Made it to Timbuktu...and back!



Tuareg nomads

 I don’t know where my fascination for Timbuktu began…the origin of this fascination seems blurry now. I surely must have heard this word, growing up, either in a joke or perhaps in an old Hindi song and then later maybe found the English meaning of this word which is actually described in some dictionaries as a metaphor for an outlandish or far away place. The fact that this is really a place was the last thing I figured out.



A typical Timbuktu house


What I do know for sure is that I knew of this place before setting foot in Africa and that’s why I have always dreamt of going to MaIi. Several people have asked me why I was going to Mali of all places but my answer was pretty simple…. “I am going to Timbuktu!”

The general reaction to the word Timbuktu is that people have either never heard of it or believe that it ever existed and is just a word from the realm of myth. My parents had never heard of it but they are not the well-heeled travellers so its quite understandably. My dad however was a little worried when i told him i was going to Mali which is also understandable considering the revolutions hapenning all over North Africa. Regardless, Timbuktu lies just south of the unstable region with purpoted terrorist influences so i figured it was fairly safe to go there.

Djinguereber Mosque

One of the earliest know explorer

Gordon Laing made it but did not live to tell his tale

Timbuktu was probably a nomadic settlement of the Tuareg people in the 10th century until it became a very prosperous town between the 12th and 15th century due to the Trans-Saharan trade where salt from the region north of Timbuktu was traded for slaves and gold from the south. A combination of the decline of the Trans-Saharan trade due to easier access via the Atlantic Ocean and political stability left the city in a state of continuous decline. Around the same time Europe was prospering and there were stories of the untold gold and wealth of Timbuktu that were going around. This led to a lot of expeditions to discover the city but the early explorers died either due to disease or were killed by the Tuareg who feared that discovery might lead to exploitation until René Caillié became the first European to reach the city and write it after disguising himself as a Muslim. I think this fascination and the subsequent failures might have led to the word Timbuktu being associated with anyplace that is impossible to get to. I would highly recommend reading about the history of Timbuktu here to get a better insight into this legendary city on the Wikipedia site here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu.

Houses and Streets of Timbuktu

Sankore Mosque

The previous night I had slept on the boat knowing that Timbuktu would arrive sometime in the morning. I remember waking up as everyone around me was fast asleep to push open the tarpaulin used to cover the boat to see that it was dawn and the pinasse was parked at the port. That was it! I was at the port of Kourioume and that was the point I had to disembark since Timbuktu was still a few kilometers inland from the river.



The houses that René Caillié stayed at.



Salt slabs from the mines of Taoudenni



As I got down from the boat, I wondered why everyone was still sleeping on the boat knowing that the pinasse had arrived a few hours earlier. Perhaps the reason was that most had to go to Timbuktu and were waiting for the public transport to mobilize around 9am. I however did not have that much time so I had to find a faster mode of transport to the city. Madou help me find a taxi and after saying goodbye to him I was set for Timbuktu.

Ancient manuscripts

As I approached the city, it was quite evident that it was situated literally on the edge of the Sahara desert. There was sand everywhere and small shrubs along the way. The houses where different too; the construction material was mud but they were squarer in shape with a flat roof as compared to other parts of Mali like Djenné. The taxi driver helped me find a place but I was not too impressed with the accommodation so I just left my luggage there and decided to find another one.


As I walked around this fabled city, I understood why René Caillié wrote in his travelogue that Timbuktu was a mass of “ill looking houses made of earth”. In fact, the city is anti-climatic. I would certainly not call it a very charming city and it seems as though its is just a shell of what it used to be in its glory days.

Knowing this fact before I went there actually helped me since as I was walking in the streets of the city I was trying not to see it as it stood today …but rather I was trying to see it from the glasses of history with a little imagination of what it would have been.

On the outskirts of Timbuktu

A Bella camp

The prominent features of the city are its three mosques, its two markets, it’s historic and sandy streets of the old center, the houses of the early explorers, repositories for ancient manuscripts, the Sahara and last but not the least, its people…the Tuareg and Bella people.The morning was spent exploring the city, the mosques and the libraries while the afternoon was spent in the markets where I could see the salt slabs that are still bought in from the Sahara on camel caravans just as it was done in ancient times.

Had to wear a turban before heading in to the desert

Just as I had found Mama Africa in Djenné who, without being a guide showed me around the city, I found (or maybe he found me) Ismail who was a young chap of eighteen years who not only showed me around Timbuktu but who also invited me to spend the night at his house with his family.

Now, I have to make sure to note the fact that even though a few Malians like Mama Africa and Ismail will offer to show around town and stay at their homes without charge, they normally expect some kind of tip and even if they do not, it is a matter of courtesy to tip them as that could be their only source of income. To do something like what I did needs a mixture of caution and adventure and more importantly willingness to live in very humble accommodations. In return the experience is richer and the fact that the money is spent on a common man rather than a commercial entity like a hotel makes it more worthwhile.

In the evening I took a camel ride to a Tuareg camp in the Sahara desert for tea and dinner and spend the evening learning about the fascinating lives of these desert nomads. I came back to Timbuktu early that night after which Ismail told me that that day was a holy day for Muslims. It was Prophet Mohamed’s birthday and to commemorate that occasion, a wealthy citizen of Timbuktu had invited hundreds of people to his house for dinner.

Standing on the edge of the Sahara desert

A Tuareg girl

After the dinner (my second of the night), we headed back to the Djinguereber mosque where it seemed as though the whole city came to walk around the mosque three times to commemorate the Prophet’s birthday. It was a feeling similar to going around a temple back home in India.

Tea with the Tuaregs

Sunset at the Tuareg camp

The experience of being there on that holy day and having a chance to have a communal style dinner with a hundred odd people and then to go around the mosque was a very unique experience which I doubt most other tourists are lucky enough to experience. That coupled with the chance to stay in a very humble house of a denizen of Timbuktu make the experience definitely off the beaten path.

Tuareg with the special indigo turban

As for Timbuktu, getting there is where the fun, not in the destination… It’s a city that has been and will be on the downward trend with the only reason for its existence seemingly being the little tourist money that trickles in. It’s had its time under the sun…now its just a town with incongruous looking mud buildings that is being slowly eaten up by the encroaching Sahara.