To Timbuktu and Back

By: Story by Robert Norton | Photos by Antony Hoffman | December 15, 2009 | Travel

We live in an age of constant connection, information and communication. So, for many like myself, the idea of getting away from it all, escaping the clutches of modern life and enjoying the hospitality of faraway distant lands, sounds like a dream.

And what better dream than Timbuktu and the Festival Au Desert, an indigenous music festival held every year held among the majestic sand dunes of the Sahara desert.

It’s a dream shared by world travelers, music lovers and nomads alike. Every January it attracts about 10,000 people from all walks of life to sit and stand beneath the stars listening and dancing to the best of West African music.

Besides the local musicians, you’ll also find circus performers from the Arctic Circle complete with their polar bear heads and skins standing three tall on each other’s shoulders balancing on a camel. Other times, you’ll watch an Austrian harpsichordist take to the stage with an instrument the locals can barely comprehend. Basically, you’ll never know what to expect or who will show up until you get there. The program is “planned” day by day and largely depends on who made it there.

If you’re thinking Burning Man in Africa, think again, because foreigners make up only 10 percent of the audience; the rest are all locals. Welcome to the world’s most remote music festival hosted by the Tuaregs, one of the Sahara’s largest nomadic tribes who proudly call themselves “the free people.” Born of a desire to preserve their nomadic identity and celebrate the region’s peace, the festival gets bigger every year.

I’ve been to Timbuktu twice and will return a third time in 2010 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Festival Au Desert along with an eclectic bunch of musicians, filmmakers and photographers.

The journey involves several planes, some 4x4s and many camels. It takes you past the gentle banks of the Niger River, the ancient town of Timbuktu and a spectacular landscape of shifting sand and changing colors.

Local food is often goat, boiled then broiled and mixed with millet or rice and hot sauce. Africans love spice with their meat, and the hotter the better. At the festival itself, you’ll find anything from fresh omelets cooked up each morning by standalone chefs who manage to use just one pan for everything to bread baked over an open fire.

Local accommodation is anything from camel-skin tents to large Mauritanian party-style tents with wild and beautiful decorative fabric on the inside. It’s like walking into a psychedelic paisley living room.

It is not for the faint hearted. Temperatures can rise above 100 degrees during the day and fall below freezing at night. One man traveling with us was so cold his first night that despite his military training, he was unable to sleep until one of the women in an adjoining tent took pity on him and let him snuggle up for warmth.

But for anyone who enjoys a challenge, there’s an undeniable badge of honor upon returning to tell your family and friends you’ve been to Timbuktu and back.

If you look up the definition of Timbuktu, it’s described firstly as a town in central Mali, a poor, landlocked country in Western Africa and secondly as any distant or outlandish place. For most people, Timbuktu is either a mythical name or simply the farthest place imaginable. For the African tribes who live there, the Tuaregs, Bela, Songhay, Fulani, Berber and Wodaabe, it’s simply their home.

There’s a local proverb that goes, “Salt comes from the north, gold from the south and silver from the country of white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu.”

To appreciate the place, it helps to know a little about its rich history. Founded in the 11th century by the Tuaregs, Timbuktu quickly became a world trading center for gold, salt and slaves.

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