Timbuktu to the Dogon Highlands

As we approached the Dock I felt a real sense of sadness. The Djoliba River would soon be behind us and the peace of the nights camping under the stars by the river, as cold as those nights might have been, would be left behind.

The day started very cool as we motored through three foot waves that crashed over the bow of our, now familiar, pinnace. Everyone bundled against the north wind that blew into our faces and carried the spray with it to briefly soak us or alternately our bags. As we approached Timbuktu and our final port of call, the day began to warm as the desert sun began to assert itself.

When we arrived at the dock, our pinnace nestled itself in between two other tourist vessels and the skipper and his mate scrambled forward to extend the rickety two-by-six that served as our gangplank for exiting the boat. I waited for everyone else to disembark. I was well aware that my size would make the boat rather unstable as I climbed out from under the straw canopy and made my way along the gangway on the side of the boat.

I emerged from under the canopy into the sunlight and surveyed the little port. As with most architecture in this region of Mali, everything was made of mud brick or cement. The mud brick structures were small boxy affairs with tin or thatched roofs. There was a row of trees stretching toward the road leading to Timbuktu proper and an open area where bush taxi’s waited to carry river travelers into town.

Children and adults clustered around us as we unloaded our bags onto shore. I was carrying my sandals and wearing my hiking shoes. My sandals were still wet from my attempts at washing the mud from them when we made our first camp two days ago. I suppose they were at a place in the boat where the water splashing in kept soaking them.

I disembarked and grabbed my backpack and duffle and piled them together with everyone else’s bags in the sun on the shore between the dock and the trees. MenZeba, Kyle and Khefira were sitting in the shade while the men seemed to be milling around trying to find a comfortable place to rest and watch the locals. Makheru, Malik and Bassirou were off somewhere negotiating for bush taxis that would take us into town, or paying the skipper for the trip, so we were left to fend for ourselves against the street vendors, thieves and curious onlookers.

I felt very nervous about the bags. It seemed that most of the men in our little group were enjoying the sun and the solid ground and not paying too much attention to the young men and children slowly creeping in.

I took it upon myself to make sure that we had a cordon of guards around our bags. I posted myself in the sunlight closest to the open area, KaSabez stood next to me and Nekhitem took the corner nearest the dock. The trees and the ladies nearby kept the locals from horning in from that direction too easily. I kept reminding our guest Robert Conda that he should keep close watch on his bags but for some reason he kept ignoring me and focusing his attention on who knows what in the crowd that was growing around us. His bags were stacked outside of our little cordon of safety and I finally just hauled them in and piled them with the rest so that he would not loose anything to the thieves.

Then Baheru started giving out candy to the children.

The kids went wild, tussling and snatching the candy from each other. He was surrounded by a sea of squealing little bodies that seemed to be all hands and feet pulling him in every direction. In the commotion, I noticed some older boys moving in on our bags and I intercepted them quickly before one or more of our bags disappeared.

All this time, I was holding my wet sandals in my hand. I dared not lay them down in the sun to dry because I was sure that someone would pick them up and run with them. Several people had been looking at them longingly and I knew that these sandals, which I had bought in the US, were better than anything that most of them would see in their lifetime, even if the support within them was broken down from over two years of everyday summer wear. I finally just gave them away to a guy standing in the crowd. He quickly placed them on his feet and stood there with a kind of blank expression on his face, no attitude of thanks or anything, just an air of having gotten his.

The sooner we got out of there the better.

Makheru returned with news of our transportation, but before he told us what would come next he chastised us for giving away gifts in this place. “Why are you giving things away here? You will never see these people again. You mean nothing to them, and if you will give away anything, why would you give away candy to children? It will do them no good. What you are doing is only helping to make these people look at the world as a place where they must beg for what they want. Your gifts should be reserved for your family who will have use for them and remember you when you return.”

This made some good sense, though my first impression was that he really was more interested in his family and friends getting what we had to offer. I would later realize how correct he was about this and I almost immediately regretted the loss of my sandals.

