Sahara
with Michael Palin
A
new four-part series starts on Sunday 13 October, BBC ONE, 7.00pm
Michael
Palin's epic voyages have seen him circumnavigate the globe, travel
from the North to the South Pole and circle the countries of the
Pacific Ocean, but perhaps the greatest challenge facing an intrepid
explorer is crossing the vast and merciless Sahara Desert.
There
is no easy way to do it, and Palin's experiences are like nothing
he has encountered before.
As
the journey unfolds, the Sahara reveals not the emptiness of endless
sand dunes, but a huge and diverse range of cultures and landscapes
and a long history of civilisation, trade, commerce and conquest
stretching from the ancient Egyptians to the oil-rich Islamic republics
of today.
Starting
and finishing his adventure in the once stable, now uncertain colony
of Gibraltar, Palin crosses the Strait to Morocco, and the notorious
city of Tangier.
He
pauses in Fez and Marrakesh before traversing the mighty Atlas Mountains.
In
the stony, hostile wastes of western Algeria he spends time in one
of the refugee camps of the Saharawis, a population in exile.
Recovering
from an overdose of camel stew, he heads south to Mauritania, where
he rides the longest train in the world, finds a holy city half-engulfed
by sand, and nearly gets run over by the Paris-Dakar Rally.
Arriving
in Dakar a few days behind them, he samples the city's exhausting
nightlife, then takes a train to the heart of Mali, home of great
music, the largest mud building in the world and the great River
Niger, on which Michael rides to the legendary city of Timbuktu.
He
walks with nomadic herders and rides with a Touareg camel caravan
through Niger, scales the Hoggar Mountains in southern Algeria,
before investigating Colonel Gaddafi's Libya, and the stunning classical
remains of Tunisia, where Life Of Brian was filmed and Palin crucified.
Episode
One: 13 October
Episode
Two: 20 October
Episode
Three: 27 October
Episode
Four: 3 November
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