Trapped in Tonka no more! Well, we sat around waiting in Tonka at the port for quite a while yesterday. And the longer we stayed the rougher the place seemed to get. The men hanging around for the boat had some serious thug attitude and I really don’t think they liked us. All except this crazy naked woman who kept throwing rocks at people. It was pretty funny though when she tried to kiss Joe and while he was pushing her away she grabbed his unmentionables...hehehe. Anyhow, the boat just wasn’t showing up and it was getting later and later. Around 4:30 we decided to check out the car park and see if there were any rigs left going up to Timbuktoo. There was one, a local transport run by this rich Arab guy. We argued and got the same price we’d agreed upon for the boat (5 000 CFA). And piled into the back of his pickup truck. But before we left town we stopped off at the car park again and picked up another 12 people or so and a sheep. The ride was a bit sketchy but good. We filled up the pickup bed with the bags, put a netting over it and all sat on top of the net clinging on as we bounded down the sandy desert road to Timbuktoo; only 150 km or so North.

We stopped for dinner in Gunjum, a much nicer looking town than Tonka and had an amazing plate of lamb and rice. It was pretty cool going out there. In the middle of nowhere to find this quasi mythical city at the end of the earth. The grassland turned to desert pretty soon. This land is called the Sa’hel and it’s packed sand with small shrubbery. A few trees show up every now and again but its not the giant dunes you think of when you hear the word Sahara. Apparently it does turn into real sand dunes a bit further North.

As we neared the lights of Timbuktoo we pulled off the road maybe 15km outside of town. We’d stopped at the rich Arab’s house. The place looked pretty cool. Houses out here are often these low domed tent things, somehow it reminded me of Luke’s house from Star Wars. He said we had to sleep out at his place instead of continuing into Timbuktoo that night. If we did go into the city he would have had to pay the military people outside of town. Maybe this was because he wasn’t really allowed to transport people or something, I’m really not sure. So we settled down for the night. We broke out Tim’s tent that we’d brought and finally put it to some good use. We hadn’t brought it with us to Dogon country or we might have used it then. That’s ok though, it served us pretty well. Although we had a small problem in that the tent is clearly made for 2 people and we of course were 3. Tim and I took the tent but I guess when the time comes we all will be able to squeeze into it. Joe slept in one of those cool low domed tents. They kind of remind me of tepees actually. He said it was good in there too; they built a fire inside so it was relatively warm. I think I’d really like another night in a real bed though.

So this morning we got up and hopped back on the pickup truck. We were driven the last few km into Timbuktoo fairly quickly. I’m not sure what my impressions of the town are yet. It kind of looks like most of the other towns around here, maybe older, but not particularily nicer. In fact it seems fairly run down. While on our way to the hotel we passed a really nice mosque. There are 3 very famous mosques here and it is one of the oldest most respected centres for Qu’aranic studies in the world. On the whole though I’d say that this town has seen better days, like maybe 700 years ago...

Now we’re staying at the Sahara Passion Hotel waiting for breakfast. I’m happy that we finally made it but I agree with Tim that maybe it wouldn’t be the same kind of place if you could get here super easily. Shower, shave, and a bed; that’s all I need now. We can get all the other stuff we want to do planned out later.