Mopti Port and Waterfront

The port of Mopti is one of the great waterfront scenes of West Africa — a constant, shifting spectacle of wooden pirogues arriving and departing, fish being unloaded and dried, traders negotiating in Fulfulde, Bambara, Songhay, and Dogon, and salt slabs stacked in every available space. It is intensely busy in the morning hours and slowly quietens through the afternoon.

The waterfront is also the departure point for river journeys. Pirogues can be hired for trips along the Niger or the Bani — a sunset trip is particularly recommended, with the mud-brick skyline of the old town reflected in the wide river and fish eagles circling overhead. Guides at the Bar Bozo waterfront bar will help arrange boats; negotiate the price before boarding.

things to do sight
A story
Mopti's role as the commercial centre of the inland Niger delta means that almost everything — fish, salt, millet, cloth, livestock — passes through this port. The salt is the most remarkable commodity: great slabs of it, up to a metre long, cut from the salt mines near Taoudenni far to the north in the Sahara and transported by camel caravan for weeks before reaching the river and loading onto pirogues.