Mopti to Timbuktu, Mali 8 Oct 07

Flying nomads meet desert nomads

Thanks to another early start, we took off from Mopti shortly after 9 a.m., still early enough to fly low at 3500 feet to enjoy the view of the Niger and the villages along its banks on our way to the legendary Timbuktu.

Abdullaye (our Dogon country guide) had put us in touch with a Timbuktu guide, Kalilou, who met us at the airport with a landcruiser and driver. Compared with Abdullaye, Kalilu was disappointing. He wanted to charge us more to have the landcruiser at our disposal all day, just around Timbuktu, than we paid for two long and rough rides in the Dogon country. In any case, we didn’t need the vehicle as all the major sights were within short walking distance of supposedly the ‘best’ hotel in town, the Colombe 2.

Like ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ we set off in the midday sun (keeping to the shade where possible) to do our tourist duties. After walking past a couple of mosques and a British explorer’s house, we arrived at the Ethnological museum where Bouctou’s tim or well is to be found. Bouctou was an old woman who, in around AD 1000, was put in charge of finding water for the Tuareg nomads who used Timbuktu as a seasonal encampment. The word ‘Bouctou’ means ‘large navel’, so it is thought that the woman had a fat belly.