Eerie Travel Secrets

There are certain places that unchain your phantasy – the name Timbuktu is certainly one of those. The reality is – right there in Timbuktu nobody understands why tourists ever come here, what are they actually looking for?

It’s been a place of travel novelists of all classes, from Chatwin downwards, for people writing their diploma thesis – and for Donald  Duck.

So Timbuktu is a place that carries its past as a front page promise. But there is nothing really worth mentioning – or to be seen – from the past.

There are no surrounding landscapes – there is just dryness, nothing grows, there is hunger, and sometimes there is war. Tuareg-folks have fought time and again,  since 1996 they keep more or less peace.

The dream of all Mali- people is not adventure travels in the desert, but the dream is Paris, London, New York, Rome.  The place is so poor that it takes hours to change a 10 000 West-African Franc  bill – just nobody has so much money. The value of this bill is Euro 15 – a bit under US$ 20,-; so the tourist has no choice but to eat so much food and drink so many cokes until the sum of his consumption has been adding up to about this amount of money – !

The golden times of Timbuktu were about 500 years ago, in the 15th and 16th century. In that time it had 100 000 inhabitants – today a weak 3rd of this is still around. The city was rich then through trading salt from the North and gold from the South. It’s real fame founded on Timbuktu’s university and its professors,  that came all the way from Cairo and Fes, the famous library (which looks nothing today – inspite of careful renovations – where priceless manuscripts were kept – and the high number of students back then, reading Islam theology and besides this, also Aristoteles.

So Timbuktu’s fame only lasted 2 centuries, until in 1591 an army from Marocco conquered the city – and brought along with it the language – French – some architecture, and couscous.  The latter is really a blessing for any tourist, as you’d be at a loss what else to eat there. So Timbuktu is living it’s myth to be a constant victim – of foreigners – first the Tuareg – who came in search of water, the army from Marocco – who came in search of gold and brought fire arms,  and the French colonial occupiers, who came to erect a world empire, with Timbuktu somewhere in the middle.  In 1988 Timbuktu came on the list of UNESCO  world heritage.  First the city was left to rot, and once it was rotted for good,  they started renovating it to death – since today’s sightseeing highlights are not recognizable when compared to old photographs of the same buildings.

Something funny happened in 2007 – and if that is not typically African – then I don’t know it: Timbuktu appeared on the list of nominated places to be voted on as one of the 7 new age world wonders.  Now it took a very long time until Mali offcials even realized their city actually was on that list.  Then – politicians and uban-dynamic telecom managers and tourist marketers from Bamako took a while to digest that surprise and started a hectic voting campaign. They actually reached the finals and took pace 14. Not bad – actually.  They needed 100 million votes – the organizers said, to make it  to the top 7.  And Timbuktu was unable to establish a lobby big enough to follow through. Operation "a click for Timbuktu" started

And all inhabitants were steered towards the Telecenter to give their free votes. But finally, this was not enough to compete against the Colloseum in Rome or the Taj Mahal. Timbuktu’s dirt-structures stood no chance in this competition- but still, in a last minute action half the African continent was mobilized to vote for Timbuktu.  If the organizers had started just 1 month earlier, they would have made place 7 easily. It would have brought new fame, new sponsors to conserve the library and its manuscripts, more tourist, more development and money.

An ugly new city has been erected in the last 15-20 years – with foreign money, of course, and Libya has financed one runway for an international airport.  There is just one way NOT to be disillusioned when returning from Timbuktu, and that involves quite a lot of work. You’d have to read the travel adventure reports of Leo Africanus, Mungo Park, Reneé Caillié, and in between the Segu-Tales of Maryse Condé, BEFORE you actually depart for Timbuktu.  But even then you’ll have to give your imagination a strong boost – too see that myth that once existed. So whenever somebody mentions Timbuctu it is called: The Mysterious City. And a typical sentence of people in Mali  is the calling on all 333 holy and wise men to perform miracles – like- the soccer ball should  fall jam-smack into the goal,  the malaria-infection rate should  sink, and the votes for the world-wonder list should mysteriousely double. 

Yet, some miracles do happen there: last year, when 2 Austrian tourists were kidnapped in Petra, the islamic kidnappers brought them to Mali, and after a couple of months they were actually still alive and released.  Both looked about 20 years older at their return, caused by sunburn, thirst and hunger they were suffering during their captivity. They told an eerie story about their life in captivity with the Moslem fanatics in secret, far off  places.

This story can be credited to Ingrid Turner, an Austrian journalist,  and translated by B. Vetter , publisher of http://www.eerietravelsecrets.com;  B.Vetter lived in Africa herself for 10 years.

Technorati Tags: Adventure Luxury Travel, Eco Tour, eerie travel secrets, historical trip, history travel, tours of europe

Any tourist thinking of Peru thinks of Machu Picchu. More than half of all Tourists want to see this "new world wonder", so that 2000 tourists on a historical tour per day are visiting the place. Unesco is already considering to declare this open air museum as "threatened" world heritage.

So we have been there – what to do now? At least – so our friend Plabo says – you should trek there on the Inka-path. No chance, we say. Already 15 years ago there were about 1000 people on this path per month, today there are 20 times more – no – thank you. You have to book 4 months in advance to make this historical trip. So we decided to take the modern, rather expensive express train. And we would see to climb into Inka heaven in Choquequirao. The so called "golden cradle" – the sister town of Machu Picchu – is just as big, but only 25% of it has been unearthed as yet. And it is rather unapproachable – no road leads there. But our tourist organiser knew a trekking path, so we decided to undertake a big comparison between those two great historical places.

Judging by which place is better known – well 1:0 for Machu Picchu – no doubt. The approach to both places? Well – the Inka path- meant to be a spiritual experience – and considered a piece of art in itself, due to mass tourism – is dead in our judgement.

On our way to Choquequirao we are almost alone. It is not really an original Inka-path, but a breathtaking natural spectacle all the same. snowcovered mountains, wild rivers deep down, the path through a 1500 meter long canyon puts body and soul through a much harder test than the "real" Inka-path.
This makes it 1:1;

This brings us to "location" comparison.     lies on a mountain ridge. Lovely, but in truth, Machu Picchu’s location on the "sugar hut" formed rock, makes great fotos and the view from there is breathtaking, almost equal as if you would fly over the landscape.
Here we go: 2:1 for Machu Picchu.

And where do you see more lovely historical things? we,, already at 7 in the morning you see Machu Picchu full of tourists with their breakfast bun in their hands – it’s the largest open air museum in the world, at 11am the trains from Cusco approach and the place is packed – you cannot really make pictures without a lot of strangers inside…

whereas in Choquequirao we just meet two minigroups of tourist – that’s all.
So as for taking home pictures of the ruins themselves, and enjoying a guided tour and the eerie travel secrets- like virgins thrown to death to pacify the sun god- and other stories you are told, in Machu Picchu you cannot even hear them for the noise of the crowd, and so Choquequirao wins.

Which brings us to 2:2;

Actually, you should see both.

Would you like to hear more insider travel stories, you are welcome to the Author’s site http://eerietravelsecrets.com; besides being an extensive traveller, the Author, B.J. Vetter also runs a business, check it out if it is suitable for you, too: http://realmoneydoublingforexrobot.com

Technorati Tags: historical travel, historical trip, travel secret, travel secrets