Retro Travel Photo – Before We Grew Up: Djenne Mosque, Mali, West Africa

In this new occasional section we share some of the travel photos from our archives – when we paid our dues but rarely our way. Times were tough, hitch-hiking was a favoured mode of transport (even through the Sahara, which was surprisingly easy) and luxury hotels were places we tried to sneak into to have a swim.

We’re talking bad hair days galore, I’m sure…

Guilty there I’m afraid. Haircuts were far down the list of priorities when it came to actually spending money, as you will see. Still – all good fun and useful experience – it certainly makes us appreciate Grown-up Travel even more…

With Mali very much in the news for the wrong reasons, here’s a picture of the stunning Djenne Mosque taken from the market in 1992 in more peaceful times.

On this occasion I’d entered Mali from Cote D’Ivoire and was en route to Timbuktu, which is another story…

All pictures from this era were taken with my very first (non-digital) SLR, a Canon EOS something which I eventually sold to a fellow traveller in Africa. The quality is poor due to the age of the original print when scanned.

 

Andy Higgs
Andy Higgs

I know what it's like to go from being a crazy backpacker without a care in the world, via being a vaguely sensible parent to being an adventurer once more. In other words, evolving into a Grown-up Traveller.

Like everyone else, I love to travel, have visited a lot of countries and all that but my big thing is Africa.

I also own and run The Grown-up Travel Company as a travel designer creating personalised African itineraries for experienced adventurers

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