A Journey to Timbuktu

By Road From Accra to Mopti

From my childhood the phrase “to Timbuktu and back” has meant a long and difficult journey to an almost mythical place. To get there, I first travelled 2000 kilometres by road north from Accra on the coast of Ghana, through Burkina Faso and Mali to the Niger River port of Mopti.

Mopti Riverfront

The Mopti riverfront is full of colour and movement. Big slabs of salt are stacked on the shore, having come across the desert from the desolate mines of Taoudenni to Timbuktu and then by boat to Mopti. Gnarled firewood lies in big stacks. There are piles of nested bowls made from gourds cut in half. Brightly coloured earthen kitchenware is neatly laid out in arresting geometric displays. Sheets of woven palm leaves for roofing and walls lie stacked in piles. Stalls sell vegetables, fruit, fish, meat and pungent spices. Food vendors are wreathed in mouth-watering smells and wood smoke. Small fish are spread out in silvery shoals on palm-leaf mats to dry.

Women in bright clothes carry food on broad trays on their heads. Some also carry children balanced on a hip, or sleeping babies wrapped up on their backs.

Blacksmiths sit at glowing coke fires beating out big iron nails for boat building on tiny anvils, one by one, with small pots of tea by their side - just the way it was done in ancient times. Some fashion small utensils, metal fittings and barbed points for spears.

Hiring a Pinasse to go to Timbuktu

I hired a pinasse with a helmsman and deckhand for the three-day trip downriver to Timbuktu. These boats are long and narrow with a low curved roof made from woven palm leaves. We cooked on a kerosene stove in the stern and ate food bought from villages and fishing boats along the river.

The toilet was a small enclosure in the stern opening directly into the river. To get to it we clambered out of the boat and scrambled hand over hand along the side.

Traveling Down the Niger River

We passed villages hugging the river as if their lives depended on it – as indeed they do. The Niger River passes through the southern edge of the Sahara in Mali before turning south again in a gigantic 4100 kilometre loop from the mountains of Guinea to the delta at Port Harcourt in Nigeria. Desert communities rely on the river for water and food for themselves and their animals.

Boxy thatched houses made from mud-bricks sit among straggly trees. Tall palm trees dot the villages and provide hard wood for building and leaves for weaving. Vegetable gardens line the banks.

Each village has a mosque with tall, cone-shaped, spiky spires. Sturdy sticks poke out from the sides to provide access for annual repairs after the rainy season. The whole effect is like an exotic cactus with thick thorns.

Cattle, sheep and goats graze on river banks green with forage as the falling water exposes fresh mud flats to new growth.

There was little wind on the first day and the river was calm and glassy under a slate-blue sky.

The deckhand cooked lunch on the boat as we puttered along: chicken, pasta, mangoes and small sweet bananas, followed by small glasses of very sweet, bitter tea - a great favourite with Malians and especially Tuaregs - and served ceremoniously on a big tray.

We passed boats heading upriver to Mopti loaded to the water line with people, animals, goods, firewood and bedding. Often a couple of narrow pirogues are lashed to the side to cram on more cargo. Boat prows are decorated with elaborate geometrical patterns in bright colours.

The wind favoured boats going upriver, so they glide along under a big square-rigged sail, usually made from tattered rice bags like taut patchwork quilts. Some boats in the shallower water close to the shore were poled along.

Running Aground

In the afternoon the river became shallow and the deckhand was constantly on the bow testing the depth with a long pole and giving hand signals to the helmsman. Other boats were poling along in the shallow places and occasionally grounding. The river was often only knee-deep and the boatmen sometimes had to get out to push their craft off the muddy bottom.

I travelled in late March when the river was nearing its lowest point for the year. During the dry season the Bozo people build temporary homes of sticks and reeds on river flats here, where the fishing is at its best. They leave when the rainy season starts and the houses wash away in the rising river. Next season the whole process is repeated.

