3-hour tour: Intro

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3-hour tour: Intro

While it never crossed my mind to get some silly entrance stamp in my passport from Tomboctou (Timbuktu), once having read about it in Lonely Planet, it did seem like something fun to do. Which is why it is ironic that, while in the end - we had decided AGAINST spending the extra time and money on going to Tomboctou - not only would we end up visiting the legendary village, but I’d get a stamp from the police alright, just not quite the one I had in mind.

Literally, what started out as a 3-hour tour to chase elephants turned into a 3-day excursion - and as travelers know - the best adventures are those unplanned. Those you come out of feeling like a survivor.

What remains of those 3 days out in the bush are only a few hand-drawn maps, a scanty 20 digital photos, a hotel receipt, an internet ticket, and a photocopy of the stamp we got from the police in Tomboctou.

Let’s back up:

It all began while we were traveling on the ‘main’ road to reach Gao and then cross into Niger. We had landed in a sort of crossroads village, Douentza, about 200 kilometers south of Tomboctou. Rocky formations had started emerging from the red earth, villages became fewer, camels became more, cars and buses passed infrequently, and we found ourselves a comfy, orderly campement with a warm, helpful proprietor named ‘Ogo’.

Toubabs are no stranger to this area, for it’s the northern most point of the cliff-dwelling ‘Dogon’ area, provides humbling mountain scenery, begins what we thought was ‘the old’ route into Tomboctou, and it sits on a PAVED road between two major cities.

An ‘elephant reserve’ began not far out of Douentza (there were even rusted signs with a sketch and the word ‘elephant’ pointing ominously into barren desert), so I started asking around for info. Of course, it was a toubab tourist trap - men quoting outlandish prices at us for the hiring of a 4x4 and guide for the day. I politely explained we were not the average tourist, knew how much gas cost, had driven over 5,000 kilometers on a motorcycle, and could we please be more rational about the price? It wasn’t working.

I managed to track down the director of the reserve, with whom I had a great discussion about elephant conservation, and who later drove me to the project headquarters and walked me through some data he had.

He had also, drawn us a map. With routes and villages non-existent on the official traveler’s Michelin map of West Africa. We were going to do our OWN elephant-viewing tour. He assured me our 600 Tenere could handle the ‘roads’, and that the villages where we needed to turn off were well-marked. While it seemed a bit too easy, he reassured us with the African standard, ‘no problem’.

So, the next morning, off we went. On our 3-hour excursion to find some elephants. Me, Craig, and the bike.

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Photos

our homebase
me in the courtyard of our campement in Douentza...little did i know i'd be wearing those clothes for 3 days!

our room
outside shot of our room at the campement - note the dogon artwork integrated into the building...

douentza street scene
women walking back and forth to the local market (sneakshot off the back of the bike!)

douentza street scene 2
arab in my favorite shade of blue(another sneakshot off the back of the bike!)