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| Kayes is the hottest place in Mali, or "hotter than hell" as Peace Corps volunteers will tell you. The town is a maze of dirt track paths, intersected by a few tarmac roads. There is a central railway station (for the railroad that connects Senegal and Bamako), a market and a few hotels where you can find cold beer.
Kayes is not much to see in itself, but makes a good base for exploring the surrounding region. One must-see destination is the Chutes de Falou, a waterfall of the River Niger that slopes gently on soft sandstone. One can actually walk far into the waterfall and explore how the swirling water has carved pools of water into the rock over thousands of years. Some of the holes are actually quite deep and seem to connect to each other through a maze of underground caverns. I am stating the obvious here, but you should be careful. To walk onto the waterfall, skirt the hydroelectric complex and find cement paths that the locals use to take you safely across the rushing waters.
If you are visiting during dry season, it may be possible to drive further up the river and visit villages known for hippopotamus watching.
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| Overall Recommendation: | | 75% |  |
| | Scenery: | | 88% | |
| | Popularity: | | 44% | |
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Greg submitted a review on 2008-04-05 08:30...
I just want to make some clarifications to the Kayes, Mali information review.
I lived in Kayes for nearly 8 years...Indeed it is an extremely hot place to live.
It is has the ambiguous title of the 2nd hottest town in the world after Djibouti,
Djibouti.
It was not uncommon in the month of May to have temperatures exceeding
140 degrees(F).
We usually took a month's vacation to the coast during that month.
The river that passes through Kayes is the "Senegal" not the "Niger".
For the most part the river drops very low during the hottest season.
Kayes has grown alot over the past few years and is no longer the sleepy
railhead town of long ago.
There are numerous Hotels, Restaurants, Protestant and Catholic Churches,
Mosques, numerous Relief and Development and Mission Organizations.
Train station, Airport, Hospital.
Not far down the road towards Kenieba there is a very profitable gold mining
operation at Sadiola funded by European interests.
The travelogue on your website also failed to take note of the Colonial Fort at
Medine.
This was the scene of an important battle in 1857 between the French and
El Hadji Oumar Tall.
With 25,000 against a small contingent of French soldiers. Tall sieged the Fort for
97 days. Finally help came by river from Senegal sent by Faidherbe and the
colonials were able to maintain their bastion at Medine.
(Google the Medine-Mali website)
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