Fishing

Fishermen balanced on the bows of their small boats and cast nets into the water in a flowing sweep of body and net in the ancient fashion of traditional fishing communities all over the world. In Roman times retiari fought in gladiatorial combats in the stylised gear of such fishermen. More nets were strung in rows near the banks, often with twiggy branches thrown in to shelter small fish from predatory birds. The Bozo people are very proud of their skills as fishermen and supply much of the fish sold along the river.

Late in the afternoon the brassy sun beat in under the roof of the boat and it became very hot and uncomfortable. By 6 pm it started to cool off. The river flowed between high mud banks and narrowed to maybe 100 metres.

My First Camp on the River Bank

When the sun set about 7 pm, copper-red in the hazy sky, we stopped to make camp on a sandy beach, not far from a village. Voices, the barking of dogs and clatter of cooking pots floated across the water. Lowing cattle kicked up wispy clouds of glowing dust backlit by the setting sun as they came home for the night. Cooking fires glowed among the houses.

In the gathering darkness we ate fish bought earlier in the day that had been filleted and laid out on the roof of our boat. We sipped tea and chatted contentedly under a starry sky until insects and flying beetles drove us into our tents for the night.

During the night cattle came down to the river to drink, bellowing when they saw our tents in their watering place. After drinking they settled down around the tents until dawn. Boats came and went in the darkness and their wakes made small slapping splashes along the beach. A big moon rose in the cold hours before dawn.

We woke at 5 am. The two boatmen were dark shadows on the beach as they said their morning prayers. Then we packed our gear and were on our way by 5:30. We had to cross Lake Debo before the wind got too strong. The lake gets rough in windy weather and it can be dangerous for small boats like ours.

Crossing Lake Debo

Lake Debo is part of the Niger Inland Delta covering an area the size of Belgium. Here the gradient is so slight that the river overflows into the surrounding desert, creating a refuge for wildlife and an important wintering place for migratory birds. The lake itself is about 25 kilometres wide and 50 kilometres long.

Many birds take advantage of the abundant food at this time of year. I saw watchful egrets, white-grey kingfishers, slow-stepping herons, and aerobatic swallows skimming the surface, lapwings making sudden little rushes on the shore and circling crows or maybe ravens.

We breakfasted crossing the lake as the sun came up: bread, cheese and jam washed down with tea.

Another Day on the Niger

By daybreak fishermen were casting nets and checking nets set in rows during the night. The water was no more than waist deep as we entered the lake. Lush grass grew on green islands of exposed mud and seasonal herders were collecting great piles for their cattle, sheep and goats.

Later on we saw a group of hippos surfacing like squat submarines. We kept at a safe distance because these dangerous animals are not to be trifled with.

The sky was hazy due to fine dust as the harmattan kicked in for the day. This annual wind blows out of the Sahara in the dry season. By mid-morning we were heading into a stiff breeze and spray was coming into the boat. The waves and spray got heavier as the day went on and small white caps grew on the waves. For some mysterious reason small fish occasionally jumped into the boat when conditions got rough.

We passed a village where two lines of people were dragging ashore the ends of a big semicircular net in strong rhythmic pulls. Other nets were strung across the river, almost blocking it. We got caught in one and an argument ensued with the fishermen.

The Harmattan Nearly Swamps My Boat

After lunch on the boat the harmattan became so strong that we had to cover ourselves with plastic sheeting and bail water out to avoid being swamped. The river is 600 metres or so wide here so the waves have room to build up.

Towards dusk we passed through a narrow, rocky part of the river, with some big outcrops in the river itself. Boats come to grief here every year and people drown. Rather than continue in the darkness, we stopped and set up camp on a sandy shore.

Legends of the Niger

The boatmen of the Niger River believe that evil shape-shifting spirits dwell in the water. Each year they kill a sheep and give it to the river spirits to ensure safe voyages. At other times they mix kola nuts with milk and pour it into the water as an offering. Kola nuts are chewed for their caffeine content. They are greatly appreciated and are often given as traditional gifts to respected elders.

