about26-1-2 Across the Sahara to Timbuktu

I have been in love with taking pictures of sand dunes for a long time. I love to try and capture the sinuous curved lines of a dune, the beautiful shadows at first light and those magnificent ripples and wind blown patterns in the sand. Most of my sand dune photography gets done on coastal beaches in the US and whenever I can get there, on a nice remote South Pacific Island. Some of the nicest sand dune photography I've ever done is from Death Valley California.

When my wife Mary said, we need some new sand dune pictures; my first thought was Death Valley. But then I started thinking, if I'm after the ultimate sand dune picture, maybe I should go to the ultimate sand dune place, the greatest desert in the world, the Sahara. Thus was born my connection to Tenere Expeditions and Nimit Moore. Nimit is a young man with a whole story himself, but a short version is this:

Nimit was born to Tuareg nomad parents in the African country of Mali. Until he was 13 years old he lived in the Sahara. At that point, through a complicated series of events, he came to the United States where he learned English and eventually graduated from college. He's now back in Mali Africa running an Expedition Company that guides tourists into the Sahara. I contracted with Nimit for a private tour into the Sahara, specifically geared toward getting me to some of the most photogenic sand dunes in the desert.


Nimit Moore with his mother.	My Staff - From left to right. Nimit, Al-Hader driver, Salem Timbuktu guide, Amadou helper, Al-Movmine cook.

The most direct way for me to get to the Sahara was with Air France from Miami to Paris to Bamako, Mali. My Air France flight to Paris was scheduled to leave New Year's eve at 5:45 pm. The 747 arrived a little bit late, from Paris, so we left 45 minutes late at 6:30 pm. The plane was about 95% full, mostly French going home. This 747 had the smallest overhead overhead baggage compartments I've seen on a big jet. One carryon filled up about 2/3rds of the compartment. I was in the fourth row in economy and the crew had one bag in every one of the overheads in the first four rows. Luckily I pushed on early and got my carryon put away, but there were a lot of unhappy passengers around me. We arrived in Paris at 2:15 am Miami time, 8:15 am Paris time. It was totally overcast, cold, raining and pitch black at 8:15 in the morning. It looked like the perfect picture of why not to go to Paris in the winter.

I arrived at Hall C. I had to walk over to Hall A to catch the Air France flight to Bamako Mali. When I got to Hall A it was so crowded you had to force your way though. The crowd was 99.5% African. Hall A is obviously the Africa terminal. When I finally got to the security check-in a guard grabbed my largest carryon and put it on a conveyor to go as checked luggage. I screamed and got it back but they weighted both carryon, which totaled 26 kilos. They told me there was a one-bag limit of 10 kilos but they let me through with both of them. Half the people checking in had giant, packing case, kind of luggage. I hoped my checked luggage was going to get to Bamako at the same time I did.

We boarded about a half hour late and then set on the ground another half hour waiting for some delayed passengers. I think the flight was full and the passengers were 95% Africans. We arrived in Bamako over an hour late at 5 pm. The temperature was 93' so I felt at little foolish getting off the plane wearing a sweater and carrying a heavy jacket. I got in what I thought was a line for immigration. I was in the first third of the people in line. They formed what appeared to be about ten lines. I finally figured out there were only two immigration officers and each five lines had to funnel down to one. Whoever pushed the hardest got ahead, and I can tell you no tourist is a match for an African. I think there were only about ten people behind me when I finally got up to the officer.

Nimit Moore was waiting for me when I got to the baggage pickup area. He had on his traditional blue Tuareg robes and indigo headdress. He took charge of getting my luggage but it was still pandemonium. It was the typical third world baggage situation where all the natives had gone shopping in Paris and every one of them brought back enough to open a store. Thankfully my luggage all arrived and we finally got it through customs and got out of that mad house. Naturally Nimit had an assistant, Amadou, who carried all the luggage. Amadou is a University student in Bamako. Being a university student in Bamako means you may have a lot of free time. The professors have been on strike for five months so there hasn't been any classes for that period. When the teachers aren't on strike apparently the students are often on strike. The University has not yet graduated a student.

Nimit said there had been bandit activity north of the area he intended to visit around Menaka. He felt it was too dangerous to visit that area so he said that instead, we would be visiting his tribe, north east of Gao, for a camel dance. Nimit got me to the Mande hotel about 6:15 pm. He checked me in and I showered and met him for dinner at 7. He told me he has an apartment in Bamako so he wouldn't be staying at the hotel but would be around at 7 am to pick me up for our two day drive to Timbuktu. Nimit has married a Tuareg girl from Mali and lately has been spending most of his time in Mali. The country Mali is pronounced Molly, which rhymes with holly. Bamako is pronounced Ba-maa-co.

