Timbuktu appr. around 1825 (a sketch by Heinrich Barth)
Bicycle distances Mali
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Ah. Timbuktu, a mythical place tried to be reached/ found by many European explorers for centuries. Only 4 (!) of them could return to Europe alive to tell about their discovery. Tell me, what kind of place is it?
Well, it's a kind of dusty desert town with one paved road, the rest is sandy streets. When the French conquered it in 1895 on the Tuaregs they found the same what you see now (oh, there is now an tarmac road added). The wind blows the sand from the desert in the streets and it is just a dusty site.
I'm staying 'juste à cote' (= just besides) the (awful) 'monument de la paix` (= peace monument) that was erected at the place where in 1990 symbolic 3000 weapons were burned to symbolize the end of the Touareg rebellion.
As a result of the 'code rouge' (= red code) designed by Sarkozy and friends (sounds like a cd haha) you don`t see any tourists which. For example the joint where I am staying is practically deserted, I'm the only guest. Also, there are hardly any human vultures who harass me, remarkable.
Mosque, Timbuktu /
Today I have strolled a bit through the old center that has been recently paved with a kind of cobblestones. Along an old mosque from the 14th century I then pass the houses where those European guys that so desperately tried to locate Timbuktu have stayed ( there was for example the German Heinrich Barth who in the 19th century started -disguised as an Arab- his trip in Tripoli and would make a journey of 5 years (!) just to reach Timbuktu!). Here you stumble over the museums of such illustrious guests, and the great Moroccan traveler Ibn Battutah was here in 1354 as well!.
"[Timbuktu was] the famous place of Muslim scholarship, the center of religious life: no city of the Empire had such grand mosques, no other such beautiful and massive buildings [...] What, however, the influence of Timbuktu as an intellectual place was was proved by the fact that the Tumbo-koy or governor should have been a scholar. " (Barth 1860, II: 281) /.
... Ibn Battuta, Muslim traveler. traveled 120,000 km. At the end of his travels, he returned on a route through Mali that leads him in 1353 to Timbuktu /
A bit cynical really to see all those little museums (it is often no more than a room where some of their belongings are exposed with some explanation) of the European explorers who did such their best to keep their identity secret because of the fear of being assassinated now serve to attract tourists. Heinrich Barth for instance managed to survive because he was under the protection of a local Sheikh.
I had found it more interesting to visit a museum about Ibn Battutah, or Ibn Sina (Avicenna as he was known in the West, the great math-/ physician/ astrologist/ doctor) or Ahmed Baba, the great philosopher who was forced to go into exile in Marrakesh (Morocco) the Moors conquered the city. He was so known in the muslim world of that time that he necessarily had to teach at the madrassas (= schools/ universities) in Marrakesh.
Why were those explorers that were so keen on finding Timbuktu assassinated?. In the areas dominated by Islam in those days were groups with other religions such as Jews or Christians who more or less were left alone [after paying a tax] and were able to profess their faith ...
Timbuktu was located on a trans-Saharan route: salt was sent to the south, spices, ivory, slaves and timber to the north, the Mediterranean where the merchandise was transported via Malta, Venice found to the rest of Europe. The Moors had the monopoly on such routes through the Sahara which gave them their enormous wealth. It was important to them [the Moors] to keep such trade routes secret: an outsider that would find the trade route was assassinated immediately!.
.. salt tablets Taoudeni /
Later, with the Portuguese discovery of the Indies the trans-Saharan trade routes and cities that thanked their wealth to it like Timbuktu got into decline, although even today salt is mined in Taoudeni, a town 1500 km north of Timbuktu in the desert. There is no road to that place, camel caravans still go there, and if you really want to hurt yourself/ suffer you can join a camel caravan: 35-40 days (return), 12 hours hiking- sitting on the camel- hiking- sitting- hiking etc. An Australian whom I spoke in Bamako and had done it 5 (!) times told me that daily you are 16 hours `on the road` from which approximately one third of it sitting on the camel.
How is your integration in that beautiful country?. Have you made loads of new friends?.
Well, this is an ideal country to make new friends (if you wish). An important element of the Malian culture is - beside drinking the Shey (tea) - 'cauzer': sitting around with each other and chatting. People who see me for the first time often ask me that. It is also nice, I tell about my journey, and I am also interested in them, but what is irritating is that I often towards total strangers have to answer a flood of stupid questions like "Ou vas-tu? ',' Ou tu viens? ',' Comment tu t'appèlles? "etc. (= `Where you go, From where, What`s your name`, etc.). Moreover I am supposed to answer every greeting, quite tiring if you spend all day cycling. Like yesterday I arrived here completely exhausted and at a boulangerie (= grocerie) where I rested for a while I had to have again a silly conversation.
