As a guide, Ag Mohamed Ali made friends from all over the world and visited some in Europe. For him, it was an alien world, just as Timbuktu remains for many around the world. “The first time I was in Europe,” he said, “and I saw water lying on the ground, I thought,‘ these people are crazy. ’And everything was moving at an unthinkable speed in the Sahara.” In the desert we have a time infinite but we have no water, “he said.” In Europe there is a lot of water but no time. “
And yet, even so far from the desert, Ag Mohamed Ali found a connection: “The first time I saw the ocean in Barcelona, I cried because it’s like the desert. You can’t see its end. “.
Ag Mohamed Ali’s travels also helped him understand the appeal of Timbuktu, because Paris and Barcelona were as incredible to him as Timbuktu to much of the rest of the world. He went to a football match at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. “In one place there were more people than in all of Timbuktu,” he recalled. He later founded a Timbuktu chapter of the FC Barcelona fan club.
When travelers wanted to see more of the Sahara, Ag Mohamed Ali took them to the deep desert of Araouane, a city drowned by sand 270 km north of Timbuktu. To get to Araouane, travelers must cross the Taganet sand sheet, which stretches uninterruptedly to the farthest horizon. For the last 100 km, there is not a single tree.
Araouane looks like a shipwreck. Some of its buildings have disappeared under the sands. Many of the remaining houses, even a mosque, are half submerged by the dunes surrounding the city. For weeks, the wind blows relentlessly and sounds like ocean waves breaking on the shore. The women carry water from the well, leaning in the wind. Without the wells, life would be impossible here; sometimes in Araouane it has not rained for decades. Sand is everywhere and nothing of value can grow in it except a single wild and abandoned date tree.