Visit the “Tour d’Afrique” in Faladie.

There it is! An impressive piece of architecture, I think you’ll agree! Located on the edge of town, the “Tower of Africa” can be seen for miles around. In spite of its distinctive character, I can find no information about when or why it was built (anyone help?)

So, for a fun visit with the family, get a SOTRAMA from near Azar’s supermarket in Badala (for only 150 cfa each) and you should be there in 15-30 mins. Then you can climb the stairs to the top for under 1000cfa (usually) or even catch the lift if you’re feeling brave!

The view from the top is interesting, but unimpressive; the location of the tower means you’re mostly looking out on a series of dual carriageways and flat suburbs in every direction, though on a clear day you can see all the way down to the city centre.

Inside, there are painted displays on every floor, showing agriculture, industry, technology and (I presume) former Malian presidents:

Here’s a large photo of the tower on Wikipedia and here’s the Tour d’Afrique viewed from above, courtesy of Tim’s Bamako map (Google Maps).

Bamako is well endowed with interesting monuments of all shapes and sizes – see some more of them here.

(Added March 2011): I was recently at the Tour d’Afrique again and the lift (elevator) was not working, so we had to walk all the way up! This is fine, except that there are sections of the stairs with no lighting (so it is advisable to bring a torch/flashlight). However, they actually let us go all the way onto the roof of the tower, so we got a much better view (it could be worth asking, just be careful up there!!) Here I am on the very top with my mate Dave: