Episode
Three: 27 October
Michael
reaches the city of Timbuktu along with a camel train carrying the
giant salt blocks that made the city one of the greatest centres
of Islamic learning up until the 16th century.
Michael
wanders through the rubble that is 21st century Timbuktu to find
the Imam who shows him original astronomical textbooks that predate
Galileo's discoveries by 200 years.
Leaving
one of Timbuktu's most famous addresses, the house of Alexander
Laing, the Scottish explorer who had his throat slit for not converting
to Islam, Michael heads East to the land of the Wodaabe.
These
nomadic herders are some of the last true pastoralists of the African
continent - famous as much for their male beauty pageant as their
stylish cattle.
Living
in the bush with them Michael watches the complex rituals surrounding
this extraordinary annual pageant, the Gerewol, where the girls
get to choose the prettiest boy.
It
is the season after the rains, a time of relative plenty for the
nomads, and Michael's Wodaabe family, led by the English speaking
Doulla, travel to Ingall for the Cure Salee - a
gathering of clans that takes place every year.
Amidst
the chaos of camel races, shopping and general mayhem, Michael meets
up with a group of Touareg for the next leg of his journey: a camel
train across the Tenere desert to Algeria.
Omar,
the cameleer's cameleer, introduces him to the delights and vicissitudes
of life on the move in the most desolate landscape on the planet.
Walking
12 hours a day, eating the odd sheep, and learning the rudiments
of Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg, Michael finally gets to
grips with the heart and soul of the desert.
The
going is tough, like the sheep, but the sense of comradeship with
the cameleers and the camels, who are their lifeline, is palpable.
When
the time comes to leave Omar and his retinue the tears are not all
crocodile ones.
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