Another day in Timbuktu

Sam had planned to leave after breakfast the next morning, as he wanted to get back to England for Christmas (sigh) and had a long drive ahead of him! However, his bike wouldn't start that morning and so us four lads had to push it through deep sand to the mechanics a few roads over. Don't know if anyone had tried to push a kitted out dirt-bike through sand, but its not easy work, especially just after breakfast! Got him to the mechanic who, like all in Africa, started taking bits apart and conferring with a colleague with a collection of random tools. They are superb though and have such ingenious ways of fixing things that we wouldn't think of in the UK. Saying that, things in the UK generally last longer when fixed than in Africa!

The mechanic was opposite a statue called "La Flamme de la Paix" (Flame of Peace), which was created after a final cease fire between Tuareg rebels and the government, ending years of trouble in the north of Mali, after the government had neglected the needs of their nomadic countrymen. Three thousand weapons were burnt in the monument in 1996, and some were cemented into the base as an eternal sign.

We then went for our meeting with Ahmoud, the guide that had been organised by Shindouke, and after some bartering agreed on a price of 15,000 CFA a day for each of us, including Tilly, who was joining us for the trek. We knew a Dogon trek would be pushing the top end of our daily budget, which is 14,000 CFA, but it was always part of the plan.

Went to visit some houses where the first ever European explorers who set foot in Timbuktu stayed. Pretty strange to think this was only as recently as the mid-eighteenth century. Also went to a manuscript museum (exhilarating you may think), where professors are working on restoring thousands of original manuscripts that were written in Timbuktu, when it was one of the first places in the world to have a university and a centre for Islamic teaching. Really amazing to see the ancient, thousand-year-old mathematics and astrology books. A real treasure of Timbuktu's past.

Met Kelly, an American who had apparently spent the last few days on the back of a donkey she had bought trying to ride from Douentza to Bandiagara in the south - a journey of about half a day by car. Dubious about how true that was... We all got our passport's stamped at the Timbuktu tourist office, had to be done, and bought postcards, although the post office had shut down for the day at 3pm. However, as another sign of how great Miranda and Shindouke were, they said if we left the cards with them, they'd send them off the next day. Love that place.

Furthermore, we were worried about the lift we'd organised to Sevarè, from where we'd start the Dogon trek, and so Shindouke called up the head of the transport centre in Timbuktu, who arrived with the driver who was due to pick us up. We confirmed everything and felt a lot better about getting a random 4x4 at 3am and changing to another bus about 150km away. Genuinely nice people.