The desert displayed the full gamut of browns, a great emptiness of golden sand, dirty sand, beige, ochre, reddish and dark brown. The rains had filled hollows with café au lait ponds. We were carrying two bottles of emergency water, a foolishly paltry amount for a desert flight. The truth was, after the Atlantic we felt smugly safe flying over land, any land.
The scarcity of landmarks on the arid terrain made it hard to keep track of our position. After exceeding our estimated flight time, we scoured the horizon anxiously and met up again with the Niger River. Surely Timbuktu would be easy to spot? In the fifteenth century, it had 100,000 inhabitants, having grown from a humble wintering camp for Tuareg nomads beside a well (Tin Bouctu – Well of Bouctu) into a powerful city and revered seat of Islamic learning. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Mali was a powerful kingdom and centre of the world’s gold trade!
So where was this legendary city? In the middle of nowhere, we discovered a tarmac airstrip stretched out like a fireman’s blanket on the sand beneath us. Beyond, lay a dark brown smudge, like a dried-up lake. The shell of Timbuktu!
From the book Freedom of the Skies
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Glimpses of the journey:
- Around the world
- Crossing the Atlantic
- Saint Louis, Senegal
- Bubaque, Guinea-Bissau
- Timbuktu, Mali
- Cottar’s Camp, Kenya
- Virungas National Park, Congo
- Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe
- Sossusvlei, Namibia
- Lumbo, Mozambique
- Antananarivo Madagascar
- Adis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Misfat, Oman
- Jaipur, India
- Himalayas, Nepal
- Mae Hong Son, Thailand
- Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia
- Borobodur, Java, Indonesia
- Baliem Valley, Irian Jaya
- Gimbat, Australia
- Munda, New Georgia, Solomon Islands
- Hurricane in Apia, Western Samoa
- Anaa, Tuamotu, Polynesia
- Easter Island, Chile
- Crossing the Andes, Chile-Argentina
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
