There’s more to the Sahara than emptiness and badlands

There’s more to the Sahara than emptiness and badlands

Getting to Timbuktu is not easy. When I travelled from the Malian capital, Bamako, to the remote Saharan city a quarter of a century ago, it took several days. We started on a single-lane tarmac highway that shimmered in the sunshine; continued on a barge that kept getting stuck on sandbanks in the Niger River, under the curious gaze of hippos, as the relentless heat pressed down on us; and finished with a short, bumpy ride over the desert itsel…