Sahara (2002)

by Michael Palin

  The vehicles judder and shudder over a surface that changes with frightening suddenness from hard earth to corrugated rocky ridges. A few miles back we passed a donkey rolling on its back, enjoying a dust bath. Just now we saw another donkey, stretched out by the side of the road, skin drawn back on its jaw, dead of thirst.

  Mohammed Ixa points out four fluted columns, apparently of golden sandstone, 3 or 4 feet high, arranged in the shape of a square. The stones are actually petrified wood and mark a pre-Islamic grave. Which means someone was laid to rest here at least fourteen centuries ago.

  As the sun is beginning to sink, we see, coming towards us, what looks like a huge upturned ship, with dozens of people clinging to the wreckage. As it comes closer it’s revealed to be a Mercedes truck, groaning beneath the weight of fifty or sixty people, close-packed on top of a cargo of rugs, carpets, blankets and bedding which swells out way beyond the sides of the vehicle. Bags of food, water and provisions hang down its flanks like fenders.

  Initially friendly shouts from the occupants turn to angry gesticulations as soon as we attempt to film them.

  These are trans-Saharan camions, carrying an illegal labour force across the very heart of the desert from the poorer black African countries of the south to the oil-rich countries of Libya and Algeria. The workers generally have no papers or passports, so the camions move at night and take considerable detours to avoid checkpoints.

  We put the cameras away and watch them recede slowly and ponderously on the twisting track towards Agadez, a fat, swaying silhouette against the setting sun.

  Day Sixty-Two

  THE TENERE DESERT

  We camped last night in complete isolation. Or so I thought until this morning, when, out of nowhere, figures appeared, moving slowly towards us: a group of three women, one with a babe in arms, and a young boy. They were terribly thin and frail. Against the early morning light they seemed almost insubstantial, like wraiths. They didn’t speak, just stood and watched us, passive and expressionless. The oldest of the women, who looked seventy but was probably no more than forty, touched her eye and then her leg.

  Our drivers looked embarrassed. She was asking for medicine and they didn’t have any. If they had, they’d be using it themselves.

  We gave them whatever we could, along with some water, and Amadou the cook found some scraps of food. They were still standing there when we drove away.

  Most mornings we’re quite jolly when we hit the road, but today the mood is muted. It was as if we were all thinking the same thing. That the people who had visited us were starving and there was nothing we could do.

  There is more sand about now. Pale, almost white, it gathers at the base of huge black basalt rocks making them look as if they are not rooted in the earth but floating a few feet above it. It blows up against camel skeletons that lie by the road, making graceful streamlined shapes out of bleached corpses.

  El Haj, who’s driving Basil, J-P and me, is tall, quiet and, I should imagine, quite badly paid. He is a Toubou from the Bilma region and J-P speaks good enough French to get him talking. He’s not complimentary about anyone apart from the Toubou, finding the Touareg arrogant and the Fulani, of whom the Wodaabe are a subdivision, too submissive. He cheers up visibly when talking of the Hausa. They’re the people everyone detests, he says confidently.

  ‘After all, they’re the bosses.’

  By mid-morning the mountain range has receded and we turn off the track not far from the site of the celebrated Arbre du Tenere. Long renowned for being the only tree standing in hundreds of square miles of surrounding desert, the Arbre du Tenere became even more famous when, in 1973, a truck knocked it over. The bits and pieces have been stuck together and it now resides in a place of honour at the national museum in Niamey.

  We turn north now, across country, to the spot where we hope to find Omar and the camel train. The Tenere, considered by those who know these things to be the most beautiful part of the Sahara, does not make things easy for us. After following a long and ultimately impassable wadi (dried-up river bed), we’re forced to turn back and look for a way through the sand dunes. The first few are low and relatively uncomplicated, but eventually we reach a big one, 100 feet or more and steep. The first two vehicles of our convoy make it, but El Haj doesn’t. Revving the engine is fatal, as it just digs the wheels in deeper, so he has no option but to roll rather shamefacedly backwards until he finds level ground.

