22 Hours to Timbuktu

The Toyota was already buried under luggage when another enormous cardboard box appeared.

One man lifted it onto his shoulder. Another stood on top of the pickup, pulling at the ropes and cargo nets. Bags, rolled mats, plastic containers, spare tires and bundles were tied around the back of the vehicle. Passengers were still climbing aboard.

And somewhere underneath all of that was the Toyota that was supposed to take us across the desert from Gao to Timbuktu.

It was 2008.

I had wanted to reach Timbuktu for years. Once I was finally traveling through Mali, there was no question that I would try.

The normal choice would have been to approach from Mopti.

I chose Gao.

From there I found this pickup making the desert crossing west toward Timbuktu. The journey was supposed to take around nine or ten hours.

Mine took 22.

The Toyota to Timbuktu

There were about 21 of us when we left Gao, together with an incredible amount of cargo.

There was no passenger compartment waiting for us. Most of the journey would be spent sitting outside, on top of or between everything being transported.

Looking at the photographs now, I am still impressed by how much was attached to that vehicle.

A spare wheel was tied into the load. Bags hung from the sides. Plastic containers were pushed between bundles. Thick cargo netting covered entire sections of the pickup.

People simply fitted themselves into whatever space remained.

The head and face coverings several passengers wore also made perfect sense once we were moving. Sitting exposed in an open pickup meant hours of sun, wind, dust and sand directly in your face.

I found my place among everyone else and we left Gao.

There was one detail I did not yet know.

Our driver had never been to Timbuktu.

Our driver did not know the way

The normal driver was sick.

His Mauritanian cousin had replaced him.

He knew how to handle the vehicle and navigate in the desert, but there was a rather important problem: this was the first time in his life that he was making this particular journey.

He had physically never been to Timbuktu.

Apparently, he had been given directions.

That was our navigation system.

At first, none of this seemed particularly dramatic. We drove through the sand for hours, following tracks through an enormous open landscape.

Night came.

At about 1:00 in the morning, the Toyota began climbing toward what turned out to be a Malian military position.

Then everything changed very quickly.

We had driven toward a military position

Soldiers ordered the vehicle to stop.

The problem was that our driver did not immediately notice.

The music inside the cab was loud and the Toyota kept moving.

Around me, passengers started getting off the vehicle. I did not understand what the soldiers were saying, but I understood perfectly what everybody else was doing, so I followed them.

Several people were shouting:

"S'il vous plaît, ne tirez pas!"

Please don't shoot.

Eventually the driver realized what was happening and stopped.

Passports were checked and the driver was questioned.

I remember the conversation roughly like this.

"Where are you going?"

"Timbuktu."

"Timbuktu is not this way."

The driver looked surprised.

"So which way is it?"

The officer could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"You don't know the way?"

"No."

"And you're driving all these people in the middle of the night?"

The explanation was simple. His cousin was sick. He was replacing him. He knew the desert.

He would learn the road to Timbuktu today.

By God's will, he said, we would arrive.

Eventually the soldiers sent us away.

Sleeping in front of the Toyota

After that episode, several passengers wanted the driver to stop.

We had already been traveling for hours and nobody was particularly enthusiastic about continuing to wander through the desert at night.

So we stopped.

People found places to lie down directly on the sand.

I chose a spot in front of the Toyota.

I closed my eyes, but something bothered me. I cannot explain it better than that. I got up and moved away from the front of the vehicle, closer to some vegetation.

A little later, the Toyota rolled forward several meters.

That was exactly where I had been lying.

After that I chose my sleeping places more carefully.

Which direction is Timbuktu?

By morning we were moving again.

Around 9:00, we stopped and asked somebody for directions.

Timbuktu was two hours away, we were told.

Good.

Four hours later, we still had no Timbuktu.

We asked again.

This time the answer was that Timbuktu was in the other direction and about five hours away.

I still do not know exactly what happened between those two conversations.

We had managed to ask for directions and apparently become even more lost.

This was when the original nine- or ten-hour journey began turning into something completely different.

People gradually got off as we continued.

The enormous human and cargo pile on the Toyota became smaller.

Eventually there were only a few of us left.

Me.

Two men.

One child.

And two goats.

The goats were probably the most relaxed passengers on the vehicle.

Twenty-two hours after Gao

By then I had spent so many hours packed into the Toyota that everyone around me had become part of the journey.

The photographs show exactly how close we were sitting.

There was nowhere to withdraw from anyone. Children, adults, bags, clothing and cargo all occupied the same small moving space.

And there was no protected tourist view of the landscape.

The desert was directly around us.

Sand underneath.

Sky above.

Dust coming through everything.

You watched the road from exactly the same position as everybody else riding in the back.

Timbuktu finally appeared shortly before sunset.

Twenty-two hours after leaving Gao, I had made it.

Timbuktu had grown over centuries into an important trans-Saharan trading, intellectual and religious center. Its historic mosques include Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia; UNESCO describes the city as an intellectual and spiritual capital of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Sankore Mosque itself dates from the 14th century and was later rebuilt during the late 16th century.

After spending so many years wanting to see Timbuktu, my introduction to it was not through those famous monuments.

It was from the back of a Toyota.

Getting out of Timbuktu

I assumed leaving would be easier.

It wasn't.

For the onward journey toward Mopti, I took a 4×4 taxi.

Near Hombori, it broke down.

Another five hours disappeared.

After everything that had happened between Gao and Timbuktu, this somehow felt appropriate.

The journey into Timbuktu had begun with a Toyota overloaded with people and luggage and a driver who had never been there.

It ended 22 hours later with only a few passengers left in the back.

And two goats.

Continue through my best travel experiences for more stories from the Sahara and beyond.