Sometimes I feel I am a teacher in a classroom haha. Occasionally I say, "c'est e-x-t-r-è-m-e-m-e-n-t important que tu me laisses seul maintenant parce-que sinon je vais a etre fache avec toi!" (= It is extremely important that you leave me alone now because if not I will be violent on you ). This said to a 16-year-old adolescent in a desert` like colored blue robe and a white towel in a Touareg-style wrapped around his head and who after every stupid question says: "Salaam aleikum".
Or I treat those children who haunt me or yell at me as little puppy-dogs. I say "shhhhtttt" and I am doominant (pronounce it in the Hispanic way) as the dog whisperer often says. The kind of vultures that call themselves guide I ignore standard and often it is funny to see after how long they piss off.
... view of Timbuktu from Barth's house (now a museum), a sketch by H.Barth /
A bit cynical really to see all those little museums (it is often no more than a room where some of their belongings are exposed with some explanation) of the European explorers who did such their best to keep their identity secret because of the fear of being assassinated now serve to attract tourists. Heinrich Barth for instance managed to survive because he was under the protection of a local Sheikh.
I had found it more interesting to visit a museum about Ibn Battutah, or Ibn Sina (Avicenna as he was known in the West, the great math-/ physician/ astrologist/ doctor) or Ahmed Baba, the great philosopher who was forced to go into exile in Marrakesh (Morocco) the Moors conquered the city. He was so known in the muslim world of that time that he necessarily had to teach at the madrassas (= schools/ universities) in Marrakesh.
Why were those explorers that were so keen on finding Timbuktu assassinated?. In the areas dominated by Islam in those days were groups with other religions such as Jews or Christians who more or less were left alone [after paying a tax] and were able to profess their faith ...
Timbuktu was located on a trans-Saharan route: salt was sent to the south, spices, ivory, slaves and timber to the north, the Mediterranean where the merchandise was transported via Malta, Venice found to the rest of Europe. The Moors had the monopoly on such routes through the Sahara which gave them their enormous wealth. It was important to them [the Moors] to keep such trade routes secret: an outsider that would find the trade route was assassinated immediately!.
.. salt tablets Taoudeni /
Later, with the Portuguese discovery of the Indies the trans-Saharan trade routes and cities that thanked their wealth to it like Timbuktu got into decline, although even today salt is mined in Taoudeni, a town 1500 km north of Timbuktu in the desert. There is no road to that place, camel caravans still go there, and if you really want to hurt yourself/ suffer you can join a camel caravan: 35-40 days (return), 12 hours hiking- sitting on the camel- hiking- sitting- hiking etc. An Australian whom I spoke in Bamako and had done it 5 (!) times told me that daily you are 16 hours `on the road` from which approximately one third of it sitting on the camel.
How is your integration in that beautiful country?. Have you made loads of new friends?.
Well, this is an ideal country to make new friends (if you wish). An important element of the Malian culture is - beside drinking the Shey (tea) - 'cauzer': sitting around with each other and chatting. People who see me for the first time often ask me that. It is also nice, I tell about my journey, and I am also interested in them, but what is irritating is that I often towards total strangers have to answer a flood of stupid questions like "Ou vas-tu? ',' Ou tu viens? ',' Comment tu t'appèlles? "etc. (= `Where you go, From where, What`s your name`, etc.). Moreover I am supposed to answer every greeting, quite tiring if you spend all day cycling. Like yesterday I arrived here completely exhausted and at a boulangerie (= grocerie) where I rested for a while I had to have again a silly conversation.
Sometimes I feel I am a teacher in a classroom haha. Occasionally I say, "c'est e-x-t-r-è-m-e-m-e-n-t important que tu me laisses seul maintenant parce-que sinon je vais a etre fache avec toi!" (= It is extremely important that you leave me alone now because if not I will be violent on you ). This said to a 16-year-old adolescent in a desert` like colored blue robe and a white towel in a Touareg-style wrapped around his head and who after every stupid question says: "Salaam aleikum".
Or I treat those children who haunt me or yell at me as little puppy-dogs. I say "shhhhtttt" and I am doominant (pronounce it in the Hispanic way) as the dog whisperer often says. The kind of vultures that call themselves guide I ignore standard and often it is funny to see after how long they piss off.
Haha, that's a nice one. How was the road from Mopti to Timbuktu anyway?
I was for a week in Dogon Country, peoples that construct there houses against the cliff (called "the Bandiagara" escarpment). Right alongside it, down on the plain is a strip where these people cultivate a few things like corn, or a little further, where is desert, hike behind their cows. Until the entrance of Dogon Country, Dourou the town, the road on a rocky plateau was reasonable cyclable but after Dourou the trouble started ...
