From here to Timbuktu: On assignment at the end of the world.

Halis, our Fixer in Timbuctu

Our Fixer, Halis, was waiting for us as we clambered down the steps of our Air Mali flight. He wore his Tuareg regalia with obvious pride – his bright blue robes flowing in the gentle breeze and his nine meter head scarf perfectly wound around his head and chin. He had gentle eyes, softened even further by the small round glasses he wore perched on top of his nose. We shook hands and he quickly sent some men to go and fetch our luggage. I immediately liked Halis, he was friendly, quick witted and incredibly well connected around the area. He was a local, born and raised in and around Timbuktu.

Timbuktu is one of those places in the world that you never expect to see. Even its name sounds mythical, most people associating it with the end of the world, the most distant place on earth. It is in fact a real, though somewhat impoverished backwater in the West African state of Mali. The City is actually disappointingly easy to reach, regular direct flights link it with Bamako, the capital of Mali. The flight we took was, bizarrely, crewed by South Africans.

My first impression of the City was that it was a dusty, monotone, decrepit place that looked remarkably like Southern Afghanistan. I was quickly perturbed by the number of middle aged, European tourists wandering around shopping. It shattered my illusion that this trip was pushing the boundaries, that we were on assignment to a dangerous, remote place.

We’d been planning the trip for some time and there were a number of stories we were hoping to cover in the area including the spread of Al Qaeda linked militants who had moved south from Algeria and were now operating in the region. Our first story though was about climate change and the fight to reverse its effects. We drove for two hours west of Timbuktu to Lake Faguibine, a large area of water that had been rapidly drying up since the 1970’s, leading to hundreds of thousands of people having to leave the area. We met up with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and filmed the work that they had been doing to restore the former glories of the Lake. We stayed in the town of Goundam, a small place famous only as the site of a military defeat for French Colonial forces in 1894. There was no Hotel but Halis had brought tents, sleeping bags and enough food for everyone. He had even brought a number of staff from the hotel he ran in Timbuktu to cook for us and help with anything we needed. They say in the British Army that amateurs think tactics and professionals think logistics – Halis was definitely a pro.

We spent two nights sleeping on the roof of the UN compound and filming some amazing sequences of the local villagers digging out dried up river beds and fighting to hold back the spread of the sand dunes. It was heaven for a cameraman – everywhere I looked there were great shots. With our first piece finished we packed up our tents and headed back to Timbuktu. Over the next week we shot three more films – one on Al Qaeda in the Sahara, one on the dying camel caravans that bring salt from the mines in the desert and one on the manuscripts of Timbuktu. It was a long, hot, tiring trip but it was one that I wont forget. On the penultimate night we trekked into the desert and slept under the stars at the traditional Toureg camp that Halis managed when he wasn’t guiding journalists. As I lay there sipping a cold lager and eating fresh baked bread I looked up the star-filled sky and realized how lucky I am, in what other career could a lad from Leicester see and experience the things that I have? As I rolled over to warm myself by the open fire Halis appeared in front of me, “Another beer Chris?” . . . Truly the best fixer I’d ever worked with.

Timbuktu climate change from caparkinson on Vimeo.