FOR Adama’s impromptu performance, the cliff face of Mali’s Bandiagara escarpment helped to create the ideal acoustics. As my partner and I relaxed in the Dogon village of Enndé at dusk, transfixed by our new friend’s bashful yet powerful voice, our guide, Hama, leaned over from his makeshift bench and whispered: “He’s telling stories from his village. He makes a different song each time.” He stretched back and looked up at the clear dark sky with a broad grin, pulled on a Dunhill and tapped the seat with his other hand.

Hama was clearly as proud as Adama of his Dogon roots, but unlike his friend he has rejected many of the ancient traditions so fiercely preserved by his people — he has replaced the old way of storytelling through music and song with North American gangsta rap, and the baggy breeches and gowns of the Dogon men with gold chains and baggy shorts.

His garb was out of place in the primitive surroundings, but his knowledge of the area and its ancient tribes was undiminished by his love of Western popular culture.

We’d hired Hama as our guide for a few days during a bleary conversation at 4am the previous day, after stumbling off an overnight bus in Mopti, a nearby transport hub on the banks of the Niger in the east of Mali.

A walking trek through the southern part of Dogon country was to be the main feature of our three-week round trip from Mali’s capital Bamako, but as travelling without a guide through the region is not advisable — due to language and cultural barriers — we knew we’d have to run the gauntlet of touts when we arrived in Mopti.

We paid Hama about £200 for a five-day trek in Dogon country, which included a fee for the villagers, food, water and transport to and from the start/finish. A day later — after shopping for food, water and toilet paper — the three of us set off in his battered four-wheel drive for our starting point at Bandiagara. Within the first 24 hours of our village hop, Adama had been “sub-contracted” to carry the food and water.

Each day, upon our arrival at the next village, the local women generously cooked for us the food Adama had carried, and each night we climbed on to the flat roof of one of their homes and slept under the stars.

We woke at dawn to the smell of Dogon bread frying on the fire and the sounds of cockerels, mules, shrieking children and the never-ending rhythmical pounding of millet.

By day, as the four of us walked along the escarpment and its dusty valley floor, the quiet would be interrupted with arguments between our two guides over what tape should be played on Hama’s portable cassette player, Adama opting for scratchy recordings of Malian musical historians, known as “griots”, and Hama insisting on his bootleg copies of Tupac Shakur and DMX.

Mali desert blues players, such as Ali Farka Toure, Mande musicians such as Boubacar (Karkar) Traoré, and the kora sounds of Toumani Diabate, have long been considered to be among the crème de la crème in world music circles. Growing from a characteristic of the 13th to 15th-century Mandé empire — which covered a region of West Africa roughly equivalent to the size of Western Europe — the music of these specialised musician/storyteller/historians has developed into a fine art.

The genre took another step towards the mainstream with the help of the Blur and Gorillaz singer Damon Albarn, when he took a trip here with Oxfam and ended up with basic recordings that evolved into his Mali Music album.

There are hopes that Mali Music could be the next Buena Vista Social Club, the album that made Cuban music world-famous a few years ago. So does Mali have the same appeal as Cuba for travellers seeking to hear the music in situ? I mulled it over as we bumped back towards Mopti at the end of our trek. I was filthy, I stank; we had slept outdoors for five nights and hadn’t seen a single lavatory or shower. I’d just had the best experience of my life.

We took full advantage of the relative comforts of Mopti for a few days — a splurge at the mud mosque-shaped Hotel Kanaga, complete with hot water and lavatories, and a couple of heavenly sugar fixes at the Dogon Patisserie.

We sat for hours looking out over the frenzy of activity on the banks of the River Niger. As we ate succulent Nile perch brochettes washed down with beer, dangerously overloaded vessels bobbed past.

Everywhere we went the ubiquitous tape-sellers filed past calling out the names of their favourite Malian artists, the sounds often booming from their portable players for our delectation.

“You like Karkar? Salif Keita? They have been to Europe, they are popular there, yes?” said one salesman, running his hands over the rows of tapes on offer for £1.50.

The music provided a welcome change from the limited selection we had brought with us, and saw us through a marathon journey across the desert to Timbuktu, and back again.

Getting to Timbuktu independently — as with most travel in Mali — requires a large dose of good luck and patience, and locals quiz you as to why you bothered.

Unlike the intrepid travellers of the past, we were under no illusions that the now faded desert city was the key to our fortune, but surely all that fuss can’t have been for nothing? Besides, there was no way we were going to come to Mali and pass up the chance to say we had been to Timbuktu . . . and back again.

We arrived in Timbuktu after a rib-shaking night in a battered four-wheel drive. The first thing we noticed was an overwhelming feeling of nothing happening. I half-expected to see giant balls of tumbleweed being carried down the street by the dusty breeze.

Low, flat-roofed, dusty coloured buildings dominate the landscape, which is punctuated with mosques, crafted every year from mud after the rains cease. Within half a mile the buildings peter out into desert, which is broken up by the scruffy nomadic camps that line the outskirts. Camels lie around the sand dunes among dry scrub and the odd tree.

It’s pretty much beige as far as the eye can see, until you spot the nomadic Tuareg people, who roam the town dressed in their trademark indigo robes and add a welcome splash of colour.

A few days in Bamako completed our circuit, and on our final evening we opted for an Afro-Cuban night at an eaterie in town. The singer’s hips swayed effortlessly as she switched between Bambara and French. As I watched and took a sip of rum, I reckoned that this was probably the closest that Mali was going to get to Havana. But I knew where I’d rather be.

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