Sleeping in the dirt...finally Timbuktu

When we stopped in the small town after 12 hours in the land cruiser, I asked the guy sleeping on the 3 foot bench by me when the car was going to leave again. he told me 6 am. My little French had gotten us that far. He got out of the car and with the rest of the people pulled out mats to sleep on. I was worried about the girls and told them what was happening. After 12 hours in a dirty, exhausting road, they had had it. Julia was angry and said that they had to take us to somewhere we could sleep. I again asked my friend where we could sleep. he and his friend said that this was it and made some room on his mat. I explained to Julia and Janine that this man had made room for us. They could squeeze on the mat and I would sleep in the dirt of the street. We laid down, but Julia had had it. Frustrated and tired and very deserving of a breakdown, she went over to the driver and started yelling at him in English. I got up from the mat and tried to dispell the situation. Remember I don't speak French, but I asked them in diplomatic and apologetic way if they had an extra mat for us to sleep on. The owner of the bar where the car parked said he would loan us an extra mat but to stay close so that he didn't lose his mat. I thanked him and gave the mat to janine. Poor Julia was crying from frustration and emotional overload from fatigue and our inability to communicate. I tried to explain to her that the driver didn't know that we were going to stop here, but that this was Africa and sometimes we can't control our situation. We had live with what we had. She came over to the mat that was in front of the bar. She laid down and said that she couldn't sleep there and wanted to move the mat. I explained to her that the bar owner was kind enough to lend us the mat and wanted to make sure that we didn't walk off with it. She said that she couldn't sleep there and so she would go talk to him. At this point trying to avoid another English break down, I went over and asked him if we could please move the mat because of the light. He reluctantly agreed and they moved the mat. At this point I had my own breakdown. Frustrated with trying to communicate, trying to keep Julia calm and happy, and tired from the trip, I explained that I didn't want to insult the guy who offered us his mat and went and slept over on the other mat. I told the girls that if they didn't feel safe that I would sleep on there mat, but I would be about 20 ft away. They probably sensed my frustration let me go. There was a horror movie playing at full blast through out the night and I slept at most 2 hours because of the noise. The next morning I woke up at 5 am with the rest of the group. The sky was dusty and mystical making the world seem to be dream like with the strange colors that were brought out by the way the light shown through the sand in the sky. I thanked the guy who let me sleep on his mat. I went to find a shop where we could get some food for breakfast. The bar owner said that the stores opened at 7am but they said that they would try to find the store owner. I bought some baguetes and apple soda which I knew would make the girls happy. The car was about to leave as I came back with the food. The girls were a lot happier after the sleep. But we all fell asleep on the road. We picked up some Tuareg nomads along the way and 24 hours after we had started the journey, we arrived in the famous Timbuktu. It was nothing that I expected. It was a larger village with mud houses and there was nothing spectacular that I could see about it...at first. I looked in my Lonely Planet for a place to stay, but when we got there, there was a man that had offered his house where we could stay for cheap. His name was Alkedi and he said that we could stay in a room on the roof or sleep outside. We checked it out and we were so tired that we agreed. There was a French couple in their young 20's there smoking and playing cards. We came to find out that their names were Victor and Axemnya and they had come on vacation with a guide from the capital of Mali. Janine slept and Julia and I played the card game "ass hole" with our new friends along with a tall friend of the our host who cooked and was the happiest malian that I ever met. He made some awesome omletes and rice with my favorite tomato sauce. We had a great time. We took a bucket shower and took a nap. We went to a hotel to find a friend of Yacuba from mopti who was a guide. His name was Abdulye. He wasn't there but they said that they would pass along the word to him On our way back to the Alkedi's home we met some kids selling Timbuktu T shirts. Janine had expressed before hand that she really wanted shirts, The kids say they were the only ones that would make them by hand. And they charged us $10. (Later we found them at the airport for $6). We explained to Alkedi that we wanted to spend a night in the Sahara desert with a Tuareg family and he explained that he could arrange that, our French friends decided that they would come with us. So that afternoon, we took off in our turbans and loaded on camels and took off into the desert.