It wasn’t until I was in West Africa, 3 years into a global escapade with the family that I learned TIMBUKTU was actually a real place that existed in the far, sandy reaches of Mali (a country I had previously never known existed).
Full of adventure and new friends along the way, we entered from Mauritania and travelled from the capital city of Bamako to Djenne where we saw the worlds largest mud structure, we also camped out on a local ferry up the Niger River to the banks that took us to the infamous Timbuktu.
I was most surprised by the lack of any kind of souvenir in the town of Timbuktu. Surely a town with such a famous name would have trinkets and funny T-shirts and postcards. Right? Wrong! (though we did manage to find shirts on our way out of town the last day) They don’t call it Timbuktu for nothing. It really is as barren and “out there” as you can imagine.
Mali was a wonderful and memorable experience.
- They have different boating rules 🙂 then i grew up with.
- Homes along the Niger River
- Farming along the Niger River
- Camping at the end of the boat to Timbuktu
- Making new friends on the boat up the Niger River
- Mali has the largest watermelons i have ever seen
- Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu
- Our new shirts
- A home we saw on our walk into Timbuktu
- I can’t believe this was our life for years.. Man we are dirty.
- The Great Mosque of Djenne
- Yummy breakfast.
- Beautiful children of Djenne
- Doing the dishes
- Bringing back the clean dishes
- A heavy load
- Village along the Niger River
- Camping near Djenne and waiting for some sort of transportation.
- Waiting for anything to come by and pick us up
- Downtown Bamako the capital city of Mali
- Le Monument des Martyrs à Bamako
- Add a dozen people, luggage and you are ready to go.
- We found to our horror that these adorible pups are destined to be someones dinner 😦
- Street scene Bamako
- The children love to play with old tires
- Loving the little lambs
- Sacrifice time. Djenne
- Leaving Mali
Stay tuned for more #FridayFotos. Next week is Malta.
View more photos of Mali here..
For more of my travel photography, find me on Instagram. See you there!
Savannah Grace
Categories: Savannah Grace