Towanda Tales: Nearly Timbuktu - oder Flussfahrt mit Vogel

Honeymoon boating

I am lying lazily on a big pile of sacs in a Cargo-Pinasse – a small freight ship – that runs down the Niger river all the way to Timbuktu, the mystery town...

Madita and me were lucky to get a place on this boat (though “place” is relative); we had set the thing up wednesday night and the boat would be leaving the next day’s afternoon –wonderful! So we would have time for an elaborate shopping tour, as the boat trip was to take three days and most food items are hard to come by in Mopti – a small port town and the starting point of our trip.

We had plenty of time and so were leaning back lazily after a breakfast of oil-baked donut-like cakes and coffee. The power got cut and so the blaring radio switched off. I took a deep, relaxed breath and sighed to Madita –“ahhh, how wonderful - a moment of silence!” Ten seconds the electricity came back on and so was the radio, another ten seconds later three guys came running in. The guy who had st up the boat thing for us was rambling in speedy french to me and it took a while until his words started forming a meaning in my brain... “WHAT??? The boat is leaving NOW?” We jumped to gather our not yet packed up luggage (and that in itself usually takes up an elaborate amount of time), climbed on the back of the guys motorcycles and rushed to the harbour while waving goodbye to relaxation and food-shopping. We luckily accomplished to grab a few random things from the market stalls at the port – better so, having three days ahead! And so faster than we could really grasp it we found ourselves thrown into a pile of people and all possible items, such as fruits, coal, motorbikes, buckets and carpets, smoked by the Diesel exhaust and the smoke of the wood-fire on which the screaming and cursing female chef of the boat was already and would be constantly for three days be cooking rice with meat or fish (so no option for us).

This is pretty much how we ended up on this boat. Doing my favourite activity – going for a pee – you have quite a challenge to master: First you have to climb over a pile of people, then luggage, then you have to balance over a shaky plank of wood over the ship’s engine, which is loud like hell and a bit scary and where I mostly end up crawling part of the way on all four. Then you climb over a pile of coal sacs, jump over an area of the boat which is constantly under water and then, just like that, you will have reached the end of the ship, where behind a ripped rug you can squat over hole in the boat and directly pee into the Niger. I totally feel like a mix of Indiana Jones and Captain Cook – I love it!

But the best discovery of all: you can climb on the roof! What a view, only few people, a fresh breeze – and in the night twinkling stars. So after dark, when around five kids had snuggled up on my legs and I just started to feel claustrophobic, I decided to try out the roof and found myself a lovely space on a pile of carpets in between the cargo – what a lovely way to fall asleep, watching the sky full of stars turning as the boat follows the winding stream.

Though we didn’t see the promised hippos and crocodiles it was a wonderful experience being on this boat discharging its cargo in various petit fisher villages, marveling at the mud architecture and the peace and quietness of the Niger valley.

And we were to see Timbuktu – how exciting! Then again everything suddenly took an unexpected twist… When the boat arrived just an hour after nightfall at the tiny and not very busy port 16km before Timbuktu’s city walls, we were greeted by some sort of commotion. Madita and me had set up camp on the boat’s roof, where we had planned to stay until next morning, so we weren’t quite aware of what was happening until a guy climbed up to us and started rambling in a mix of French and broken English… what he said summed up to: A German was shot a few hours before in Timbuktu by Al-Quaeda and three other tourists have been kidnapped. It’s not safe to go into town right now and we should stay at the boat overnight and catch a jeep from here the next morning back to Mopti.

As jeeps are a quite expensive way to travel I frankly at first didn’t believe him, thinking it might be a new selling strategy to spread panic and then offer the only rescue option at a horrendous price. So we decided to go to sleep and call up the German embassy the next morning for confirmation – this prove to be unnecessary, when we were woken before sunrise to a general leaving-the-town-panic. We decided to go with the flow and for an over-priced rate we were guided to a battered jeep in which 4 people were sitting. After crossing the Niger with a ferry we were signaled to enter the vehicle – so were 14 other people. We were squeezed so tight that it actually was painful. Additionally I hadn’t managed to pee in the morning due to the rushed leave and it was already starting to get hot, but moving enough to take of my long-sleeve or to reach my bottle of water was just impossible in this packed condition. Starting to be dehydrated I already thought it couldn’t get much worse – when three of the people basically sitting on our laps started to vomit. Madita and me twisted our necks to look at each other, I nodded: “Das wird jetzt glaube ich ein Nahtod Erlebnis…”

It was one of these moments when you wish to be some sort of Yogi-Master to separate your spirit from your body – and well, leave the body behind in that stinking Jeep and travel light instead… I concentrated hard on this special tour-de-force-meditation-task, but admittedly failed – the only thing I separated from on this journey were all my spare plastic bags and half of my Avomine pills…

That’s how we returned to Mopti, a bit smashed and confused by the fact, that just a few moments ago someone had been killed, for no reason and in broad daylight. And that if we hadn’t missed the ferry we had planned to get on Monday, then…

We are glad to be back at Aly’s place, his rooftop has become our ultimate refuge. Thanks to his kindness (and especially breakfast), we are taking deep breaths, and life is going on, and somehow it’s okay for me if I will never see the mystery town of Timbuktu… after all, who knows if it really exists???