3-hour tour: Part I

---

And the fun (and doubt) begins:

Luckily, once a girl scout always a girl scout, I had packed a few medical supplies ‘just in case’, an extra little cash emergency fund, and snacks and water. Little did I know those items thrown into our light daypack were to last us for 3 days.

The first 15 kilometers we w-e-r-e psyched! The earth was gorgeous, barren desert to our left, a looming rock formation chain to our right, the occasional villager or donkey on the road, mild sun above us, and a decent dirt path beneath our somewhat stripped tires at this point.

Begin: trouble.

The road was becoming washboard on us. (If you’re not familiar with this, imagine a washboard. Now, imagine driving on it.). We pressed on, though we seemed to have missed what was to be our first turn-off according to our trusty reserve director (I am sure there was no sign). But, the road relieving us of its ruts every few kilometers, the day still being young, and our spirits high - and if anything, we were out driving in beautiful country, so…onwards!

You know how clear hindsight is, right?

Well, there was this one moment, we stopped to snap a photo of our new environs (I was excited just at the possibility of elephants being there!)… when later we realized, that was the time to have turned back. For, it was shortly after this, that the road got worse, much worse. It was either unbearable washboard rattling the bike (and us) to oblivion, or the deep sand to our right, or the even deeper sand to our left. And we he hadn’t seen a car for quite some time. We stopped to confer once in a while, take a break, bolster one another’s fragile state, and then push on - for after checking the official Michelin map we had, we had our hopes set on a village that was ‘only’ another 30 kilometers.

Before hitting this sort of middle mark where we thought we would turn back and give up, we gave our elephant dream one last try. We stopped to ask some Arabs resting in the bit of shade the bush provided, and tried to ‘get directions’ to one of the elephant villages. A conversation ensued (while I just stared at their large machetes slung around their necks and waists) that went like this:

Us: Salaam Aleikum
Them: Aleikum Asalaam
Us: Benzema?
Them: Benzema (nodding, pointing eastward into the desert. barely a shrub in sight.)
Us: Bambara-Maounde?
Them: Bambara-Maounde (nodding, pointing northward into the desert. at least there was a road there - which we were on.)
Us: Douentza?
Them: Douentza (nodding, pointing southward in the desert, back down the same road)

Now that we had covered three out of the four compass points, it was time to go - for once the main speaker of the group realized that I was NOT a man - the air started feeling strange. Craig turned the bike around quickly - and we left. That was that.

Arrive: Bambara-Maounde

Not exactly the village we were envisioning. A few scattered abodes to the left, a small pit-stop tent (luckily there was tea made with lukewarm water and some biscuits) and a gas pump to our right.

WE HAD A CHOICE:
• turn back - and face the awful 125 kilometers we had just come and get back to our welcoming, safe campement in Douentza, or
• push on - to the next nearest city (75 kilometers up the road) - and come home a different way the next morning

We decided to go for the unknown, and push on - and this is how one ‘accidentally’ arrives in Tomboctou...

---

Photos

fatima's hand
the type of rock formation rising up from the red earth...

diesel
could this not be 'out west' USA? the difference being these gas stations tend to not have any gas left at them...

recently abandoned
note the small abandoned village atop the lower mound of earth...i think crumbling rock has convinced them to relocate...

hindsight
always 20/20...it was at this very peak that we 'should' have turned around...elephant or no elephant...for soon hereafter, our real adventure began...