In America, perhaps most people haven't heard of Mali. But hardly anyone hasn't heard of Timbuktu, which symbolizes a place so remote that, well, you don't really know where it is.

Timbuktu, located close to the Niger River, is at the edge of the Sahara desert, and was an important transshipment point for salt caravanned on camels on monthlong journeys from the desert. Now it's pretty much a dusty old town with not much going on.

The three-day trip to Timbuktu (a day going, a day there, a day returning) was somewhat depressing. After all, we were on an eclipse trip, where visibility was about the only important requirement. A sandstorm the first day made seeing quite difficult. Even though it stopped blowing the next day, the sand continued to hang in the air for a few more days. We worried that it was the start of the harmattan season, and that the entire remainder of the desert portion of the trip would be affected by poor visibility, and we'd miss actually seeing the eclipse.

The beginning of the road built in about 2002. The truck traffic it enabled severely washboarded the road, so smaller vehicles like ours would end up driving on the sand next to the road anyway.

Mohamed, our Tuareg driver, removed his Seattle Seahawks cap, and put on his turban to be in the right frame of mind for driving across the desert.

Some nearby formations barely visible through the haze, much like the San Gabriel mountains seen from a half mile away in Los Angeles.

Using some straps to fix a rubber piece at the end of the running board, which was contacting the tire and making a horrible racket.

The khaki sky and landscape on the way to Timbuktu.

The river is about 18 km from Timbuktu, and its precise location varies as its level goes down during the dry season. We had to stop and ask just where the ferry was crossing that day; we found where several other people were waiting for it.

Here is our ferry arriving through the sandstorm. It usually holds four cars but in low water it holds three.

Backing onto the ferry.

If you're wondering what the strange exotic attraction of Timbuktu is, it hasn't got any. Imagine if Hutchinson, Kansas, were world famous for being hard to get to.

These Fly Emirates T-shirts really get around.

The man in the blue turban is Halis, our Tuareg guide in Timbuktu. Although you can't see his mouth, he's smiling. I would be, too, if I had my arm around Mohamed. This isn't the place for a queer theory cadenza about why straight guys get to do everything with each other that gay guys do but since they are straight it doesn't count. Ask King Missile. Halis also has a mustache you can't see. He said that his Cuban friend (Cuba has ten doctors stationed here on a rotating basis) had told him to shave his mustache. Halis replied that if he did that then his face would look like a woman's. I am glad that he thinks of issues like that though I disagree with his conclusions. I said I was surprised a Cuban would say that since so many Latin American men sport exactly that 3rd world standard mustache (and Fidel even more) but he said Cubans didn't. Maybe Cuban doctors. I guess I am thinking of Mexicans in the 1970's. It was pretty universal. Mohamed has that mustache. Halis lives in Araouane for 7 months and in Timbuktu for 5 months. He gave us a brief explanation of Tuareg culture, as he experiences it: every Tuareg man must go on 4 salt caravans (45 days each) before he is eligible for his family to pick him out a bride. That sounds like a useful requirement all around (even if you are trying to get out of marrying). The Tuareg women are in control of society. The men are gone for three or four months at a time, and the women (Tuaregs are monogamous despite Islam permissiveness) manage the household. They are not in veils. Halis told us that Tuareg men wear veils as a sign of respect to old men. It's a way of keeping them from seeing your face. This is not entirely respect, a bit of it is the Mafia bodyguard's sunglasses. Mohamed is back in his Supersonics cap again. Some millinery deconstructionist may plot his contrarian headware usage. It seemed in general that he'd wear his turban when he wished to be identified among strangers as Tuareg and to accrue that social advantage; but among his familiars he wore his cap as a way of identifying with his city residency. The cap, and not having dozens of kids.

Poor Halis. His father lost 300 camels in the drought of 1973. He tried to bring them to Timbuktu, but when he finished the drive he had five camels left. The rest had died of thirst. Halis was 1 year old at the time. The Mali government and other governments of the region tried to use this as an excuse to make the Tuaregs settle down and become farmers, a way of life they don't want, and the wars between the Tuaregs and the central governments lasted until 1996. Halis's life has been, since then, trying to stay alive, and trying to get back to Arouane and make a life with his people. On the way he has lived in America. He wore a Navajo ring which he showed me and I guessed he'd bought it in Colorado. He said it was from Four Corners. It wasn't hard for me to tell; it had the marks of my people on it, the Tourist Tribe of British North America: Cactus, and coyotes. Halis also has a ring with a magic square of Arabic numbers on it, which is his good luck charm. Islam only goes so far with the local gods. In in the manner of displaced persons everywhere, he has taken up as a tourist guide. Here is his business card. If you're ever going to Timbuktu, it's worth getting in touch with him. He speaks excellent English. He can put you up in his tents, take you on camel rides, and show you around the area.

Doesn't this look like it ought to be a Temple of Atonement at Burning Man? In fact, it does commemorate a bonfire, the destruction of the guns from the Tuareg Rebellion. The Tuaregs were not represented in the armies and the governments despite the governments' presuming to make decisions regarding their future in the face of the ongoing environmental disaster. The result was a civil war with many of the colonially-defined nations that front like flag lots on the Niger River. In Mali, peace came in 1996, and the guns were melted down, commemorated by this monument.

A Timbuktu door.

One of the three mosques in Timbuktu. Many of the smallest villages had mud mosques in a style similar to the magnificent one in Djenne, but of varying size.

If you grew up before the 1960's, then you may remember your grandparents describing how they entertained themselves when they were young, before diversions such as radio and Monopoly forever changed the culture of children. One of the props for amusement was the Stick and Hoop. You chase a wheel around with a stick. By the 1920's already this must have seemed impossibly tedious and when we all heard of it, compared to options such as Television, it seemed like a marker for the Persistent Vegetative State. If you're under 40 or your memory performs reasonable housecleaning, you won't have heard the concept at all. (But of course, if you're the Internet, you know.) The Sahel is in a time warp. I saw lots of little children chasing wheels around with a stick. They had no notion of how bored they were.

Another game I saw children playing was marbles. Marbles is thousands of years old, but in the West, it didn't really survive the onslaught of Asteroids and Ms. PacMan.

Posing for the camera. You must realize that in every town and village, touristed or not, we were mobbed by dozens to hundreds of little kids. They all asked for handouts, of course, but they never seemed terribly put out that we didn't give them stuff. We were simply more entertaining to watch than a stick and a hoop.

An unusual turban, worn by the gardener at our hotel.

Dave on a camel, for a 30-minute camel ride a little ways out of town. This was the first camel ride for both of us. It was worth it just to not have the two day camel ride in the Ténéré be our first impression of the beast.

Here is your metaphor for poverty today. In Mali, when an ultracheap Chinese plastic chair breaks, you sew it up. Driving with Kone offers sad insights into the Malian economy as well. Every large public works project is annotated with some tour guide sort of story, and they are all the same: this or that bit of infrastructure was paid for by such and such a nation or such and such an NGO. He's fond of what World Vision does. Also some football org built the road to Bandiagara and the wife of some French president raised funds to build a road to Sangha. The Malian government may pave it this year. The Malian government drops into conversations every now and again, just often enough to remind you that there is one, and that they are responsible for building or maintaining almost none of what's needed by the people to survive.

On to Dogon Country