Lac Faguibine Transportation

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We planned to leave from Timbuktu for the festival at 10 am, but the evening before we heard we should leave first at 2 pm in the second convoy of 4x4's of the tour agency. I was not unhappy about that, so we got the possibility to visit the old town of Timbuktu in the morning.

At 2 pm there were no 4WD cars yet. After more than one hour we heard the cars were on their way back from Essakane to Timbuktu to pick us up. After still another hour it turned out the cars broke down in the desert. So our tour agency had to arrange 4 other 4x4's in town at a moment every vehicle which could ride was on its way to Essakane. Finally at 4.30 pm we could leave for the festival.

I was in the front car. First we had to take the unpaved road in the direction of Goundam (picture 1). About 35 km from Goundam we had to turn off northbound and take the sandy track further into the desert (picture 2). There we found out that only 3 of the 4 cars arrived at the point of the turnoff. The policemen at the checkpoint told the drivers there was something with the 4th car. We waited some time to get more news (picture 3). Then the drivers decided that the third car should go back to see what's up.

We continued with only two cars into the desert. We had a fabulous sunset en route and arrived first in the festival area in the dark. In the meantime we had heard by mobile phone that the 4th car had an accident. Luckily nobody was hurt and another car was on its way to pick up our fellow travellers of that crashed car.

It took some time before we found our camp, because the driver and we didn't know exactly the name or place of our camp. The guide who knew was in one of the other cars. While our driver tried to make a short-cut, our car got stuck in the soft dunes. So it took another hour before we finally reached the place where we were supposed to put up our tents.

At the moment we had installed our camp and all the tents for everybody around 9.30 pm also the last two cars arrived. Time for dinner, dance and music !