assign us a cabin. He needed to go get the final paperwork and told me to wait there and he'd be right back. After more than half an hour I realized that other people who had been waiting for the boat were already moved into cabins so I went looking for the guy and found him up in the ticket office assigning cabins. Of course he'd just given away the last cabin and there were no more. Obviously I was a little annoyed (ok, pissed off) and I tried to make a huge fuss, but it was pretty difficult since my French is severely lacking and his English was nonexistent. Finally we had two options. One was third class with twelve people in a cabin and no locks or ventilation (one sniff near the toilet convinced me that this would be pure hell). The other option was to move up to "Lux" class (for $150 more!) - with self contained air-conditioned cabins. I opted for the later although I was so pissed I was close to getting off and wasting a week or forgetting the ferry (and Timbuktu) - even though it was made quite clear that there would be no refund. No food on board until diner, and the A/C in the cabin (which the captain made such a big deal about when he was trying to sell me on upgrading) doesn't work did not encourage any improvement in my attitude.
