The portrait of Saddam that we’re not allowed to film.
MAURITANIA
Worker at the iron ore mines, wrapped up against the howling wind. The world’s longest train is loading in the background.
MAURITANIA
The reason why ironmongery is Zouerat’s growth industry. Drought has brought great demand for shelter as nomads come in from the desert.
Rush hour at Arret TFM. Fight for seats on one of the Sahara’s only trains. Those in Iron Ore class are already in position.
Englishman makes the mistake of saying ‘After you’.
Jumping the queue, Mauritanian-style.
Breaking the silence. The first of 115 motorbikes slides and slithers through the sand dunes south of Atar.
The First World flies in for the day. Atar airport becomes media city as the Dakar Rally hits town.
Tougadh village. Western wealth makes little impression on the locals. The adverts are all for the television coverage.
With the owner of a one-room library in Chinguetti. In his case the family silver is the written word.
Writing was a work of art for Islamic scholars. The calligraphy in the books in Chinguetti’s libraries is up to 1000 years old.
With a little help from my friends, I’m never short of advice in my struggle against the Grand Master of Chinguetti.
Three of my champion crottes.
Yes! The turds have it! England 1, Mauritania 0.
Nouakchott beach, where the Sahara meets the Atlantic. A mile of fish market with a backdrop of wrecked freighters.
Never a shortage of helpers to bring the boats in. A boy waits with his plastic tray to carry fish up to be weighed. But the best of the catch is trawled by foreign factory ships out beyond the horizon.
The southern Saharan look. A woman, more Negro than Arab, chews on an acacia stick, the Saharan equivalent of toothbrush and toothpaste combined.
Fabrics for sale in Nouakchott market. Bold colours and patterns are one of the great delights of the southern Sahara.
SENEGAL
At the end of the island on which St-Louis, first French foothold in Africa, was founded, a museum and cultural centre rises beside the waters of the Senegal.
Main picture: Fishwives in St-Louis. The fires burn all day long at this massive smokery on the banks of the River Senegal.
Life in St-Louis.
Outside a shop with a tall, dashing salesman and short plaster figures of the colon, the caricature of the French colonialist in Africa.
Life in St-Louis.
Women return from the market, heads full.
Life in St-Louis.
At lunch with artist Jacob Yakouba and his soapstar wife, Marie-Madeleine.
All needs catered for on the streets of Dakar.
Pre-Tabaski sheep-fattening grips Dakar.
Wrestling is the second biggest sport in Senegal.
At a local contest in a Dakar suburb, the boys show how it should be done.
My failed attempt to leave without the cheerleader noticing.
A sweet potato changes hands at Kayes station. The mud-stained coach bears the logo of Chemins de Fer de Mali.
At Mehani in Mali, the local train we’ve waited two hours for pulls in, and becomes an instant shopping mall.
MALI
Architectural star of the Sahara. The Great Mosque at Djenne, the largest mud-brick building in the world. The projecting wooden posts are for the masons to stand on during the yearly re-mudding of the mosque.
Bamako, Mali. First sight of the River Niger. The terrace of the Hotel Mande, on which I eat the best breakfast of the entire trip, pokes into view from behind the bougainvillea.
Laundry on the Niger. Dominating the Bamako skyline in the background is the bridge over the Niger and the ‘mud skyscraper’, actually a bank headquarters.
Kora masterclass with Toumani Diabate.
With Amadou (Pigmy to his friends) outside one of Djenne’s unique mud mansions.
Thousands at prayer on Tabaski morning, in their best outfits. Dress code: be different from the person next to you.
Tabaski snapshots.
Young boys, given the sheep’s testicles after Tabaski, use the scrotums as whoopee cushions.
The first sacrifices stain the streets of Djenne.
Carpet salesmen at the Mopti dockside, picking their way through indescribable things left behind by the receding river.
Going nowhere. One of the big Niger ferry boats becalmed at Mopti.
Mural of Dogon Country. A sneak preview of my next destination on a hotel wall.
Baobab Avenue, Tirelli. The lower bark of the tree is stripped to provide fibre for rope, whilst the leaves are crushed to make a sauce to liven up the unvarying diet of millet.
With Amadou, my guide, and assorted family members in the headman’s compound. Thatched-roofed granaries in the background.
The hottest meal of my life. Temperatures of 53degC/131deg F roast my head, whilst my fingers are scalded by a red-hot mixture of millet and baobab sauce. The tasselled hats are typically Dogon; the straw and leather wide-brim, worn by the headman, is Fulani.
Watching the tingetange, stilt dancers, at a celebration of the dead. Four or five feet off the ground, with masks, cowrieshell bodices and horsetails, the dancers require exceptional skills and long training.
A Dogon boy’s drawing of a dancer’s mask, which can be anything up to 18 feet long.
Children wave as we pass the small town of Quadagga, proud possessor of a gem of a mosque, which I first thought was a mirage of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.
The newly restored walls of the 680-year-old Djingareiber Mosque in Timbuktu - the oldest mosque in continuous use in West Africa. It was built by El Saheli, the man credited with inventing this style of mud-brick architecture.
Getting in some camel practice. I make my first acquaintance with the Touareg, the ‘veiled men’ of the desert who founded Timbuktu 800 years ago.