  He lets down the front tyres to increase grip and we put our shoulders to the back of the vehicle as he tries again. Despite all our combined efforts, the wheels spin helplessly, we’re covered in flying sand and the attempt is abandoned. El Haj wipes his brow and reluctantly climbs up onto the roof to get down the sand ladders which he probably should have used in the first place. Two of these, placed in front of the back wheels, provide the resistance he needs. But once moving he mustn’t stop, and with shouts of encouragement we watch our means of transport hurtle up the dune, pause agonisingly briefly on the crest and disappear over the other side. Our cheers die quite quickly as we realise we have to retrieve the ladders and climb up after him. John Pritchard checks the temperature. It’s 56degC/133degF.

  After another hour’s abortive searching of spectacular but camel-less desert, Mohammed, at the wheel of the first vehicle, suddenly yelps, points and roars off towards a clump of rangy acacias marking a shallow dip in the ground. I don’t immediately see the caravan, as it blends so seamlessly into the background, but there they are, Ekawik and his colleagues, fearlessly stripping acacia branches, masticating 2-inch-long thorns to get to the tiny green leaves. Lying in thin shade nearby is Omar and his team.

  We make camp in the lee of a 30-foot sand dune and pick our way through another salad, augmented with tuna this time. Before we go out to begin work, I give my increasingly burnt British skin a good coating of sun oil, forgetting as I do so that the wind has peppered my face with fine grains of sand. It’s momentarily agonising, like giving myself a facial with an emery board. To avoid any further damage, Omar insists I wear my new turban. He helps tie it for me. I would never have imagined that 15 feet of coiled cotton could make such a difference to my life. Quite apart from protection against the sand, it also keeps me much cooler than a hat. And I look like Lawrence of Arabia. Well, his father, anyway.

  Day Sixty-Three

  THE TENERE DESERT

  The pace of desert life is almost exactly the opposite of the life I’m used to back home. Because of the ferocity of the climate, even the most simple activities must be taken slowly. There is no need to hurry and no benefit in doing so.

  For the cameleers, the day follows a timeless, preordained pattern. Prayer, then breakfast cooked over a fire of sticks and branches, then the thick woollen blankets, under which they sleep at night (they don’t have tents), are rolled up, secured with twine and laid beside each camel. The camels are brought to their knees and loaded up. Guide ropes are reinserted in mouths stained yellowy-green from cud-chewing, and they are brought to their feet. This provokes a tumult of braying and grunting. I wish I knew what they were saying, for it sounds important to them. Is it passionate protest or is it merely an assertion of team spirit at the start of a new day? Is it ‘how many more times do I have to tell you, I’m not a beast of burden, right’, or is it ‘Good morning everyone. Another scorcher by the looks of things’?

  Ekawik doesn’t speak to me at all. In fact, he doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in making friends with me, despite my sycophantic patting of his flanks and complimentary remarks about the two silver good luck charms hanging from a chain around his neck.

  He does, however, honk savagely when asked to carry me. This doesn’t help, as I’ve never felt very comfortable on a ship of the desert. Once perched on Ekawik’s hump, I feel about as steady as I would on a surfboard. I’ve also been provided with a lethal, though aesthetically pleasing, ceremonial saddle with high, spiky prongs and pommels back and front. I may look like some visiting potentate
when I’m up there, but when it comes to dismounting, I find it impossible to get my leg over, as it were, and I have to be dragged from the saddle like someone being pulled from a car wreck. Much giggling from the cameleers.

  The rhythm of the journey is set by the camels. Normally, they would be on the move at four in the morning, walking for fourteen or fifteen hours a day with two breaks, at midday and late afternoon. Omar tells me that when he’s on the road he only has three or four hours sleep a night.

  Ekawik and his friends are happiest when performing something steady, simple and repetitive, like walking or chewing the cud. They are superbly adapted to this climate and terrain. Long legs raise them clear of the hot sand, a layer of fat on their backs protects them from the blazing sun. Heat escapes from their big, reassuringly rounded flanks, so they appear not to perspire, and even in this frightening heat they can go for days without any water at all. And their metabolism, as I’ve learnt from playing with their nuggets, is extraordinarily economical.

