We then tried to repay her by taking her to a Krakow restaurant of her choice- we ended up at a place with panoramic views and fantastic ice creams! The sun was shining and the whole Krakow experience was an unforgettable interlude- since then I have been travelling non-stop!

And Mali…. More worrying news three hours ago: the MNLA, the Touareg rebels who declared an internationally ignored unilateral independence from Mali about a month ago, have reached a truce with the Ansar Dine, the Muslim fundamentalists who were previously linked solely with the AQIM- The Al Quaida in the Maghreb. The MNLA have clearly decided they are powerless in the face of the gun power of the Islamists- who are being supported from several mysterious but rich sources. Although the MNLA want a secular independent democratic state, they will never get there unless they join forces with the Islamic factions that allowed them to capture the North.
This development is worrying since it heralds a truce in the north, and as long as the various factions were fighting each other, the possibility of recapturing the North seemed a possibility, however problematic in prctical terms.