When we were at the airport I'd told Nimit I wanted to change $500.00 into Mali currency, which I'd thought we'd do at the airport. He told me we'd take care of it at the hotel. So, now he had me give the $500.00 to Amadou, who returned with 335,000 Ff, about the price of a very good camel. It was exchanged at the unofficial or black market rate that was better than at the airport.

I got up at 5 am in order to get out camera gear and repack and be ready for breakfast at 6:30 am, as Nimit suggested. When I got down for my 6:30 am breakfast they told me they didn't start serving breakfast until 7 am. So much for our early start. Nimit arrived with Amadou plus two more, Al-Hader a driver and Al-Movmine a cook. There's going to be four people taking care of me, and I thought India was bad. The vehicle is stacked to the roof with luggage inside and it has a roof rack crammed full of fuel cans and camping gear. My luggage is actually a pretty small part of the total luggage. There is also a goatskin water bag, complete with fur, tied on the outside of the Toyota Land Cruiser. All and all the vehicle doesn't look were starting on a jaunt into Yellowstone. Toyota seems to have the 4x4 market about as sown up in Mali as Land Rover does in Kenya.

We started off on the Mali National Highway, which is, by African standards, quite a good two-lane blacktop road. It's nice they did a good job on the one and only road they have in the country. Nimit has a map that shows other roads but I'm sure they show a road whenever they hear that someone has managed to drive a vehicle from here to there. Like Kenya they aren't roads but rather places where people have driven cross-country.

The National Highway goes past a steady stream of native villages that look very much more traditional African than the roadside villages in Kenya. There are none of the roadside strip malls with the 'Florida Hotels'. I would say that Mali is behind Kenya in development, as hard to believe, as that may seem. Mali doesn't have the tourism to support even the few things that Kenya does. Mali gets only 5,000 to 8,000 tourists a year, according to Nimit.

At 1:30 we stopped for lunch at what is probably the one and only tourist suitable restaurant on the road, and I'm referring to African standards. You'd have to know where it is because it isn't obvious it's a restaurant, but it still is apparently a regular stop for any tour group on the road. We drove through Segou, which is the second largest city in Mali and the import center for the country. We then pushed on to Mopti and visited a gift shop where Nimit is directing his tourists. The owner could speak very good English and he had a very large collection of beads from ancient to modern.

On our drive north Nimit was telling me that he might become a movie star. He said there was an independent film company that was going to do a documentary on the Sahara - Greatest Desert in the World. The film was to be shot in wide format and they already had a contract with I-Max to distribute the finished film. They had an $8,000,000 budget and filming was scheduled to start in April and last six months, through the summer. They had originally contacted him to setup the Mali portion of the expedition. The film company owner told Nimit that even a documentary film needs a star. After learning his story, young boy leaves the desert, goes to college, comes back to the Sahara, he said he'd like Nimit to be the star of his film. Two writers had been in contact with Nimit, getting the details of his life for the movie. The film is to be shot in six different countries with about four weeks in each country. Nimit said they expected the whole crew to be between 30 and 50 people with typically 10 of these to be soldiers from the local country, for protection. Among other things they wanted to follow a salt caravan from Taouadeni to Timbuktu. The film company is head quartered in Colorado. I have a hard time visualizing how a bunch of guys from Colorado are going to work and film in the middle of the summer in the Sahara Desert.

We drove until about 6 pm when Nimit just drove off the road and said we'll camp here. We were about an hour's drive south of where we turn off the National Highway for the track to Timbuktu. The crew gathered wood and prepared a fire. Actually by the time it was over they had three fires. Using a shovel they took burning coals and but them in funnel shaped metal stand with a grate, which is the African version of the charcoal grill. This grill had a pot on it for heating/boiling whatever. They scooped another small shovel full of coals that they just lay on the sand and use for their little teapot with green tea.


Toyota Land Cruiser complete with goatskin water bag.	Our campsite - Getting ready for dinner and bed.

Nimit showed me the air mattress he's now supplying and it was bigger than mine so I decided to use his. I intended on using only my sleeping bag as a blanket but Nimit got out a heavy blanket he placed beside my bed. He said almost everyone with a sleeping bag has found they also need a blanket. I put on my sweats as pajamas, and ended up using the hood to keep the breeze off my head. Everyone else slept on the ground without an air mattress and they pulled their blanket over their face. They don't use a tent, it hasn't rained at this time of year, for 20 years.

from the Ray I. Doan Photographic Collection