  Izambar Mohammed, one of the nine-strong team of cameleers, is the chanteur, the one who sings and chants and makes up songs to pass the time as we go. He warns me about staying too close to the camels, especially their rear ends. Using fluent mime, he points out the ones that are the worst kickers. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that they include Ekawik.

  Day Sixty-Four

  THE TENERE DESERT

  Things are better today. I’ve been taken off Ekawik and allotted a white camel of extraordinary docility whose name I’m told is Ashid. Instead of the VIP saddle, which threatened to castrate me every time I tried to dismount, I now sit astride a less glamorous but much more comfortable roll of bedding.

  We have left the mountains behind but are still in a landscape studded with volcanic remains. Fields of cracked basalt rock occasionally break through the stony cover, providing streaks of vivid colour, jet black against the pale straw of the sand. The low ridges make for difficult going. The camels are not happy on slopes, especially if they are covered in soft sand, and Omar has to lead them down with great care, moving forwards at a slow shuffle, testing the ground, as if picking his way through a minefield. The camels slip and slide unhappily in his wake, back legs stiff, straight and awkward, as if this is the first time they’ve ever been asked to walk downhill.

  I’m beginning to get to know the cameleers, though none of them speaks anything but Tamahaq. Harouna is the oldest and is frequently consulted by Omar. Elias and Akide Osman are the youngest, affable but detached. I get the impression that a career in cameleering is not all they want out of life. Izambar’s chanting is becoming a bit of a bore, but that could be because I’m not getting the full benefit of his improvised lyrics, which occasionally crack up the entire camel train, probably at my expense. Omar is a good-natured and thoughtful man, unquestionably respected by the others. I’ve never seen him on a camel. He’s always walking, keeping an eye out for loose loads, checking the route ahead. He speaks good French and I like to walk and talk with him, as it takes the mind off the monotony. We talk about the recent war between the Touareg and the government in Niamey. The Touareg, rather optimistically, demanded more funds and less interference. The north of the country virtually closed down for six years, Omar had friends killed and arrested and most of the foreign visitors were frightened away. As he was taking tourists on desert safaris for ten times the money he made from salt caravans, this seriously affected his livelihood. But he never considered giving up and doesn’t expect he ever will. He likes walking with the camels. He says it gives him time to think.

  By midday he has brought us to a spreading acacia, where we are to lunch and rest up in the heat of the day.

  The sight of this single tree, which only survives out here because of root systems which search out water 100 feet or more below the surface, gives an extraordinary lift to the spirits. It’s like coming across a house or even a small village.

  Everyone gets to work. The camels suddenly become talkative, making their usual sounds of complaint or joy as their burdens are removed. Their front legs are hobbled, but this doesn’t stop them shuffling nimbly off to a particularly tempting goblet-shaped bush. Soon they’re squeezed around it, feeding, with heads lowered in concentration, like men at the urinals when the half-time whistle has gone.

  Those camels that can’t find a place at the bush, nibble away at the acacia, impervious to thorns as hard and sharp as small nails.

  Today we have a special treat, the Saharan equivalent of a Sunday lunch. And it will be fresh. Omar is sharpening his knife and the two sheep and small black goat which have been brought along from Tabelot are eyeing him beadily. Harouna and Izambar drag one of the sheep over. His companions, far from shying away, follow curiously and have to be chased off.

  Whilst Harouna and Izambar hold it down, Omar deftly cuts the sheep’s throat. It gasps and shudders as the blood drains from its body. The goat approaches again and this time Izambar throws sand at it to keep it away. Moussa takes over now, skinning and disembowelling the sheep, hanging the carcass from a stout branch and carefully cutting it up. The valuable hide, meanwhile, is laid out and rubbed over with sand to clean it.

  Wood has been gathered and a fire lit. Akide Osman is making bread, kneading the dough into a flat disc. Once the embers of the fire are hot enough, he rakes them to one side and lays the bread on the hot sand, first one side, then the other, after which he piles sand and glowing embers on top, creating an instant oven. Omar, meanwhile, slices an onion using a broken razor blade, and Moussa prises open a tin of tomatoes with his knife (memo to enterprising businessman - tin openers for the Touareg), drops them into a blackened cooking pot and mixes them with couscous.

