Mali - Part 4 (Timbuktu)

Timbuktu, like the back of Bourke in Australia, the place in the middle of nowhere. I finally made it to Timbuktu after a few dramas because the Australian government put out a "Do Not Travel to Timbuktu" warning. The highest travel alert possible!

With dirt streets, clouds of dust, mud houses and being bordered by desert, Timbuktu is a real frontier town. Full of men with heads and faces covered by scarves with just their noses showing. Once I had got enveloped in a couple of clouds of red dust, I could understand why. Women in colourful dresses and skirts carrying laundry and shopping on their heads. And, like everywhere, kids playing in the dirt.
Timbuktu does not take a long time to explore. It has three mosques, some houses of intrepid European explorers, an interesting museum, a colourful market and as for the restaurants, they all have the same 8 things on the menu.
To experience the desert, well sort of, we rode camels out into the desert for one hour then spent the night camped in a nomads encampment.
It certainly was a New Year's Eve with a difference. Especially with the disappearing tourists who came to join us around the campfire as it neared midnight, but could not be found in the morning, having not made it the 20 metres back to their camp. The sunrise was spectacular though as it got me out of bed at 6 am on New Year's Day!