December 8, 2009
Tuesday morning leave for Timbuktu, ~300 km away, across mostly desert with rough to no roads. The plan was to start at 7 AM. This is changed to 8 AM the night before, and then we wait around to transfer some sleeping bags to another tour group until 9 AM. We make a sidetrip after an hour to a small village called Borko, located in a lush wide oasis in the middle of the desert. Fabulous scenery, palm trees, gardens and…crocodiles. The beasts are sacred to the village. There is a caretaker assigned to them – a job passed down from father to son. He feeds them chicken, and they do not attack the residents, or so they tell us. It is claimed that there are hundreds in the jungle around Borko. We see the feeding, get to pet (pat) them, and go on our way. After another hour we arrive at a place to buy sandwiches in the middle of the desert. We sit outside drinking coke while they make scrambled eggs on baguettes for us. It is 1:30. Ogo mentions casually that we have 200km to go, and the last ferry across the Niger to Timbuktu leaves at 6:00. He seems unperturbed, but the uptight Americans panic and we take our sandwiches to-go.
Now the excitement begins. The rest of the trip is across real desert. What roads there are have washboard surfaces, huge ruts, and are covered with drifted sand. The drivers keep the pace between 70 and 80 km/hr. It is bumpy and scary. Although there is little traffic, we occasionally have to slow for cows or goats crossing the road in herds. Even when we honk, these guys just follow the butt of the animal in front of them so we often have to wait. At one point an oncoming car causes Cheick to swerve and he skids in the sand (Jim and I immediately think of Alyson’s accident.) But, he turns into the skid and recovers well. Salah, in the car ahead, wearing his Tuareg turban, keeps grinning and saying in French “I am a man of the desert – trust me!” The drivers have a good time!
We get to the dock at ~5:40, just as the last ferry is loading. After lots of jockeying, there are 9 vehicles (including one truck heaped high with bags of rock salt), two burros and many people loaded. Just as we begin to leave, another truck shows up, and we’re able to take it on by moving the burros to the side. The engine fires up and the driver climbs onto a platform where he steers the ferry with a wheel attached to the rudder by a long bicycle chain. We slip out at 6:10.
The sun sets over the Niger as we motor an hour across. Through the cars, on the other side of the ferry, I can see a woman nurse her baby. Next to us, several people start a small fire on the deck and make tea, squatting and drinking. Africa!
Timbuktu, founded at the beginning of the 12th century, is still a frontier town. The streets are wide and empty: beige sand, mud buildings, monochromatic. But the few people there are amazingly colorful. Tuaregs in long colored robes and turbans, Berbers dressed in black from head to toe, and children wearing either traditional or school clothes stand out. In the morning a man sits alone under an awning covered with skins, wearing a rose colored long shirt and pants, smoking. The pace is slower than the other cities we have seen.
Timbuktu grew as a trading center. Situated on the edge of the desert and 10 km from the Niger, it was accessible to caravans carrying salt from the north and boats bringing gold from the south. The trade grew by the 15th century to include kola nuts, ostrich feathers and slaves from the south and copper, tin, cloth and horses from the north. It developed into a center of learning, with 150 Islamic schools for students from Africa and the Middle East in the 16th century. At the end of the century it was taken over by Morocco, which ended much of the education, arresting religious and academic leaders, and Timbuktu began to decline.
The houses are mud, with doors and details that seem Moroccan. Many of the homes still have grated windows to keep women hidden, but this is no longer practiced. In the 17th century, a woman rebelled, saying that she could find nothing in the Koran forbidding women from walking outside. Other practices have also stopped, including putting chain restraints on slaves and teenage girls for the night.
The most interesting thing to see is the collections of old manuscripts. In the 15th century there was a huge library, but when Timbuktu was colonized by Morocco, the manuscripts went into private hands and were hidden to protect them. There is a large movement to make copies of these. We see some that date from the thirteenth century.
Timbuktu has had an almost mystical attraction for Westerners over the centuries. The first European to come was Gordon Laing in 1826. He stayed 6-7 months, wore western clothes and a gun, and spoke only English. He was killed as he tried to leave the city. In 1826, Rene Callie went to Morocco, learned Arab and studied the Koran. He portrayed himself as Abdullah the Egyptian when he came and was accepted. He was the first westerner to make it home from Timbuktu.
There are almost no westerners here as we visit – high unrest in the countryside north and east of the city, and in neighboring Mauritania, have scared everyone away.
