On 4 October 2003, Tony Wheeler wrote (in The Independent Traveller) “---, there is no way you could claim to be serious about travel without going to Timbuktu---”.

TIMBUKTU
(Parish News, Church of the Resurrection, Upton Priory, Macclesfield, April 1982)

Few places on earth are more remote, more inaccessible, than Timbuktu. At least, that is the legend. What could provide a better motive for trying to get there? Like the summit of Everest, the challenge is that it is there.

My journey began in Banjul, capital of the Gambia, where peace had been restored with the help of neighbouring Senegal after an attempted coup last summer. The ferry across the River Gambia and a short ride in a Peugeot 404 took me to Kaolack the metropolis of Siné-Saloum. Next day, a connecting train took me to Guinguinéo, in good time to join the Dakar to Bamako express. The "express" stopped at numerous stations at each of which the local people used to buy or sell goods from the passengers. Enterprising business people had discovered that good profits could be made by buying at one station and selling at another, so as well as passengers travelling to reach their destination, the train was crammed with merchants with sacks of salt, cola nuts, mangoes, papayas - even cattle. At night there were no lights in the carriages so after dark one used candles or a torch. Robbers found that the darkness facilitated their profession! The thirty-six hour journey was enough.

From Bamako to Mopti by excellent tarmac road. My West African French vocabulary had been enlarged by the word "goudron" - tar. There is a world of difference between a few hours gliding along a tarmac road and twice that time bumping along a laterite track with a surface like corrugated iron, avoiding where possible the potholes and stopping from time to time to repair the vehicle.

Mopti is a river port along the Niger and a centre for the Songhay farmers, fishermen and traders who live nearby. It was fascinating to visit their villages by pirogue and see a lifestyle that cannot have been altered for centuries. At certain times of the year it is possible to go by riverboat from Mopti to Kabara, the port for Timbuktu, but only when the rains have raised the level of the river sufficiently. I flew very low, in a high-winged monoplane, watching the meandering, multi-channelled Niger below.

Timbuktu at last! Sand everywhere, crumbling buildings, robed and turbaned inhabitants, women pounding grain with pestles and mortars before baking delicious flat bread in dome-shaped ovens out on the street. I stayed at the campément, built by the French for visiting officials, just opposite a spanking new hotel due to be opened for tourists in a few weeks time. Mosquito netting protected me at night; the black rat in my room disappeared into one of numerous holes and did not come back. The wind from the Sahara blew with surprising strength. The call to prayer reminded one that this was a Moslem country. The sound of bugles was reminiscent of Beau Geste.

Although Timbuktu had been a thriving Saharan trade centre for centuries, it was not until the early part of the nineteenth century that it was first reached by Europeans. The first was Alexander Gordon Laing, who was killed for refusing to be converted to Islam. The first to return to Europe was the Frenchman René Caillé who travelled there across the desert disguised as an Arab with a story about having acquired French mannerisms in France to explain any lapse into European behaviour. The German Heinrich Barth spent six months in Timbuktu in 1853/54, unwelcome as a Christian, but even so provided with a house, which can still be seen.

The Tuareg were the founders of Timbuktu and are still to be found encamped near the town, together with the Bela, formerly their slaves. The last time a slave was recorded as having been purchased in Timbuktu was in 1959, but it is surely impossible that slavery has been totally eliminated when it has been a traditional way of life for so long.

There is a small Christian community in Timbuktu, centred on an American Baptist mission. Pastor Nouk ag infa told me of his work there, distributing tracts and maintaining the faith in the face of persecution. The Muslims say that Christians get drunk and do not pray. Did they get that impression from the tourists? Moslems do not drink and are often to be seen at their devotions, kneeling wherever they happen to be, touching the ground with their foreheads. Pastor Nouk was interested to hear of the Christian community at Upton Priory, which must have seemed as remote to him as Timbuktu does to us. He is going to remember us in his prayers and would genuinely appreciate our prayers in return.

A.J.Swallow, March 1982