Mali Day 7 - Timbuktu

As per my rambling at the start of this blog, Timbuktu [Timbuctoo, Tumbuto, Tombouctou, Tumbyktu, or Tembuch (like I said it doesn't seem to matter how you spell it)] has been the stuff of myth for hundreds of years, an rich oasis surrounded by the ever moving sands of the Sahara.

Many adventurous folk have perished trying to make it across the Sahara from the north, or up the Niger (as we did) had they known the truth back then that the city is little more than a conglomeration of mud brick buildings intersected by narrow winding streets that reach 50 degrees C in the hot season, they might not have bothered... Even now, there's only a few white folk living in town (the largest foreign contingent apart from the nomadic touareg seems to be Libyan..) It's still 99.9% Muslim, but apparently there's three Mormons in town on their mission that have set up a church. These days no one will kill you for doing such a thing, but I'm not sure how big their congregation will be....

You spend a lot of time in Africa wondering about when places had their hey day, as it is usually not immediately apparent while you wander around dilapidated buildings and streets. Timbuktu, unfortunately is no exception. Once a huge scholarly centre, there used to be great libraries and centres of Koranic learning attached to the mosques here, but despite the desert conditions offering some protection, these have long ago fallen by the wayside. Today a few scrolls remain on display and the EU is helping rebuild the main mosque, while a South African firm is building an Islamic university (the first here for hundreds of years).

Locals in Timbuktu greet you by saying "welcome to the middle of nowhere" - mostly as a joke, but in reality, it really is in the middle of bloody nowhere (and you can only get there by camel, 4WD or canoe... there is supposed to be an airstrip here, but I never saw it)

Though it's population is only just 30,000 Timbuktu is quite a lively place and we just happened to be there on the busiest weekend of the year as 5,000 travellers and all the associate support people prepared to descend on Essakane (a few hours north) for the festival of the desert, pretty much doubling the towns population for a week.



This (apparently) is the original well after which timbuktu is named. "tim" being 'well' and "buktu" being the name of the woman who looked after the well

Timbuktu streets. The timber sticking out of the walls is part of the structure and is used as scaffolding each year when new mud is applied after the rainy season (not that Timbuktu gets much rain)

Timbuktu was the meeting place for tradesmen who would travel across Africa from the North, East and South, to barter their goods with the West Africans, who came from...well, West Africa. These days the markets seem to exist for their own sake, collecting the salt (still mined by hand and brought in by camel 40 days to the north) and rice grown locally near the river, and trading these for everything else one might need from Mopti and Segou further upstream. Because it's so remote, desolate, and incredibly difficult to get to (not just because of the terrain and heat there's also plenty of the bandits who roam the desert and rob everyone travelling past) prices are a little higher than usual but it's still bustling with plenty of good stuff.

This guy is selling herbs, teas, salt and various dried nuts and chillies etc.

Foosball - even in Timbuktu the kids love it...

Not quite the stuff of legend, Timbuktu streets aren't any different to any other Sahel town

Outside town in the dunes

Whilst it may look touristy and kinda stupid - these turbans (or shesh) are really comfortable and keep the sand and dust out very well. In the end, everyone was wearing one (you get sick of putting sunscreen on three hundred times a day and still getting burnt...

Enjoying a quite beer on the hotel roof watching the locals play football in the distance.

Luckily we'd filled the car up with crates of beer and water in Mopti before the pinasse trip and he met us in Timbuktu. With the influx of everyone for the festival, the Town quickly ran out of everything.

Mali Days 8 to 10 - Festival of the Desert, Essakane

The "festival au désert" started back in January 2001, and is held every year in Essakane which is about two hours of Timbuktu.

The idea for the festival apparently originated in the traditional local Touareg festivities of Takoubelt in Kidal and Temakannit in Timbuktu, which represented for long time a place for decision making and exchange of information among the different communities - with lots of singing, dancing, camel racing etc. Nowadays it's a great excuse for anyone who can get there to wrap something up in a handkerchief and try and sell it to a toubaab (whitey) - seriously, as Todd said, you'd be sitting in the chair at your local touareg dentist and the guy would sidle up with a handkerchief and ask "do you mind if I show you something from my village...?"

