about26-13-14 Across the Sahara to Timbuktu

Across the Sahara to Timbuktu

from the Ray I. Doan Photographic Collection

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Day 12 - Previous | 1 & 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 & 7 | 8 & 9 | 10 | 11 & 12

Day 13
At sunrise, I went back up to the hotel roof again and photographed the natives fishing in their pirogues on the Niger River. It had the makings of a hot day. I spent the morning packing and by about noon, when Nimit showed up for the luggage, it seemed really hot. I asked him if he knew what the temperature was and he said he thought it must be over a hundred. And this is in the cold winter.

I had 49,000 Ff left, of my black market Mali money. I needed 10,000 Ff for the departure tax so I had about $60.00 to buy souvenirs. On our trip to the downtown Air France office, I'd noticed some little shops along the sidewalk selling mud cloth, which is the local Mali specialty. I had Nimit take me back to them so I could blow the remainder of my Mali money. When the taxi stopped I was mobbed with mud cloth sellers. I selected one little hut and was told the price of a piece I liked was 20,000 Ff. I thought I'd have to get two. I selected a second, somewhat larger piece, and was told the price for both was 60,000 Ff. I said I'll give you 39,000 Ff, which of course was rejected. Ok, I said, that's my best offer so I'm leaving. I didn't get to take the first step before I owned to two mud cloth wall hangings. I couldn't visualize anyplace we were going to use them at home, but I'd gotten rid of my Mali money, which was the object of the shopping.

Toward the end of the trip, I'd been telling Nimit that what I'd like to eat was a sandwich, which appeared to be non-existent in Mali. Amadou picked me at 6:30 pm and we went to the one restaurant in Mali that served sandwiches. The place had a menu with some sandwiches listed that had American sounding names. However, no American would have recognized the sandwiches that arrived. Well, what the hell, this was adventure travel.

We got to the airport at about 9 pm, two and a half hours before my flight was to leave. There was a long, long line, or maybe mob, outside the front door of the airport. I'd never seen that before. There were two police guards at the door who demanded to see my passport, before I could get in the front door. One guy took my passport and studied every page until he finally got to the last page with the Mali visa. He really made a show of studying the visa page. All the while there were people breezing through the door who had an official paid expeditor. Now the first guard gives my passport to the second guard who also makes a big show of studying the visa page. Then they motioned me to stand over to the side, out of the way, and they told Amadou my visa had expired. My visa plainly hadn't expired. But, since I was too cheap to have hired an expeditor, and therefore they would not derive any income from my passage, I was going to wait. After about ten minutes they let me through. As I saw it the police wanted a fee to let people in the front door of the airport. The corruption among Mali police is so pervasive and so blatant it is almost institutionalized.

I only had a temporary boarding pass from my downtown luggage check-in, so I still had to stand in line. I stood in line to get my boarding pass. I stood in line to have my carryon luggage checked. This was an Air France check, not the airport security x-ray inspection. There was a line for that too. I stood in line to pay my departure tax. Then I stood in line for my Passport check. I had a form, from the airline check-in, that I'd filled out and gave to the woman at the Passport check. She kept handing it back to me, telling me something in French, that I couldn't understand, and getting more upset each time. This was the first time I hadn't had Nimit or Amadou along to interpret. It dawned on me that Mali was not a very friendly place for a non French-speaking tourist. I finally figured out she wanted an address in Mali, although there was nothing on the form indicating that. Then I had to climb a set of stairs to go through x-ray airport security. Then it was back down a set of stairs to a waiting lounge that was absolutely full. It had been almost an hour and a half since I'd gotten to the airport. At some unknown signal everyone jumped up and rushed for the door. There had been no PA announcement; maybe there was no PA system. It turned out, as I was hoping; the crowd was boarding another flight.

Now there were about a dozen people left in the waiting room. After a little while about six got up and went out the door. I asked the attendant about boarding the flight to Paris and he waved me out the door. There'd been this mad rush the flight before and now I'm getting on a 747, that I think is full, and there are six people boarding. Very strange. People just kept trickling on until the plane was full. They must have been stuck in all those lines.

Day 14

We got to Paris on time where I had a five-hour layover. About 15 minutes before the flight was to board for Miami about half the people in the waiting area got up and crowded in front of the gate. Then they put up a 'Flight Delayed' notice on the monitor and boarding was a half hour late. After we boarded they still didn't leave the gate for another half hour. The young lady next to me said that two passengers had checked in with luggage and then hadn't boarded the plane. They were going through all the bags in order to remove their luggage.

In spite of a one-hour delay in leaving Paris we got to Miami just about on time. It was nice to be back to a place where I didn't have to eat goat meat. My trip across the Sahara to Timbuktu with Nimit Moore was a trip I'll never forget and hopefully one that has provided me with some great sand dune pictures.

Epilog

After I left Mali, Nimit traveled back north of Gao, to attend a Tuareg wedding. Three days after I got home Nimit’s USA office manager called to tell me that Nimit had been shot and killed at the wedding. His Tuareg wife was so frightened that she left the country. It seems that the Tuaregs were more opposed to tourism and change than Nimit believed. The death of Nimit put out a bright light among the Tuaregs and is a tragedy for his people.

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This page was last updated: March 15, 2008