Tales from Timbuktu -- WEST AFRICA

Colourful market in Accra, capital of Ghana

A former slave trade fort, Cape Coast, Ghana

Along Ghana's Coast

Cape Coast, Ghana

Cape Coast Church

Ganvie, Benin

Preparing breakfast

Pays Dogon, Mali

The town of Mopti

Timbuktu street scene

40 degrees in the shade -- bienvenu a Tombouctou!

Skulls at a Voodoo market in Lome, Togo






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TALES FROM TIMBUKTU

Just an update on what we've been up to recently. The Mali leg of our West African travels began in Bamako, the nation's capital, where we spent just enough time to catch some live music and enjoy some of its unassuming nightlife. Our main destination though was the town of Mopti which is the springboard for most of Mali's primary attractions. It is in that region that you find Djenne, Pays Dogon and the legendary Timbuktu. Djenne is a town with an impressive mosque that is Africa's largest mud-built structure, Pays Dogon is a great place to do some hiking and also visit traditional villages that cling to an escarpment, and the legendary Timbuktu is, of course, the legendary Timbuktu.

We had some difficulties getting a seat on the Bamako-Mopti bus. Long story not worth recounting. When you're travelling in Africa, the locals told us, delays are to be expected. When we finally did get a bus seat, we just sighed, "Ya Allah !" With our elation, it was almost movie-like when the bus pulled out of the station and the driver juiced up the African music. What a great sound track to accompany the images of the next few hours. Bucolic scenes of red earth and contrasting green shoots, farmers toiling under an African sun, mud huts with thatched roofs, goats, donkeys, sheep and oxen.

Once in Mopti we looked into transportation to Timbuktu. We learned we had three options : A beat up 4-wheel drive, which in Malian French they call a "quatre-quatre", a 2 m wide, 10 m long wooden boat, which in French they call "une pinasse", or else flying with Air Mali, which in both French and English they call "Air Maybe".
We chose the financially irresponsible route and got tickets for a 35-seater plane which belonged, inexplicably, to Air Armenia. Because it was low-flying, we were treated to more scenery, but this time from a new and exciting perspective. It was interesting to see the snaking swath of green that followed the Niger river and the verdant fields that gave way to scrub trees that gave way to desert.

Stepping off the plane in Timbuktu, we were assaulted by a heat somewhere in the 40's, followed by rapid-fire assaults from tour guides, hawkers, taxi drivers and hotel keepers. Once we were settled in, though, it wasn't quite so bad.

As for the town itself, Timbuktu wrested its title as Africa's greatest trading city and centre of culture and learning centuries ago and we were hard-pressed to find even vestiges of its glorious past. It was, nonetheless, a fascinating place to spend some time. It was fun to purchase curios from turbaned merchants, to wander through alleyways invaded by desert sands, to observe the denizens of Timbuktu go about their daily lives. And at night we declined all the offers for camel rides into the desert; it was pleasant enough in town, with the cooler night air and the full moon to showcase the architecture of mud walls and protruding wooden supports.

Our stay there was not long but it was certainly worthwhile. Back in Mopti, we swapped stories with other travellers that had made it to Timbuktu. Hearing their experiences, we were actually quite glad we took the 50-minute plane ride. One Eastern European women we met said she rode a large pinasse for 5 days. Said she'd never been so hot and sweaty and that at times it was excruciating, especially when the pinasse got stuck, which happened on more than one occasion. Although the pinasse was quite long, as most African pinasses are, she found it was by far too hard and uncomfortable for her liking. I can see doing it for maybe 30 minutes but I can't believe she rode it all the way to Timbuktu.