Today, the Festival is open to the rest of the world and welcomes artists from other Malian regions, around west Africa and also from Europe (why they bothered I'm not sure though. At one point a confused local touareg boy turned to me and asked "is this good?" as he had no idea what was going on - my answer was an embarrassed "no, it's not, not at all... ever" During three days there's apparently around 30 groups invited from all over the place. It's hard to tell though whether the music was the center point or the make shift market and the dozens of beer and food tents, or the camel rides or just lazing around in the sun... anyway a good time was had by all.

The road to Essakane - more accurately the start of trans Saharan route that goes up to morocco via Mauritania which you have to turn off and then bush bash over dunes to get to Essakane. If you're the first person through - good luck. Once a few people have been through then you can follow their tracks (assuming they didn't get lost). After a few days, however, there's a bunch of different tracks over a mile wide - when in doubt drive down the middle I guess...

The campsite at Essakane literally spread over many acres of fine Sahel sand

The usual desert deal - bloody cold at night and stinkin hot during the day
head gear and sunglasses were the fashion of choice

Touareg men lined up on the dunes at the start of the festival
You actually get a really good view from up on a camel - these guys have the right idea

The view's not so good where you're stuck at the back

Our little campsite under a few thorny Acadia trees.

We were apparently supposed to be camping on the other side of the festival near a large food tent. Unfortunately (or fortunately as it turned out) we got there early and just drove around and found a flat spot with some shade away from most things. Being used to the way you can do things on this continent, we saw no need to tramp all the way across the dunes to the other side for each meal like all the other touristas, so we got Mamadou to got to the locals and purchase some plates and bowls, a water drum, small charcoal fire etc, arrange for some firewood etc and we had ourselves a proper campsite. A small chat to the bloke running the food tent got us food delivery from across the festival each meal. Thus we could enjoy our food in peace without joining large queues in the sun (plus he always gave us extra so we ended up getting extra food). Quite handy when we needed to help out our ad-hoc security guard that had been sitting around at an adjacent camp and had agreed to watch our stuff while we were away in exchange for food, fire and a little medical attention on a cut on his foot... all worked out rather perfectly actually.... well almost. As we weren't quite playing by their rules (ie joined with a large tour group) the local "security" boys decided that we should pay some extra fee for our tents (quite a large fee, like 40 euro each or something) - unfortunately for the boys, despite their dogged determination, they had yet to master the art of the shake down. After an hour of patiently smiling at them and ignoring them reading our books, they got bored and left with their pockets empty. I'm sure they made money elsewhere that morning from some poor unsuspecting folk who didn't realise that they hadn't paid one fee or another...

Sundown over the touareg tents set up for various tour folk to camp in

Night concert form the comfort of the dunes - a great way to watch music (cold though)

The breakfast of champions

There were probably more camels than people at the festival

the local touareg women sit around the head bloke and wave and sing a traditional ballad

sunset on the dunes

sometimes you just get tired of it all....

After seeing various folk wandering through the desert for a couple of days, we just had to try it. So yes, George, Todd and I rode ourselves some camels.
Well, ride is a fairly loose term. George did pretty well. Todd had a camel that liked growling and making strange noises all the time and would throw him back and forth every time he stood up (I'll save Todd the embarrassment of putting up the video i took of him on a camel - funny stuff). Me on the other hand, being the light, agile camel riding kinda guy that I am, managed to somehow slip forward in the saddle and be thrown over the front when my camel sat down, breaking the front of the saddle. As our guide only spoke a little french, and I only spoke the parts of french that he didn't understand, we had a little communication problem (and he looked a little sad). Anyway, we managed to strap a blanket to the back of the camel and I got to ride it cowboy style (actually more fun in my humble opinion). We also bought a few trinkets off the bloke to make him feel better (and me less guilty)

Good times on the camel train

Going for a walk in the dunes at sunset
(before our touareg friend pulls out his handkerchief of wares for sale)

Watching the concert from afar on a dune near our campsite

Mali Day 11 - Essakane to Bandiagara

After enjoying a few days in the sun relaxing, and enjoying a few tunes, it was time to join the mad rush of people leaving Essakane and start the long drive back to civilisation.