Makheru had arranged two bush taxis to take us to into town. Baheru, MenZeba, Nekhitem, BaAshu, KaSabez and I were in the second vehicle. The bush taxi was typically very cramped. Our bags were loaded on the roof and we were loaded into the back. Our seating consisted of a makeshift wooden bench lining the sides and front of what would normally be the cargo area. It was an extremely uncomfortable ride, but we had all been told of such rides and by now were experienced with bush taxies of various types. We took it in stride and I tried to get a view of the desert as it whizzed by as we traveled along the relatively well maintained road to Timbuktu proper.

Something went wrong with our vehicle and we stopped by the side of the road. I was not particularly concerned by this. I had some confidence in the drivers of these vehicles. I had observed the drivers keeping vehicles going that would never even be allowed on the road in the US, and if there was a bush taxi that did not have a cracked windshield, I never saw it.

We all filed out of the back of the vehicle and managed to find some small relief from the sun under some bushes by the side of the road. We really knew we were in the desert now. It was truly hot away from the river and standing around in the sun was not an option. I found a spot for myself near the others in the group and observed the plants and insects around me. I was a little bit nervous. I had no idea what kind of insects we might run into out here on the side of the road and I would hate for someone to be bit by something really dangerous as we sat there in the sand under the sparse shade that the bushes provided.

After sitting around for about a half an hour, I decided to stroll over to where the driver and his assistant were working on the vehicle. When I got there, I realized that this vehicle was not going to be going anywhere soon. The driver had the passenger side wheel completely disassembled down to the bearings and was beating the axel with a wrench. I wondered if he had a cell phone to call for help.

It is not unexpected for things to go wrong with vehicles like these. Most of them seemed to be more than ten years old. There is a compensation for the lack of new vehicles in the culture of the people that live on the continent. There is an uncommon helpfulness and familiarity that exists between people of common purpose, so when an empty bush taxi came driving by in the opposite direction, they immediately stopped and turned around to take us to our destination. The driver of the first vehicle had no problem with this; even though I’m sure he lost the fare. The new bush taxi turned out to be a more comfortable ride too. We arrived at our hotel about an hour behind the first group who had already settled in.

Our hotel was comparatively nice. It was basically a large square building, most of which was taken up by a bar and restaurant. We planned to have a nice meal later that evening on the patio in the courtyard of the compound in which the building stood. It had two showers and several rooms, but most of us would be sleeping on the roof, as we had in Djenne and in Segou.

We spent a significant amount of time inspecting our baggage for water damage. We had one bag that contained a pile of sidereal calendars and many of them were damaged. Baheru, Nekhitem and BouImin took on the task of separating and salvaging as many of the calendars as they could. The rest of us laid out our wet cloths to dry in the sun. Some did laundry since we had not had a chance to do any for three days.

Since we were to arrive in Timbuktu in the morning, the plan had been to walk to the North entrance of the city to view the places of historical significance that Makheru expected to find there. Our delay put this plan in jeopardy, couple that with the work cleaning up our bags and it was not until mid afternoon that we all started out as a group to walk to the North end of the city.

We started out at a slow pace. Makheru was still recovering from pneumonia and malaria and the back streets that we were walking through were filled with sand that made our walk that much harder. Our hotel was on the outskirts of town, away from the main tourist attractions, so we found ourselves walking through a neighborhood that left Kyle aghast and full of complaints. He complained about the donkeys he saw, he complained about the sand, he complained about how the people lived, but we really couldn’t see how the people lived because, like most dwellings that we had seen in urban areas, everything was hidden behind compound walls. The streets were left for the refuse of unused building materials and trash that could not naturally biodegrade. The few people that we saw here look upon us with curiosity, but otherwise left us to ourselves. That was not to last for long.

After walking a few blocks, we came out onto the main road. There was a lot of traffic here and we had to be careful to stay out of the way of the motorcycles that occasionally buzzed by. There were billboards on the other side of the road, but they seemed rather dilapidated. The effect was to give the whole road a kind of run down appearance.

