Travelling to Djenne was supposed to be a gentle start before my visit to the plains of the Dogon. Bani is the top bus company and so I travelled in one of their air conditioned buses. By the time we got to the main road the air conditioning had come with a blast of hot air and then stopped. Of course that type of bus is designed with windows that don't open, so the only fresh air was from the open door. It was a great relief six hours later to be told that I was at the T junction where I changed for Djenne.

The heat outside bounced off the road giving the impression that one had walked into a furnace. The bus boy pointed to a hut of woven grass where I should wait for the bush taxi, which, he said, should show up within the next few minutes. The local people, who were all lounging in different bits of shade, nodded to me as I went by them. I sat on a bench at the back of the hut savouring any bits of wind that wafted through. I heard some thumping and looking through a gap in the wall saw a woman in the shade of a lorry pounding some millet. Every two or three minutes she would stop, sit down and have a drink. Otherwise nothing moved. Not even a rake thin horse that just stood in the blazing sun.

A gust of wind twirled a piece of polythene up a few inches from the red gravel in front of the hut, before depositing it just short of the tarmac. Behind me a donkey gave a long lonely bray, breaking the heavy silence. Two men, with turbans over their faces, came in, nodded and helped themselves to some water from a big clay jar in the corner, then sat down on the other end of the bench. A goat dragging a chewed rope, stopped outside to eat a piece of watermelon rind. An eagle came in low over the houses opposite and rose swiftly when it hit the thermal from the road. Time dragged as the two men and I watched a lizard edging towards a gras hopper.

A shout announced the car, a battered Peugot 504 Estate had arrived. The lack of windows was a blessing, even if the dust did blow in at times. The scerery changed abruptly from Sahel scrub to rice paddies a far a one could see. There was a sign for a sharp corner, but the driver slowed well before it, because the tarmac stopped half way round and a rutted sand track led to the ferry.

Djenne is on an island in the river Bani. Once across the river there are several smaller islands with a causeway that leads to the town. It was late afternoon when we arrived, children were diving from the causeway into the murky water, while the women finished the last of their washing. The car lurched as it avoided motor cycles and pedestrians in the narrow streets. As we disembarked in the square, the great mud mosque was already in shadow and I was more interested in a shower than sight- seeing. There would be time tomorrow before meeting one of the few remaining 'chevalliers'.