'allo from Timboctou

WE MADE IT, WE MADE IT, WE MADE IT......

After 4 days on the river I was really starting to wonder if we were ever going to actually get here. As it is the water level is so low that we stopped in a town some 100 Km downstream and had to hitch the last bit in on the back of a pickup.

What a wonderful journey. 4 days in a small public pirogue motoring slowly up the Niger, past families of Hippos wallowing in the water, past waterside villages, occasionally stopping to let people off; to pole across shallow areas or to offload cargo into another canoe tied to the side of us to lighten the load and raise the boat further out of the water.

The wooden boat was a simple flat-bottomed thing, around 20m long by 2 wide with a small covered area in the middle and a cooking area right behind. It carried around 40 passengers and all their goods - sack of rice seed and millet, personal luggage, woven floor mats, dry goods to stock small stores across the delta (Two of the merchants were coming from Ivory Coast and two had started their journey back in Liberia!!!).

People were exceptionally friendly and interested, although it took sometime before they admitted to speaking a couple of words of french. I guess a lot of people outside Bamako feel hesitant using the language because they feel that they dont speak it well, its a real shame for us, given that our Bambara, or Songhai, or Dogon or Tamalshek is not what it should be....

We shared meals from enormous metal bowls and whenever anyone opened private goodies the loot was shared all round. The photos in the guide books provided endless conversation and for some reasons Eric's name gave them great glee. They would repeat it and then go off in peels of laughter. A bit disconcerting really :)

There were even two other Toubab (whites) on the boat, a French father and daughter travelling together. They turned out to be nice enough but a bit standoffish. I had the strong impression they were somewhat narked at finding other white faces around and that we intruded on their 'Great African Adeventure' :) . However, we kept to our end of the boat and made some Malian friends instead.

The amount of goods carried by that small boat were spectacular. The boat had a little hole in it which they kept stopped up with material and a boy who baled continually. The boatmans wife kept us well supplied with enormous bowls of rice and fish sauce - lunch, dinner and of course breakfast :) At night we stopped and camped on the beaches of small villages. When the boat slowed down (we werent going more than 25 Km top speed in anycase) little children would wade out to sell goods balanced on their heads - mangoes, donuts, peanuts, fresh and grilled fish....

The 4th day we landed at Dire, a small town on the Delta and still about 100 Km south of where we wanted to be. We were lucky enough to be able to hitch a ride at the back of a pick up with a moor returning towards Timboctou.

Of course, as we had arrived in a desert region and were on the back of the pickup, it rained! Or rather it tried to, but still... It seems that whatever desert we go to 3 drops will follow.

We arrived at Timboctou at dusk. It was a beautiful time to arrive as the last lights reflected off the white sands in town and under the streetlights like light off snow drifts. The sand gives the town the same hushed quality. The white sands and dust in the area strengthened the impression giving it all a slightly crooked, diffused ambiance. A hot snow-scape...surreal !!!

This morning we went exploring and the city doesnt dissappoint. What a wonderful place. Its tiny, gnarled, sandy streets are fronted by elegant buildings with elaborate doors and intricate windows. Whilst in small clearings, they are not really squares, you stumble across surpise encampments of nomad tents, hunkered together like straw-coloured mushrooms.

The permanent houses are built around small courtyards surrounded by arches and are usually not taller than a couple of storeys. The minarets of the mosques are of in mud, beautifully simple examples of sudanic architecture - organic, not to tall and certainly not totally symetrical. There are few buildings in town which rise higher than them. Indeed the skyline must be very similar to that which greeted the salt caravans as they returned south from Fes. The desert is very present, in the streets and in the air. It clogged up the last outlet to the Niger some 30 years ago and the tall white dunes come right to the edge of the town.

Unlike Agadez it remains a lively place, full of people bustling around buying, selling or just bustling for bustlings sake; random packs of sheep wandering the streets, small markets sprouting at street corners, women shouting at each other from doorway to doorway and hoardes of children careering through the dust.

What a pleasure. Ive been wanting to come here since I was a little 'un and after Agadez was fully expecting to be somewhat dissappointed. Quite the contrary.... id come back to Mali just for Timboctou...


Départ de Mopti, lundi - Arrivée à Tombouctou Jeudi soir.

Un long trajet pour arriver dans cette fameuse cité. En effet, nous avons empreinté pendant 4 jours un priogue publique à moteur, qui nous a conduit, dans la lenteur du Niger, jusqu'à Diré, à une centaine de kilomètre de Tombouctou.
Après avoir sérieusement négocié notre place le bateau, nous avons embarqué le lundi après midi sur une pirogue d'une vingtaine de mètres de long, chargée de sac de mil, avec une quarantaine de personnes à bord. Deux autres toubabs, un père et sa fille étaient de la partie.
Plus on avance dans le voyage, et mieux sa passe. On commence à faire connaissance et l'on découvre petit à petit que de plus en plus de gens à bord baraguouinnent quelques mots de français (ce qui facilite les échanges), on partage le riz gras à tous les repas (manger à la main -droite bien sur), et l'on dort à la belle étoile sur une plage au bord d'un village de pêcheurs.

Après nos 4 jours de bateau, il nous fallait encore trouver un transport pour nous rendre à Tombouctou. Chanceux que l'on fut de trouver cette occasion et de se retrouver embarqué à l'arrière d'un pick-up. Du coup, nous avons débarqué le jeudi soir, juste au couché du soleil, ce qui apportait quelque chose de mystique à la ville.