Half an hour or so after our car was back on dry land, we finally arrived in Timbuktu. With all the breaks, break-downs, stops and crossings, it took us some twelve hours since the moment we had really set out from Mopti.
Timbuktu. The legendary city of the desert. The mystic, almost fabled, byword for the end of the world. In a world where there are no more real frontiers to conquer, Timbuktu is one of the few remaining places whose name still rings with an echo of romantic adventures of the past in a traveller’s ear. As this guy, Steven, in Djenné said, a place you go to not so much to see it, but more so you can say you’ve been there. A destination that, once visited, moves you up to a higher class of travellers. To a distinguished company not many people belong to.
Well, how justly or unjustly, I was going to see tomorrow. For tonight, though, the very notion that I was here made me kind of feel good. For starters, I didn’t need much more.
Except for a long shower and a good kip, that is.
Barbara and the Americans must have had a reservation in Tombouctou before we had even started on our journey here. Or maybe Guele had made a different arrangement for them from Mopti. In any event, first thing we did in town was that we dropped them off in front of an abode that boasted a signboard announcing an existence of a camping place, restaurant and bar within its premises. And a few rooms, I assume. However, at least some of them were going to spend the night under the cover of a starlit sky, i.e. on the roof. Nobody complained, so they’d probably known about that arrangement in advance.
And then, for the last tiny stretch, on our way to where we would sleep tonight, Katrin, Lea and I had an unprecedented luxury of only one person per seat in the car. For those last two or three kilometres I felt almost rich.
It was dark as in a railway tunnel outside. I hoped the driver knew where he was going. I couldn’t make out a single thing.
Anyway, Tombouctou really seemed to be under a foreign invasion for the moment. Allegedly, right now and on such a short notice it was next to impossible to find a dig in town, let alone a decent one. So much for its being the end of the world. Guele went around that inconvenience by putting up the three of us with his relatives. So it would seem that he was hailing from Tombouctou. At least, the fact that some of his kinfolk lived here suggested as much. I had no idea where exactly those relatives lived. I mean, where exactly relative to the town layout. I just knew that when we were told that we had arrived, we had dust beneath our feet instead of a paved road and the house we had stopped in front of was a typical African one, low and inside a walled-off compound.
The tenants formed a welcoming committee which came in all possible shapes and sizes, from the seemingly well-fed, bulky matron of the household to tiny and skinny pre-school kids. And everybody in between. Except, conspicuously, there were no men above the teen age. Maybe they were busy elsewhere with all the tourists right now?
Anyway, fully prepared for our arrival, they had already set aside two rooms, one for Lea and Katrin and the other one for me. And „soon“, as they told us right upon wishing us welcome, the supper would be ready.
As a rule, I don’t eat suppers. But few rules are such that they can’t be bent. So I decided to disregard this one this evening. I would have to be very careful and not eat too much, though. Or else I’d have nightmares all night long. That much I knew. But if I was careful, some warm, home-made cooking would do me good and could be a nice way to wrap up this long day made of wind and dust, another flattened tyre, first camels, Tuaregs with and without swords, domestic animals and western tourists descending in droves on Tombouctou.
Besides, for some reason I felt I might come across as pretty impolite should I turn the supper down. Maybe my hunch was wrong, but I was going to stay here longer than Lea and Katrin, so I wouldn’t risk aggravating my hosts.
But after almost eight hours through Sahel in a car without two window panes, with the dust incessantly blowing in, and then almost four hours until we crossed Niger, I was dirtier than ever. So before anything else, I just had to have a shower.
Lea and Katrin both felt the same, so our hosts duly started to warm the water for us right away. This being Africa, and just a private home, not a hotel, the water had to be warmed on a wood fire. Ever a gentleman, I naturally let the ladies have their shower first, so it took quite a while until it was my turn.
And as for the bath, well, you were taking it in a closed space inside the compound, across the sand-covered yard, with a metal door which wouldn’t close shut properly. Not that it mattered much. No one was going to pay a visit while you were there, but somehow you get used to some privacy on such occasions throughout your entire life. So instinctively you seek to close the door behind you.
The space didn’t have light. It was dimly illuminated through an opening above the door from the outside. Therefore, it took a while for the eyes to get used to it. And yes, it was equipped with a most basic type of shower consisting of a long, thin, free-standing pipe. But with no taps. Instead, you opened the valve with the help of pliers kindly provided by the hosts precisely for the purpose. Of course, the water coming out from the pipe was cold, so in order to have it warm, you used the hot one from the bucket and mixed it the best you could.
All that was no problem, really. Such things are never a problem. I mean, this was Africa, you took it as such, and for as long as your health was serving you, everything was fine. The only problem was the bog. It’s presence, that is. Inside this closed space they were doing whatever everyone does when they are in the can. But, same as with the shower, they didn’t have any potty like people in the west are used to having. Here, it was just a concrete slab on the ground with a hole in it, covering a space underneath, through which apparently everyone relieved themselves. Without any visible flushing of the whole thing. And so, whereas you might or might not regard the shower as an inconvenience, depending on your natural – or temporary – disposition, there was no way of getting around the sordid stench coming out from that crapper hole. Either that or forgoing the shower altogether.
I felt too dirty and literally loaded with dust to go to bed without a bath. The reek was so strong that at times it really tested one’s limits as an independent traveller. All I could do was try to be not only thorough but also fast.
When I finally got out, it was a double relief and I literally took a deep breath of fresh air. But once out and feeling clean again, I felt it was worth it. On balance, I would do it again.
And then it was supper time. We dined in Lea’s and Katrin’s room. I made sure I didn’t eat much. After that I prepared a treat for all three of us in the form of some milk tea, having some small provisions of tea, milk and sugar on me. Along with an indispensable water heater which I had bought in Germany ages ago. Ladies seemed to be very happy about it and for a while we sipped tea and had a friendly chat.
But it was a long and exhausting day. Hence, now that we had all unwound a bit, tiredness visibly caught up with all of us. Besides, the ladies were to move on to Essakane early in the morning. So we didn’t stay too long. We wished each other a good night with a „see you the day after tomorrow“ and retired to our beds. Or mattresses, rather. But it was as well.
Well, now here I am, in Tombouctou, I thought to myself again. And that was probably my last thought of the day.