It was very tough because I had to push the bicycle for 6 days in a row (not to mention the tyres that gave up on me plus the punctures of the inner tubes I had to glue) through sand (In Dogon country are no hardened roads, tap water or electricity) although there are wells and / or 'forages' = manual pumps). Occasionally I had the idea of being in some kind of Disney land: in one small shitty village there were three giant 'campements`, insane really!.
I have camped in a primary school and a few times in such a campement. You can only get here with a 4WD, the idea is that you stroll with a guide from village to village, climbing occasionally the cliff to visit such a Dogon villagem give Koala nuts to the Hogon (a kind of spiritual leader) while listening to the explanation of such a self- declared- local- guide. I could not find the motivation to do such a thing. I was just crossing their teritory not exploring it really. On one occasion I went up the cliff but that was only to eat poule avec riz (= chicken with rice), haha.
pays Dogon, falaise de Bandiagara
Then I had to cycle three days to Timbuktu on an extremely shit road with almost no villages where I could buy some food. MOreover I had the problem of tyres that gave up on me (three in total, Dogon land included). All the time I camped in the kunuku (= bush) having each night a magnificent star sky. At night it cooled down to 20 degrees it got even fresh, very nice!
That road was a dust road with wave pattern or washboard. Very frustrating because you hardly make any progress because you are so slow and having these ****ing vibrations all the time. I got really in trouble because given the fact that you are so slow you use your water too fast and there were nowhere opportunities (villages, borehole) to get water. Only occasionally I passed a nomadic village where I could buy about 15 bottles of Fanta meant as a backup. Now and then I got overtaken by those rebel`like pick ups filled with Tuaregs waving sympathically to this stupid-white-fella-that-again- had-to-push-his-bicycle-through-the-sand grrrr ....
a door, Dogon country/
Tuaregs look very different from Malians, more like Arabs, North Africans, like Morrrocans. Yesterday I arrived at the river Niger. I had to take a barge across the river for the last track to Timbouctou. So I had plenty of time to observe my fellow passengers (and they me hahaha). Sometimes I feel myself in a storm and red hair comic, or in a star wars movie: super black Malians in bright blue robes, Tuaregs who look like Arabs and wander around with scimitars, with rags windled around their heads having sunglasses. Those rebel pick-ups / jeeps filled or overflowing with people/ and/ or crazy stuff like wood, goats, clothes etc.
The Touaregs are the descendants of a nation of warriors who long ruled the desert and are spread over several countries like Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Algeria and Libya. In each country they are now a minority and often subordinated compared to the rest of the population. In the `90s of the last century their dissatisfaction resulted in a rebellion in Mali.
Is it a bit special to be in Timbuktu?
... To answer your question: you need to have a little stroll through the dusty streets, observing the huge nomadic tents situated brotherly next to mud houses of 2 floors, realizing what a treasure of ancient manuscripts, knowledge can be found here (in Djenne I had a chat with a student that was on his way from Bamako to Timbouktou just for exploring ancient documents to be found there ). Here are even documents that were brought here just after the defeat of Al Andalus (the Caliphate in southern Spain) in 1492 in order to rescue them from christian hands.
Also visiting the museum of the versatile explorer Heinrich Barth gives a good impression of what he must have seen when he arrived here in 1846. A multi-talented type who also created beautiful sketches of what he saw. The nice thing is that since the time of Barth thing have hardly changed: the pirogues (= river boats) of then look just like now and the Songhai nomads still live in the same tents.
... a beautiful sketch of the Niger River (Heinrich Barth) /
During the day I rest mainly and eat a lot. Today I have fixed (glued) 4 inner tubes and tomorrow I want to visit a few museums. I was also here at the dentist who has done a provisional `reparation`. I had such pain that I could hardly sleep. But yes, Man muss leiden auf diesem Weg (= one has to suffer on this road/ trip) haha.
Being at the dentist here is quite a happening: dark Songaï people (besides the Touareg another population group in the north), nomadic Touareg women with their children on the floor sitting / lying ..., a huge Touareg in a purple robe on flip flops really ... it is insane what you see here.
The consultation is 1000 CFA (1.50 euros), the dentist, a young sympathetic guy who has lived in Egypt, explains me in his basic English what nice thing he has for me in mind: the technology for a new crown can be found only in Bamako ( what is 1000 km away from here). ... SO, if his mini-experiment fails I don`t have to worry, he will then extract the whole tooth!.
Wonderfully uncomplicated those Africans!. Which road will you follow next?
Unfortunately, I have to return again the same awful road to Douentza. Following the river to Gao is not possible because the road is a sand track. From Douentza to Gao is a good paved tar road.
Gao has the name of being a bit unstable at the moment. Doesn`t this scare you off? (Returned Touareg mercenaries with heavy arms that have fought for Gaddaffi and want their share of the resources/ power in Mali)
Oh, I do not think I'm so interesting for them, if you see me now with that bike with all this shit loaded on it you will laugh ..
Listo papi, hast la proxima!.
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