Men of Salt
by Michael Benanav
Summary
Starting in Timbuktu, Michael Benanav’s goal was to follow a camel caravan through the deadly heart of the Sahara to the desert salt quarries of Taoudenni and back. His account of his journey is a revelation, introducing an important new voice to the tradition of travel literature.
Excerpt
For the past thousand years, the Caravan of White Gold has plied the desolate sands of the Sahara. Its mission: to penetrate deep into the heart of the world’s largest desert ad return to civilization bearing gleaming slabs of solid salt. Men clad in turbans, threadbare robes, and the occasional sports jacket lead strings of camels over some of the most severe terrain on earth, from the fabled city of Timbuktu to the remote salt-mining outpost of Taoudenni, nearly five hundred miles to the north, in the middle of nowhere. There they load their animals with tons of edible ore, then travel back across the desert to bring it to market. Their ancient, arduous way of life has hardly changed in the millennium since the salt caravans began.
Today these men and camels work one of the last of the caravan routes still active in the Sahara. The rest of the complex caravan network that once crisscrossed northern Africa has virtually vanished, victim to modern means of transportation; most goods which in centuries past would have been carried across the great desert on camel-back are now flown over it, drive through it, or shipped around it by sea. Yet the Caravan of White Gold marches on, spared by its isolation.
Taoudenni is in arguably the harshest spot in this harshest of regions. On an utterly barren plain hundreds of miles from the nearest village, miners hack tombstone-sized blocks of rock salt from hand-dug pits using semi-primitive tools. Living in Stone Age style huts, they survive on a meager diet of rice, millet, and briny water; they have no medical facilities, no electricity, and no way of contacting the outside world but through those who travel back to it with salt.
I told myself it was the kind of trip I was born to take. I came across the name of an archaeology professor who had journeyed with the Caravan from Taoudenni to Timbuktu.
“There are lots of ways you can get hurt out there. Sure, you might die of thirst or hunger,” he said casually, as though this were a given, “but you’re more likely to fall off a camel and break a leg.” Whether or not such an injury would lead directly to death by infection or blood loss, he gave me the impression that it would qualify as something “major” enough to warrant abandonment.
He cautioned me about the unbelievable heat, the eternally long days and nights on the march, and mentioned that he had become sick from the water. That led me to inquire more or less tactfully about what he used for toilet paper.
“Sand,” he replied.
When I hung up the phone, I had a clearer picture of what I was getting myself into and was considerably more anxious. My mind kept circling around the deal I believed I’d have to make--the one about being left for dead in the desert.
Reviews
"This is that rare work that takes readers beyond their imaginations"--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An engaging account of proudly going native, enduring and prevailing on a rugged road"--Kirkus Reviews
"Fascinating"--Booklist
Author's Biography
Michael Benenav’s work has appeared in The New York Times and other national newspapers. He has also worked as a mountain and desert guide in the American West. He lives in northern New Mexico.