about26-4 Across the Sahara to Timbuktu

from the Ray I. Doan Photographic Collection

Day 4

Since I only had four people guiding me, Nimit felt we also needed a local guide. So, in the morning Salem came on board as the fifth in my party. Salem is a retired schoolteacher with an old wife and a young wife and big families from both. He was the local expert on the history of Timbuktu. I assume the prime minister had a bigger entourage than I did, but I was quite certain there weren't many in town that were sporting more people than I was.


The run down sign for Timbuktu is a lot like the town. The sign is in French.	The man in the distance is making mud building bricks. They just dig up the street for material.

Timbuktu is a depressed, depressing, dirty, trash filled place that is entirely mud colored. The town is depressed, even by Mali standards, mainly because there is no road to get to the place. It has a population of 15,000, who aren't starving to death, but that's probably the high point of their life. When they move up from a rag-covered tent they build a claustrophobic structure from air-dried mud bricks. The mud bricks are mortared together with mud and then plastered over the outside with mud. The houses have to be re-plastered outside every year, with mud, because the rainy season literally washes their house away. A house that isn't maintained for a couple of years looks like something from the Roman era.


This man is working on mud plastering the Mosque at Timbuktu. Material comes from the street.	Salem's daughter wearing a traditional Timbuktu head piece.

Their trash disposal system consists of piling all their garbage and trash in the middle of the street. Theoretically they burn the trash pile at night, but by nightfall all the paper and plastic has already blown away and vehicles have been driving over the pile all day. In spite of all this, to the nomads in the north, Timbuktu is where you go, when you go to the big city. It's all in your perspective.

Salem had previously been trying to talk Nimit into taking a Pirogue ride up the Niger River to see the hippos. Nimit hadn't done it before but he decided I was the right candidate for hippo viewing. We had to leave at 6 am, in the dark, in order to make the hour ride, and get to the hippos before they made their way into the water. When we got to the right spot there weren't any hippos. A local native told us they'd moved but he was vague on their new location. We searched for half an hour and finally saw two hippo heads in the water. They were under water for long periods and they were moving long distances while they were under.

I had now learned from Salem, the river dwelling natives actively hunted the hippos for meat. I could now see why the hippos wouldn't be happy to see us. I remembered reading somewhere that hippos were the biggest cause of death among Africans, from wildlife attacks. I was getting very nervous sitting in a tiny dugout canoe and not knowing where these hippos were. After a little bit the hippos moved away from us, so I suggested I had enough pictures of hippos heads. In spite of the disappointing hippo viewing, it was a very interesting ride on the river. I hadn't expected to come back with many boat pictures on a trip to the Sahara desert.

Scene along the Niger river.

I'd had a cough starting the day before. When I got back off the river I had the start of a sore throat. Every time I coughed I had a horrible tight sensation in my chest. I was afraid I might be coming down with pneumonia. Of all the places in the world where I didn't want to have pneumonia, Timbuktu would top the list. I decided I'd better start taking the antibiotics I'd brought along.

In the afternoon, Salem lead us on a cultural tour of Timbuktu. The high points are the two Moslem Mosques, which of course are made from mud bricks. I didn't have much interest in the Mosques, but everyone in my group was determined that I see them. So, I went to see the Mosques. Salem had also setup photography sessions with two women and one man who would be wearing traditional Timbuktu garb. Their modeling fees were 5,000 Ff, about $8.00 each. The last woman was Salem's oldest daughter from old wife number one. It was interesting to learn that she is taking care of the children from his new young wife number two. She is married to a schoolteacher and has one two-year-old son of her own.

In the late afternoon we tried to drive north out of town, on the salt trail, which is low rolling hills of nothing but sand. We got stuck in the sand on the first good hill we came to. Everyone was pushing and I asked Nimit why he wasn't using four-wheel drive. He said they were but I pointed out the front wheels weren't turning. They hadn't brought a shovel so it took an hour to dig our way out by hand. We got back to town about dark and the driver set off on a four-wheel drive repair odyssey. I was quite pessimistic about getting the truck fixed in Timbuktu.

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This page was last updated: March 15, 2008