My first and probably last post from Timbuktu's one cyber cafe. Their single Anglophone keyboard is stiff with sand, and only marginally easier to use than the Francophone keyboards.

We got here after two hard days of driving, averaging 120 km per hour on the pavement, less on the dirt, a lot less on the sand. Then we rode the ferry across the Niger. The few last kilometers into town were, thankfully, paved.

We've been mostly working but have made time for some tourist activity. Yesterday we visited the privately owned Musee de Tombouctou. On their grounds lies Bouctou's well, around which, according to legend, Tombouctou was built. Today I'm going for a camel ride to a Toureg campement, and tomorrow we're going to pay a visit to the Baptist missionary family who runs a farm just outside of town, near the airport.

Jimmy Carter was here not two days before us.

I'll write more and post photos when I'm home in Bamako again.