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MALI
FESTIVALS 2009.
INTRODUCING
RICK ANTONSON
Tourism Vancouver's
CEO is an author, traveller and one of the
"founding fathers" of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic
and Paraylmpic Winter Games
Rick Antonson,
Tourism Vancouver's president and CEO, would seem
to have his plate sufficiently full. Not only is
Antonson guiding the convention and visitors bureau
toward the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic
Winter Games (just 13 months away), he's also
stick-handling Tourism Vancouver's $90-million
stake in Vancouver's Convention Centre Expansion
project and serving as a director of the Pacific
Asia Travel Association. In addition, Antonson is
considered one of the "founding fathers" of
Vancouver's 2010 Winter Games bid. He was one of
the people that got Vancouver's Olympic ball
rolling way back in 1998.
But that's not all.
In the past year, the exuberant CEO has found time
to write a book. In To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A
Journey Through West Africa, Antonson writes about
his unforgettable voyage by train, four-wheel
drive, river pinasse, and camel through Senegal and
Mali to his discovery of the endangered existence
of Timbuktu's 700,000 ancient
manuscripts.
1) When did
you find time to visit Africa and then write your
book To Timbuktu for a Haircut?
One finds the time to
do the things that are important to them &endash;
and both travel and writing are important to me.
The trip itself came about when I planned a month
away, on my own, without my wife along. One evening
she said, "Why don't you just go to Timbuktu...?" I
thought that was a brilliant suggestion! Long ago,
I spent many years as a periodic travel writer, and
before being at Tourism Vancouver my career
included an active role with a book publishing
company.
2) Where does
the title "To Timbuktu for a Haircut" come
from?
It is rooted in a lie
my father told me when I was five years old. Even
if his absence from home was for only an hour, he'd
often say: "I'm going to Timbuktu to get my
haircut." But it didn't start out with the final
title. My early writing was reflected in discarded
working titles such as A Timbuktu Sabbatical;
later, Timbuktu, A Traveller's Story; even Waiting
for Mohammed and On the Road to
Timbuktu.
3) Which was
more challenging: travelling through West Africa or
bidding for the 2010 Winter Games?
Both experiences let
me see the best in the communities involved. The
people of Senegal and Mali proved to be among the
most welcoming hosts I've encountered anywhere in
the world. I'd like to think Vancouver and British
Columbia will earn that reputation when we host the
world for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
My travels in West Africa had the element of
personal quest whereas the Olympic Bid was a quest
for thousands of people who dreamt of Vancouver as
an Olympic host city.
To Timbuktu for a
Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa is published
by Dundurn Press and is available at major
retailers. For more information on Rick Antonson,
contact Tourism Vancouver's media relations
team.
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Author and tourism
executive, Rick Antonson sets out on an
unforgettable journey to Africa, and chronicles his
adventures in TO
TIMBUKTU FOR A HAIRCUT: A Journey Through West
Africa,
published by Dundurn Press.
"To Timbuktu for a
Haircut is a great read - a little bit of Bill
Bryson, a little bit of Michael Palin, and quite a
lot of Bob Hope on the road to Timbuktu." -
Professor Geoffrey Lipman, Assistant
Secretary-General, United Nations World Tourism
Organization.
Historically rich,
remote, and once unimaginably dangerous for
travellers, Timbuktu still teases with "Find me if
you can." Rick Antonson's encounters with
entertaining train companions Ebou and Ussegnou, a
mysterious cook called Nema, and intrepid guide Zak
will make you want to pack up and leave for
Timbuktu tomorrow. As Antonson travels in Senegal
and Mali by train, four-wheel drive, river pinasse,
camel, and foot, he tells of fourteenth-century
legends, eighteenth-century explorers, and today's
endangered existence of Timbuktu's 700,000 ancient
manuscripts in what scholars have described as the
most important archaeological discovery since the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
TO TIMBUKTU FOR A
HAIRCUT combines wry humour with shrewd observation
to deliver an armchair experience that will linger
in the mind long after the last page is read. "I
left Africa personally changed by the gentle
harshness I found and a disquieting splendour that
found me. Mali was the journey I needed, if
not the one I envisioned. And I learned that
there's a little of Timbuktu in every traveller:
the over-anticipated experience, the clash of
dreams with reality." &endash; Rick
Antonson
Rick Antonson is
the president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver and a
director of the Pacific Asia Travel
Association. He has had adventures in Tibet
and Nepal, and in Libya and North Korea, among
others. The co-author of SLUMACH'S GOLD: In
Search of a Legend, he lives in
Vancouver.
