Visit Timbuktu

“Timbuktu, we discovered, was still a long way from anywhere. To get there, we had the option of claiming seats on a retired Russian 17-seater plane; commissioning a boat to travel days up the massive, lazy Niger in the company of hippos, birds and millions of fish; crossing the desert by camel; or renting passage on a 4×4 Jeep. We chose the last. The road (a term I use loosely) led north from the east-west highway, veered around a dramatic sandstone cliff that would fit in at Monument Valley, and careened into five hours of emptiness. It was so rutted that our driver eventually abandoned it and simply drove over the packed earth.”

“While waiting to sleep, everyone chose his resting place on the sand. Selecting an area in front of the truck, I lied down and closed my eyes. Suddenly, an inner feeling struck, a kind of awareness spasm, while I spontaneously stood up to change my place. I then went to lie near some nearby vegetation. While preparing to sleep, the pick-up’s hand break cracked causing the truck to move forward at least 3 meters, precisely where I would have been lying down! At around 9:00 am, we stopped to ask for directions. There, someone told us Timbuktu was two hours away. After four more hours, we stopped again and were told Timbuktu was the other direction, five hours away! Now, I don’t quite understand what occurred, maybe time-travel, but did we actually go the opposite direction after asking for directions? Funny story: After almost all the passengers had disembarked in the middle of the desert, the half-empty truck proceeded onward with me, two men, one child, and two goats. No comment. Needless to say, I arrived in Timbuktu 22 hours after we started in Gao, northern Mali, and just before sunset.”