Azalai : A Saharan Enduro Adventure
In Decemeber 2008 A small band of adventurers will head off deep into the Saharan dunes with Austin Vince to make an EPIC adventure biking film.
Following ancient camel routes, (but eschewing 4-legged beasts for motorcycles), they will ride East across the sand seas of Mauritania to the city of Timbuktu then, turning North into the 'Empty Quarter' of the West Sahara, the team will follow the medieval 'Azalai' through the fearsomely remote and lawless lands of the Touareg.
Their goal, the fabled salt mines of Taoudenni - a solar-blasted outpost, rarely visited by Europeans, that once powered the Trans Saharan salt trade and helped shape the medieval world.
The team have a real challenge on their hands. To succeed, each will have to contend with phenomenal distances over near-impassable terrain as well as searing desert conditions, mechanical problems and scant resources.
Each night will be spent under the stars, each day in the saddle. But the difficulties won't end there - corrupt officials, Touareg rebels, bandits and the everyday pressures of an expedition on the edge will always be over the next dune.
Azalai will be an adventure set in a unreal context of alien landscapes, nomadic tribes and sands soaked in myth and history.
Background and History
Salt dug from the dry lake pans of Taoudenni has kept Africans and their cattle alive since pre-christian times, but the story is far more remarkable than that. Traded with gold from the South and hauled North through the bitter desert to Europe, salt from these fabled mines powered a trade and communication network that stretched from Constantinople to Scandinavia.
The knowledge and goods hauled by camel caravan along these fearsome desert routes were responsible for changing the known world throughout medieval times. Trade brought fabulous wealth and learning to the region. When Musa Mansa the king of the Songhai made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 15?? the gold he brought with him from Timbuktu was enough to collapse the Cairo exchanges. The trading posts or Ksours that linked the routes became centres of religious and scientific learning as well as commerce, spreading the word of Islam along with astronomy, mathematics and medicine.
Today, the 30,000 strong camel trains have gone, and with them the wealth and the learning they brought. The idea of universities has spread to the wider world and Africa's riches take a different route to Europe. The ancient mosques and libraries are slowly being eaten by the encroaching desert. All is now returning to sand. But the story ends as the story began, the final link in the chain that has yet to be broken was the first to be forged.
Today the region is so harsh and remote that even modern technology has not found a way of bettering the camel as the true ship of the desert. Camel caravans – the Azalai still run North from Timbuktu to the mines of Taoudenni, picking their way through across the lawless dunes of the Tuareg tribal lands, to collect the salt in 200lb blocks.