Return from Timbuktu

Day: 29
Location: Mopti, Mali
Weather: intermittent rain, cool at night
Kilometers: 450
Hours: 6
Health: fine, dehydrated
Accomodation: Ya pas de problem hotel
Price, room: 3.5K CFA x 2 = 7K CFA
Price, petrol: 503 CFA / lt
Shower: yes
Morale: 7
Total spend: 109K CFA
Song of the day: "Kalifornia" Mos Def

GB: I woke up at 4:45 AM, my mattress drenched in rain water. No surprise, then, that I had been dreaming that I was under a waterfall and then drowning.

I checked outside for the camel guides, secretly hoping they weren't there, since my eagerness to go had greatly waned due to pouring rain. So instead I decided to join Adam, Sanna, and Modibo inside to sleep some more.

At 5:30 AM we woke up again. I went to see outside to check, and this time found a small Tuareg waiting right outside. Not sure how long he had been waiting, I pretended like we were on time and told him we would be right over.

The ride was fun but at the end of the day, we felt the impact of driving a hard bargain on quality of service. The camel went for 10 minutes into the dunes, then stopped, while our guide proudly announced to his incredulous audience that we were at the "Porte du Desert". I stopped short of asking to see some form of proof. We hung out in the dunes a bit before turning back. On the way back I asked for the Tuareg coffee, only to be told they did not settle around where we were. Makes you wonder how real this "Door" actually is.

After we got back, we decided to go take a stroll around the city before leaving.

AW: We popped in to visit one of the worst museums I've ever seen, after haggling over the price of entry of course. They had like 2 broken pots from 1981, and a photo of ladies doing a tourist dance in 1986. While we looked at the museum, some guy stamped our passports, even though we weren't crossing a border.

We also stopped by the houses of various notable western explorers who were commonly slashed by Tuareg if you believe the guide book. Renee Caille, a French citizen, learned such good Arabic that he passed himself off as an Egyptian scholar for a year without anyone finding out and slashing him. He also went 3,500 km in West Africa in 18 months with no government funding. We definitely have him beat there. But he did it in 1830 and was riding a camel or whatever.

The houses looked like the other stone houses in town, but in general stone houses are for the rich, mud houses for the poor, and tents for the touareg.

We thought we'd grab a quick breakfast and be on our way. As it turned out, they had a shortage of bread, eggs, milk, and food generally in Timbuktu. We settled for a coffee and french fries. When we finally got the food, about 1.5 hours later, we were pretty pissed, so we ate and left Timbuktu.

Before we left we talked to a Tuareg who had just returned from the salt mines at Taoudenni, bringing back salt slabs. This was the original salt gold trade that put Timbuktu on the map. I personally will trade anyone salt for gold, but I guess this reflects how the economics have changed over the years - indeed the margins have come out of the business. The trip takes 16 days and is done with a caravan of 40 camels. Each camel can carry 4 slabs (one on each side and 2 on top), and each slab will fetch 4K CFA in Timbuktu. So that's 16K per camel x 40 = 640K CFA, or $1,280 for the 16 day trip. I could be wrong about the 40 camels anyway - he was speaking french after all. Hilariously, the Lonely Planet says you can go along with the caravan for 650K CFA, riding a camel for 18 hrs per day, eating shit food, for 36 days round trip. Worst idea ever.