My Second Camp the River Bank

After dinner we sat on the shore drinking tea and chatting until bed time. There was no village nearby, so the night was quiet except for the croaking of frogs. The wind had died away. Nothing could be more tranquil than sitting in the evening warmth, with a mighty river before me and the endless sands of the greatest desert on earth around me, far from harsh city noises.

We were up at 5 am next day and ate breakfast on the river as the sun rose.

Around mid-morning we came to the true desert where the river flows between tall dunes. A few camels strolled along the river bank behind villagers draped in cloth.

Getting Swamped Again!

The harmattan started to blow, stronger than yesterday, creating small white-capped waves that sent spray into the boat as we ploughed ahead into the teeth of the wind and waves. We were baling often throughout the afternoon.

We bought capitaine for lunch. Capitaine (aka the giant Niger perch) can grow to 80 kilograms and is very good eating.

We passed a crowd of women washing pots and clothes on the bank and modestly bathing using their wraparound skirts as little shelters. Children laughed and splashed in the shallows and waved as we passed. Men generally washed at the end of the day’s work when no women were bathing.

Arrival at Korioume, the Port for Timbuktu

We arrived late in the afternoon at Korioume, the port for Timbuktu. Many small boats lined the shore so we motored along until we found a vacant area and nosed onto the beach. My companions helped me carry my gear ashore, then we shook hands and said goodbye. They would head back to Mopti, 550 kilometres upriver, as soon as they found enough passengers to fill the pinasse.

Arrival in Timbuctu & Fulfilment of a Lifetime Dream

I took a battered taxi into Timbuktu. Over the years the river channel on which Timbuktu was built has silted up, especially during the major drought in the early 1970s, and the town is now about 20 km from the port.

“Bienvenue a Tombouctu cite des 333 saints” said the sign as we drove to my hotel along streets covered with drifting sand. At last I was in Timbuktu, a city that has long been a byword for mystery and remoteness.

“What is your name?” asked the waiter and general helper at the hotel. “Bob”, I replied. “Ah! Bob Marley!” he exclaimed with a broad smile and called me Bob Marley from then on.

Timbuktu was once a famous centre of Islamic learning. In the 16th century one quarter of the 100,000 inhabitants were scholars and students attending three universities and 200 Islamic schools. Today the population has dwindled to possibly 4000 and it is no longer a centre of learning.

The town is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and many of the old religious centres and other notable buildings are being preserved and restored. You can see the restored house where Gordon Laing stayed in 1826, the first recorded European to visit the city.

Timbuktu was also a key city on a trading network that stretched from the southern coast of West Africa, across the Sahara, to the Mediterranean Sea. Salt, gold, ivory and slaves have been transported along this network from the Middle Ages and probably earlier. Trade slowly faded after European explorers discovered the sea route round Africa to countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

However, salt is still transported in much the same way as it has always been. I went to the place where salt-laden camels arrive from Taoudenni, but the season was nearly over and no caravan arrived while I was in Timbuktu.

I Longed to go on to Taoudenni

I regretted that the security situation prevented me from going on to Taoudenni and then into Algeria, following in the sandy tracks of the ancient trade route. My driver said I could pretend to be the returning son of a Tuareg, now living in France to explain my lack of language. He could get me a passport for my assumed identity, plus all the necessary Tuareg clothing and equipment to make the disguise complete.

I thought of those resourceful spies of the British Empire going in disguise among enemies of the Raj, doing daring deeds for Queen and Country, and was momentarily tempted. But my journey to Timbuktu was nearly over.

My Last Camp, in the Dunes of the Sahara

On the last night I camped in the freezing desert under a big Tuareg tent set among dunes and a scattering of sparse bushes. I lay under thick woollen blankets and imagined stately camel caravans navigating the desert by the stars, with proud Tuaregs swathed in bright blue cloth striding across the sand.

There are still places in this world where ancient customs survive, where the romance of adventure lingers and where strangers are met with courtesy. You can find them on a journey to Timbuktu and back.