The Road to Timbuktu

Buildings | Mosque | Street | The Road to Timbuktu

This page exists partly to prove I actually did drive all the way from the UK, but more seriously to illustrate the incredible change in vegetation and scenery within a very short distance of Tombouctou. The town itself is becoming increasingly desertified, not a recent phenomenon, but rather unpleasant. Yet, only a few kilometres to the South, the waters of the Niger irrigate what seem to be fairly productive fields of crops. Crossing over the river on a "characterful" ferry, the same pattern is repeated on the other bank and by the time you reach Douentza (and the start of the hardtop) ninety kilometres from Tombouctou, it is full on dustbowl again.