  Twenty minutes later, the roundel of bread is exhumed, and, after the charcoal and sand have been dusted off, it’s passed down the line. It’s not quite what I expected, being much harder, stickier and sweeter than bread.

  ‘Galette,’ explains Omar, helpfully.

  Izambar, who is keen to teach me Tamahaq, the language of the Touareg, points to it.

  ‘Tagella,’ he says.

  ‘Tagella,’ I say, exactly as he’s said it, only this time everyone falls about.

  ‘Tagella,’ he repeats.

  ‘Tagel-la,’ I reply, this time with extra care. Everyone falls about again.

  This pantomime goes on until we’re all laughing hysterically. Clearly my pronunciation does not mean bread. It probably means the private parts of a goat, or personal attributes of my mother, but whatever it is, it proves that there’s nothing like a bit of incomprehension to bring people together.

  I am honoured to be the first to taste the mutton stew. The meat is a little tired, but it had been walking in the sun for four days. Thankfully, the Touareg do not insist on my rolling the food up into a ball with two fingers of my right hand before popping it into my mouth. Out here in the desert they know how to live. I’m handed a wooden spoon, one of four that we share between us.

  Izambar teaches me ‘isan‘, meaning meat, and ‘izot‘, which I think means ‘this is very good’, but induces more mirth when I say it.

  There is some laughter too when I take off my turban, or tagel-moust in Tamahaq.

  ‘You have a blue head,’ says Omar, and I laugh indulgently. It’s not until someone holds up a mirror that I realise I do indeed have a blue head, a stripe of indigo following a perspiration line right across my forehead.

  Day Sixty-Five

  THE TENERE DESERT

  Omar tells me that camels only need two hours’ sleep a night, and having got up to commune with nature in the early hours I can confirm that the majority were up and grazing in the moonlight. Two were lying flat out on their sides and three or four others were kneeling, with their long necks bowed and heads resting on the floor like wilted plants.

  Breakfast this morning is the remains of the mutton, reinforced with rice and macaroni. Heavy and almost indigestible, but as the next meal may not be for ten hours there’s no question of
not eating it.

  By mid-morning, having completed shots of departure from camp, the crew and gear are taken on in vehicles to the next stopping place. I could go with them, but I’ve not walked much with the camels in the heat of the day and I feel I must try it. I fill my water bottle, and take another litre, which Omar insists on carrying for me. We set off, twenty-eight camels, eight cameleers, me, Omar, one sheep and a small black goat. No-one is striding out. The overriding consideration in this climate is to conserve energy, and I fall happily into the steady even pace. The only sound, apart from the soft rustle of moving camels and the flip-flopping of Omar’s sandals on the ground, is an occasional burst of song from Izambar, which rises, hangs in the air and blows away into silence. All that matters is the present. The past and future cease to exist.

  Omar and I fall to talking about the health of camels and what threats they face out here. He says parasites, insects and particularly spines in their feet can easily cause infection (which is ironic, having seen them crunch 2-inch thorns in their mouths without blinking). One esoteric piece of information is that if a camel eats a praying mantis it will die. The camel, that is, not the praying mantis.

  I stop to jot down this little gem, and by the time I’ve put my notebook back in my bag, Omar has moved ahead, his well-worn light blue robe billowing out to reveal deep-blue cotton leggings beneath. Several camels have passed me. I’ve lost Ashid and am alongside a camel I don’t recognise. I look up to see Akide lying flat out on top of it. He grins down at me. I hope he’s impressed that I’ve opted to walk with them, but I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m completely mad.

  A tiny lizard, shockingly naked and white, pops its head out from a stunted clump of grass, takes one look at us and darts back in again.

  The wind changes direction and starts to blow grains of sand directly towards me. I glance sideways up at the camels, but they seem completely unaffected, long lashes down, protecting their eyes from whatever is thrown at them.