The Road To Timbuktu

The road to Timbuktu is a long one, both literally and metaphorically. If it’s not the beat up 4WDs or the pockmarked pistes that get ya, it’s the innate Moptian desire to bleed the few tourists that are in the country right now for every cent they can get. I know that I want to go to Timbuktu but I’m not exactly sure how I’ll get there and Mali tends to be wonderfully short of unbiased tourist information - “You want to go to Timbuktu? My brother’s got a friend whose cousin’s son has a pinasse which could take you there” etc. There are two options really; I can try to negotiate my way onto a cargo pinasse and sail for 3 or 4 days on the Niger or there’s the more prosaic route plied by the 4WD mafia on whatever days there’s a quorum for going that far north. I opted for the former because it immediately appealed as a more adventurous option and it just seemed like the right way to get to Timbuktu. Meeting someone who was willing to take me there was the easy part - agreeing on the terms and conditions is the very reason the phrase caveat emptor was coined. I meet a guy who introduces me to the ‘captain’ of a cargo pinasse, and who agrees to take me there for 16,500F but warns me that the accommodation is basic. This is what I’m expecting and so I don’t have a problem with it. I just want to get there and preferably via the river route.
I was shown the boat, told to be there at 10am the following morning and that it would set sail around 2pm. I also bought enough mineral water to last me the 4 days they said it would take to get there, and a straw sheet for sleeping on. The boat itself was indeed grim and home to the captain’s family of 5 children, one of whom, an infant of about 6 months spent the entire day bawling his eyes out, bless him, whilst I waited for the departure that never did actually come. I waited on board for 8 hours in total during which time I became the focus of attention of all the captain’s five children. I shared one meal with them which was served up in a giant basin - four of the kids and I sat self-consciously around the basin and dug our hands in for fistfuls of rice. No forks, no plates, just scoop and chew. The meal itself was rice with sauce and some fish heads thrown on top as meat and was cooked on the boat by one of the sons.
By 6pm it was becoming clear that the pinasse wasn’t leaving at all and so I disembarked with my bags and asked the captain for a refund figuring that I really don‘t have enough time in Mali to be waiting for a pinasse that might never depart. And there my problems began. I was told that it was leaving in under an hour - it didn’t - and that I needed to get back on - I didn’t. I was also told that there was no money to be refunded, that it had all been absorbed in the maintenance costs of the pinasse. Clearly this was bullshit but as the day grew darker, there was little or no budging until I was offered 10,000F - some 6,500F less than what I’d originally paid. In situations like this, if your haggling skills are failing you - no amount of haggling would have saved the day in this instance - all you can do is mention les gendarmes in passing. It’s the only back up plan I had and it felt like I‘d just threatened them with my mother. Their reaction - there were now 4 others hanging on every word of the discussion - switched from amusement to anger to incredulity and back to amusement again. The offer was raised to 13,000F which would leave me with a 3,500F loss. An expensive day but ultimately just about €6. All that was missing here was Noel Edmonds with a phone waiting to talk to the fucking banker.
It was completely dark at this stage, there were 5 very large Malian men around me by the river and I wondered how much assistance the Malian police force might be once I’d explained the story in my pitiful French. One of the 5 grabbed my stuff, demanded the money they’d given me back, told me to go to the cops and so, shamefully, I caved in and took the cash. Should I have called their bluff? Should I have haggled for more? Did I just get wiped out there? Yes, clearly. Lesson learned. Stupid tourist.
Wary of my experience from the previous day I walked over to where the 4WDs depart the following morning. The wait begins at 8.30am and at that time there are 4 people - 12 are needed as a minimum for departure. By 2pm there are 5 people and it’s looking unlikely we'll be going anywhere. All of a sudden there’s a huge screaming match which starts in front of me - I’m getting used to these and being involved in a few of them - but what it’s about I have no idea. Anyway once it blows itself out - it takes half an hour at least - my bag is taken and we’re away by 4pm. What they’d done - and the reason for the shouting match - was to reroute the 4WD to take the passengers going to Timbuktu and to some of the outlying towns - note that in this case an 'outlying town' means half a day's driving.
It’s a pretty regular 4WD and there are 14 passengers squeezed into it. Remarkably, 8 bodies - including yours truly - are squeezed into the 2 seats facing each other at the back. Welcome to the cheap seats. The first hour or so is pleasant as we wind our way beside the river but then once we move from the river the dust begins. Dust through the windows, dust through the doors and dust through the floors. It seems as if I’m the only one not wearing one of those Lawrence of Arabia head scarves and before long the entire bus is coated in red dust. This continues, unabated, for 8 hours and my lungs will probably never be the same again. Apparently between 1588 and 1853, 43 Europeans tried to make it to Timbuktu, 4 made it and only 3 lived to tell the tale. If it’s this difficult in 2011, fuck knows what it must have been like centuries ago. Not even Mungo Park himself would have survived the dust in the back of the 4WD.
We overnight in the town of Diré. The first I knew of this was when the engine was killed in the town centre, everyone rolled out the sleeping sheets, threw them to the ground beside the 4WD and slept - ‘Right, looks like we’re staying here then’ - and so I stretched myself out on the back seat of the 4WD and grabbed as much sleep as my mosquito companions would allow me. I should point out here that in West Africa, at least 70% of the time I have no idea what’s happening when it comes to getting from one place to another. No-one tells you that you need to switch buses or that there’s been a change of plans so I just follow the crowd most of the time. We abandon our 4WD in Diré, jump on another one - I have to point at it and say ‘Timbuktu?’ - and drive the last 5 hours to the city.

*Just as a footnote whilst I’m posting this; the journey home from Timbuktu which was supposed to take 8-10 hours maximum began at 3.30am, involved two hours of driving around Timbuktu and waking people up to take their places on the 4WD, 2 punctures, a 1 hour delay because the driver decided to take an alternative route and got lost, transfer to a baché at Douantze still some 200km from Mopti and then at least a dozen breakdowns (I stopped counting at 6) in between, the last of which involved the bus dying on the side of the road just 10km from our destination. Close but no cigar. All told, a journey of 15 and a half hours. You just have to love this shit.