The Road to Timbuktou, Part II

From mountainous Hombori I caught a five-hour pre-dawn bus to the town of Gao on the bank of the Niger. Gao, like Timbuktou, was once the center of a Sahelian empire, but now it's a miserable outpost of dreary mud-brick buildings, dusty streets, and mercenary tourist guides. After the last days of heat-exhaustion in Hombori and some days with a miserable guide in Dogon country, it marked a low point of morale. I spent two days here waiting to get out, and when I found out they had an airport I almost took an early flight home.

I decided to continue on to Timbouktou, however, but finding transport was difficult. Two locals finally 'helped' me book an overpriced passage on a transport boat docked in the harbor, which they assured me would leave the next morning. After I put down my deposit down I learned it was to leave the day following the next day, at 8am, by which time a more comfortable, cheaper, and faster passenger boat had come and gone. So, two days later, at 3pm not 8am, I left with a dozen passengers, five crew, two donkeys and a goat. I was told the journey would take two nights and a day, but, this being Africa, I knew that could mean anything.

The 60 foot-long motor boat was made of wide wooden planks and a rounded, straw-mat roof supported by saplings and tree branches. It wasn't designed for comfort, or really for any type of quality. The main job of one of the crewmen was to scoop water out the boat, water which continually seeped in from dozens of tiny holes. The holes were 'fixed' by pushing cotton rags into them with a special tool. Getting from one end of the boat to the other was an obstacle course over wooden beams, cargo, people, a cooking area, and the motors themselves; alternately you could trust your climbing skills and mount the outside of the boat to the roof, then walk along the (rounded) roof to the other side. Still, the boat stayed afloat, and I on it, and slowly but surely we made our way against the current of Niger towards Timbuktou.

How do you pass five days and five nights on an uncomfortable boat? I slept, I painted, I ate, I decoded a French spy thriller using a dictionary (CIA agent looks for two Irianian terrorists, but mostly just finds sexy women), I spent hours staring at the shoreline, watching sand dunes and river grasses and egrets and little fishing villages pass by. I thought about what I would do when I get home (I'll spend a day on the couch with the Sunday Times, a cup of real coffee and a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese, tomatoe, and a pinch of salt; after that I'm not sure). We stopped at a village one night to load over a hundred huge sacks of white flour, which left the porters covered in a fine white dust, white dust against their black skin in the moonlight, a terrific sight. We stopped to visit the family of the captain (which ended in an argument), and we stopped at other villages for smaller loads and passengers, and each night we pulled ashore for a few hours to give the pilots some rest. I slept on a wooden board next to the grumpy captain, who spat and coughed and mumbled all through the night.

The Niger River must be over a mile wide in some parts, and it's really peaceful, really beautiful. The days were hot but the evenings cool and serene, and at night the moon came out, turning towards full, so the river glittered in silver light. I eventually made friends with the other passengers and crew, I painted portraits of several of them, and when on the third day I got really sick, Umu, the mother-figure of the boat, gave me some medicine and some comforting looks of concern. The boat had begun to feel like home, especially in the central cooking area where the women kept up a good banter. But a strange kind of home. The cavernous roof, held up by rib-like supports, was shaped much like the rounded bottom and I felt like I was inside a big whale, traveling slowly on my way to nowhere. The motor kept up a constant hum, the scenery passed effortlessly, the sun rose and fell, the moon rose and fell, I lost track of time. No one could tell me how far we'd come or how far to go -- one kid spoke a halting French and he had no clue -- so I just relaxed and trusted that things would work out.

Now I'm in Timbuktou.