600 MILES IN A CANOE TO THE LEGENDARY CITY OF TIMBUKTU.

In the beginning, my journeys feel at best ludicrous, at worst insane. This one is no exception.

Kira Salak recently became the first person to canoe six hundred miles down the River Niger from Old Segou to Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa., the golden city of the Middle Ages, and legend has it, the doorway to the end of the world.

Enduring tropical storms, rapids, the unrelenting heat of the Sahara desert and the mercurial moods of this notorious river, she travelled alone through one of the most desolate regions in Africa, where little had changed since British explorer Mungo Park was taken captive by Moors in 1797.

Dependent on local people for food and shelter, each night she came ashore to stay in remote mud hut villages on the Niger’s banks. There, she met Dogon sorceresses and tribes who were alternately welcoming and hostile, so remarkable was the sight of an unaccompanied white woman paddling all the way to Timbuktu. In one instance she barely escaped from thieves who chased after her in wooden canoes, but she finally arrived, weak though triumphant, at her fabled destination. Kaira Salak, then fulfilled her ultimate goal by buying the freedom of two Bella slaves with gold.