Western Africa: Mali, Mauritania & Western Sahara

Mali: The Bradt Travel Guide

Mali Map by ITMB

Folded road and travel map in color. Scale 1:2,400,000. Distinguishes roads ranging from primary paved roads to other roads or tracks. Legend includes international airport/national airports, air fields, gasoline/petrol stations, post office, hospital/medical facilities, hotels, motels/lodging, resthouse or hostel, campsites or huts, museums, border crossings, no border crossings, points of interest, crafts/pottery, archaelogical sites, historic ruins or sites, mines, bus station, forts, mosques, churches/missions, oasis, caves, fishing ports, beaches, hiking/trekking. Includes inset map of Bamako and Timbuktu, road distance chart and extensive index.

The Wild Goose Chronicles

Mali (Bradt Travel Guide Mali)

Smara, the Forbidden City: Being the Journal of Michel Vieuchange While Travelling Among the Independent Tribes of South Morocco and Rio De Oro (Ecco Travels)

They say all true stories end in death. Smara, The Forbidden City is a true story. In the fall of 1930, a young Frenchman named Michel Vieuchange staggered out of the Moroccan desert into the town of Tiznit where he collapsed, wracked by dysentery; a few days later, he was dead. Two months earlier, on the evening of September 10, Vieuchange had stripped off his European clothing, draped himself in the costume of a Berber woman, and set off into the unexplored regions of southern Morocco. His goal: discovering the mysterious ruins of Smara, a great walled city that had been built and then abandoned centuries before. Mentioned only as a stopping place for nomads, the city's exact location was not known, and no European had ever laid eyes on it. Vieuchange was determined to be the first.

Driven by romanticism, the poetry of Rimbaud and Whitman, and the philosophy of Nietzsche, Vieuchange sought to test himself against the dangers and discomforts of the North African desert in pursuit of a dream. At that time, warring tribes inhabited southern Morocco, and travel there was a perilous undertaking. Speaking neither Berber nor Arabic, Vieuchange wandered for weeks in the desert at the mercy of his guides. When at last he reached Smara, he could stay for only three hours. Was this brief glimpse of a ruined city worth the price of his life? Read Vieuchange's chronicle of his journey, published as Smara, The Forbidden City, and decide for yourself.

Mali Blues: Traveling to an African Beat

In Mali Blues, Belgian-born writer Lieve Joris travels to the West African countries of Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali--a region that to many Westerners seems obscure, even destitute and impoverished. Joris captures the strong will of West Africans, their enduring traditions and heritage, their thumping music, and their unmatched ability to carry on despite hardship and political turmoil.

Joris's narrative is immediately captivating and personable; hers is an honest and inquisitive voice. At the journey's beginning in bustling Dakar, Senegal, on the Atlantic coast, Joris wonders, "How long would it take for New York to stop being a reference point for me?" As she absorbs the African cultural landscape, Joris exposes the tensions between a modern world and a traditional one, examining the many political battles among and within these countries. Like a skilled spelunker, Joris maneuvers into the caverns of the region, illuminating narrow conduits, previously unseen passages, and great rooms as she goes. She meets well-connected urbanites and those who live in remote rural lands, ultimately revealing a West Africa that balances, often precariously, between two worlds.

But it is when Joris meets the Malinese blues singer Boubacar Traoré that her storytelling talents become fully orchestrated and most powerfully applied. Traoré's successful yet tragic story serves as a stunning testament to the spirit and struggles of the people of West Africa, a story that Joris conveys so well throughout these pages. --Byron Ricks

Mali Blues takes acclaimed writer Lieve Joris to West Africa. Traveling in Senegal, Mauritania and Mali, Joris finds countries troubled by drought, rebel uprisings and ethnic conflict. But the Africans she meets are survivors, fascinating individuals charting new ways of living between tradition and modernity. The story of Malinese blues singer Kar Kar (Boubacar Traoré) - celebrated in Europe, caught up in a family tragedy at home - epitomises the struggles facing so many people in these lands. With her remarkable gift for drawing stories out of people, Joris paints a hauntingly intimate portrait of the singer and his society, brilliantly capturing the rhythms of a world that refuses to give in.

In this finely observed collection of four tales, the author of The Gates of Damascus again succeeds in penetrating to the very heart of a region.

Morocco Handbook (Footprint Handbooks)

Memoire du pays maure: 1934-1960

2008 Country Profile and Guide to Mali - National Travel Guidebook and Handbook - Timbuktu, USAID, Conflict Diamonds, Doing Business, Peace Corps, Agriculture (Two CD-ROM Set)

Completely updated and revised for this new edition, our unique electronic book on two CD-ROMs has an amazing collection of the finest federal documents and resources about Mali, providing encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of the country. This disc set provides a truly fantastic reference source, with over one hundred thousand pages reproduced in Adobe Acrobat format! There is complete coverage of newsworthy material about Mali, including Timbuktu, USAID reports (over 40,000 pages), conflict diamonds, doing business, Peace Corps, diplomatic list, agriculture, ECOWAS, energy in Africa and more. This incredible and comprehensive series on the countries of the world contains material from the State Department, Department of Defense, White House, and cabinet agencies including Agriculture, Energy, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. There is complete information about geography, people, government, the economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues. In addition to the nation-specific material, as a bonus we have included reports about every country on the globe, with 271 nations, dependent areas, and other entities identified by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA World Factbook is considered an invaluable "world encyclopedia" reference book.

To Timbuktu

Traveling with Mark Jenkins is a mixture of the daring and the dangerous, the dramatic and the absurd. Here, he and three friends, with the aid of a remarkably intuitive African guide, set out to attempt the first descent of the Niger River, the legendary city of Timbuktu their final goal. Along the way, they are attacked by killer bees, charged by hippos, stalked by crocodiles. They pass through villages where every female child has undergone a clitorectomy, stumble upon a group of completely blind men living in the bush, dance with a hundred naked women. That Jenkins reaches his goal, riding alone across the Sahara on a motorcycle, stands in sharp contrast to what befell those who first tried to find Timbuktu and whose fates the author interweaves with the narrative of his own adventures.