We soon began to pass some street vendors who were primarily vending food stuffs. These vendors were not very aggressive and since we did not intend to stop here, we continued to walk on by, dodging the few legitimate customers that loitered in front of the makeshift stalls.

So far, Timbuktu ceased to impress. It was dusty, dirty and run down and there seemed to be no sign of the many ancient Islamic libraries and their treasures of rare and fragile scrolls and books. We soon came to the outskirts of the old city and I was surprised to find graffiti sprayed on the walls. In the US I looked upon graffiti as an art form when done well. This was just a monochrome cheap imitation espousing the Wu-Tang Crew.

We did have a guide with us leading us to where we intended to go. The guide had his own ideas though. He led us strait into the tourist market.

The tourist market was little more than a wide alley lined with shops catering to the ignorant and urbane who visited Timbuktu apparently just to say that they had been to the most remote place in the world. The streets were strewn with plastic bags and other trash and Tuareg, wearing the signature dark blue or purple garments and turbans, were everywhere just waiting to descend upon us like vultures. Descend upon us they did, all with the same speech spoken in perfect English. This speech became so irritating that I don’t even want to remember what they said, but one Tuareg did say something memorable. “We once enslaved these people.” He said with some pride. I looked at him with a blank expression and though to myself, “Is this guy a total idiot or what? How could he possibly think that a Black American would find such a statement endearing, let alone make me want to buy something from him?” I was so surprised by this statement that I could not even get angry. This young Tuareg had just demonstrated the depths of his ignorance so completely that I could do nothing but turn my back on him and walk away.

Our guide slowed down once he got to the market and began to stroll as if this had been his destination all along. It was nearly 6:00. He soon told us that the tourist district was shutting down and our best choice would be to come back on the following day to view the Northern Gate.

I don’t mind a long walk and after all of the time sitting in the boat or in bush taxis it had felt good to stretch my legs a bit. Unfortunately, the Tuareg followed us out of the tourist district like a swarm of angry bees. I was really starting to get a bit irritated with their persistent buzz of worthless conversation.

It was a long walk back to the hotel and we were all a bit hungry so Makheru suggested that we stop by a street food vendor and grab a snack before heading back. The street food here consisted of some fried dough that was really pretty tasty. We grabbed our snacks and headed back. By the time we found our way through the doors of the hotel compound, it was quite dark and the stars had come out. We walked in to the compound to find a table set for us on the patio.

I was hoping for a good meal. I found myself rather disappointed. It was just spaghetti with a vegetable sauce that seemed little more than tomato sauce with a can of mixed vegetables thrown in. I was hungry and the food was filling so it was fine with me.

After the meal we settled in for the night.

I had found a spot on the roof between BouImin and Nekhitem. As we lay there under the stars, we discussed how we could possibly help Kyle in his transition to manhood. BouImin was full of ideas about discipline based on work. He felt that if Kyle had chores to do each day, he would be able to build character and self confidence. I agreed very much with this. Nekhitem agreed also, and he pointed out that it was necessary for people to stop babying Kyle and taking up for him when he was being chastised. It seems that there were certain situations where we were sabotaging the efforts of Makheru and others by trying to comfort him or make him feel less isolated by minimizing the impact of what others might have said. I tried to think back and determine if I had done this myself, but I could not find an example in my memory. I decided to be vigilant in the future and make sure that I did not do this myself.

Eventually the conversation died down and we all tried to get some sleep. This was the coldest night that I had yet experienced and I was happy to be between my two friends. I only had my fleece sleeping bag liner as a blanket so I was wearing my jeans and a couple of shirts to add to the warmth.

The moon and the stars were bright this night. The light pollution of Timbuktu was not that significant, so the stars were still much more prolific than in the big city. I stared at them as I had done every night while sleeping under the night sky. I soon fell asleep.

I awoke shivering. It was even colder than ever and I noticed that both Nekhitem and BouImin had left the roof. I sat up and looked around. It seemed that most everyone had left the roof except Baheru and MenZeba. They were bundled up together under a heavy blanket. I grabbed my stuff and beat a hasty retreat to the hallway inside to finish up the night. It was warm inside and I fell asleep quickly.