Unfortunately there's only one way out of Timbuktu, and that involves a ferry across the Niger just south of town. Luckily we managed to sneak our car onto the ferry so we only had to wait 15mins (while we had a coffee). We'd heard stories at the festival of people who drove to Timbuktu waiting for hours as literally hundreds of cars queued for the ferry that only takes fourteen at a time. Our car, being brand new (we literally put the first 6,000 km on it) decided that it didn't really like deserts so much, and after emptying a small bucket of sand from the air filter we were forced to drive at snail's pace as the fuel filter was blocked until we found a village with a mechanic. Half an hour later - while we had lunch at a small shack on the side of the road - we were back in business. I think I preferred it when the driver was forced to go slow...

The Timbuktu road
whilst only new, this dirt track through the desert doesn't
make it any easier to get to "the middle of nowhere"

A group of Bella (slaves of the touareg) transporting grain by mule towards Timbuktu

The Bandiagara Escarpment rises out of the desert from nowhere

Our hotel bar in Bandiagara - nice place after driving literally all day

Mali Days 12 to 13 - Dogon Country

Dogon Country (info here) or Pays Dogon as the locals call it, is one of the "must see" parts of Mali...

The Dogon were traditionally a cliff-dwelling people who live along a huge stretch of the Bandiagara Escarpment that juts out of the desert in the southern part of Mali, overlooking Burkina Faso. Tradition has it that the Dogon travelled to this part of West Africa sometime around the 15th century, fleeing their villages on the west bank of the Niger River whilst under invasion. Due to the lack of arable land (and for security) the set up lots of small family villages along the cliffs. Nowadays, for practical reasons, the villagers have mostly moved down on to the flats.

The Dogon are supposed to be fine mostly agriculturalists, having developed irrigation system in an area known to be infertile and inhospitable. Most villages are surrounded by crops of millet (though they'd all been harvested by the time we travelled trough so it was mostly sand again), while the wetter areas near creeks and waterholes are filled with onions that they mash up into balls and dry for later use.


The thing the Dogon are probably most famous for are their granaries. Made of mud, with strange "witches hat" thatched roofs, these granaries fill every village - some with elaborately carved doors. They are raised off the ground by rocks to protect the grain both from vermin and from water in the wet season. Many of the villages are built on the rock of the escarpment, so any rain that falls has nowhere to go but flow along the rock until it can be absorbed in the soil somewhere.

The houses themselves are built from stacked rocks on a timber frame

This is the centre of the village of Djiguibombo.

In the hut on the right, the elders meet and discuss the problems of the village. This is also where sacrifices are carried out (not human, just goats and chickens etc) - as most of the Dogon are still animists - and there's a large sign that (in french) says that women aren't allowed to walk there

The Dogon are also apparently famous for their carved doors. Whilst being quite fancy, it's pretty difficult to buy an authentic one these days, and the Dogon country sees so many tourists that the prices are way too high (these guys just don't like to haggle for some reason). Some guys will take you around the back of the village to show you an authentic door that their friend wants to sell off his house - though I'm quite sure that this guy goes through about four doors a week to tourists who want something "authentic" and will pay a little more for the privilege...

After wandering around Djiguibombo we went for a
walk down the escarpment to see the villages below

a donkey with his/her little friend...

women pounding beans and millet

Everything's mud brick in Mali. So at each village there's a large hole in the ground where water collects, makes mud, mud becomes bricks, hole gets bigger, water collects in hole and so on...

If the locals have enough cash, an ostrich egg is the preferred decoration for the minaret (spire?) of the mosque - it is supposed to symbolise fertility and purity.

The new town of teli, with the old town up on the cliffs



Up on the cliffs, granaries still hang on for dear life...

exploring the old town





enjoying a rest from the heat

At our super-fancy hotel (some blokes remodelled mud-brick house)
If you're ever in the village of Ende - look for Ali's Place!!

How's this for a view from the bathroom