From the
Vancouver Sun
It may seem
counterintuitive, but the appeal of travel
literature often has less to do with the
destination in question than with the character of
the traveller. Thus, while there may be significant
geographical overlap, there is a vast difference,
for example, between Frances Mayes's Tuscany (in
the best-selling Under the Tuscan Sun) and Ferenc
Máté's Tuscany (in the equally
impressive but less commercially successful The
Hills of Tuscany). In each book, the milieu serves
as a backdrop for the revelation and development of
the author's persona. The reader responds not to
the locale but to the locale as experienced by the
narrator.
This may seem a
minor distinction, but it's crucial, especially
when you consider both the number of new travel
accounts published each year and the fact that the
world is a finite place with, sadly, few remaining
mysteries. The age of strict geographic exploration
is long gone, but the potential for personal
explorations through geography is practically
limitless.
Two new books from
B.C. writers nicely underscore this point, to
varying degrees of effect. In exploring two of the
world's less- travelled places, Rick Antonson and
Martin Mitchinson also explore
themselves.
About Rick
AntonsonTourism Vancouver president and CEO Rick
Antonson travels for a living, "flying a hundred
thousand kilometres each year for two decades,"
moving from conference to air-conditioned hotel
room with seasoned thoughtlessness.
When it came time
for him to take a month-long solo expedition,
however, he decided almost on a whim to journey to
one of the most fabled -- and forbidding --
destinations in the world: Timbuktu.
Few places are
quite as evocative and mysterious. A centre of
Islamic scholarship and culture during the 15th and
16th centuries, Timbuktu has long been a beacon for
travellers. Once thought of as a source of
unimaginable riches, the city today is
impoverished, threatened by the encroaching Sahara
Desert.
For this trip,
Antonson decided against his usual air travel and
instead made the journey on the ground: by train,
boat, car, camel and foot. The result, as recounted
in his impressive new book, To Timbuktu for a
Haircut, is a quixotic quest, alternately funny and
thought-provoking.
Readers follow his
journey chronologically as he moves toward the city
and then as it recedes behind him. His account is
threaded through with historical and cultural
information. Curiously, his encounter with the city
itself is almost anticlimactic. He clearly relishes
the journey, and his fellow travellers, more than
the destination.
From a ride up the
River Niger to an open-air music festival in the
desert, from the sudden close friendships that
bloom during such travel to the machinations of an
unscrupulous tour coordinator who seems intent on
foiling his travel goals at every juncture,
Antonson handles the joys and occasional
frustrations of his trip in vivid, straightforward
prose and with a wry sense of humour.
Pearl of the
DesertTimbuktu was formerly a great commercial
trading city and an international center of islamic
learning. The city was probably founded in the late
11th century AD by Tuareg nomads. Timbuktu was a
leading terminus of trans-Saharan caravans and a
distribution point for trade along the upper Niger.
Merchants from northern African cities traded salt
and cloth for gold and for black African slaves in
the markets of Timbuktu. The visitors will
discovered the ancient mosques including the famous
Sankore whose reputation spanned all across north
Africa and Europe as a leading islamic academy for
centuries. Most of the ancient books (some dating
from the 14th century AD) are still preserved at
the Ahmed Baba Center . Tuareg formed one of the
most ancient tribal people of the Sahara. They
speak a Berber language, Tamacheq, and have their
own alphabet. In ancient times, the Tuareg
controlled the trans-Sahara routes and
substantially contributed in the expansion of Islam
in sub-Saharan Africa even though they retained
however some of their older rites. Today, the
Tuareg symbolize the mysteries of the Sahara and
Masters of the Desert.
The city of Mopti
is known as the ''Venice of Mali''. Mopti is
situated at the confluence of the Bani and Niger
rivers, and is built on several interconnected
islands. It is from the river that one can best
observe the commercial and social activities of the
town. . Mopti is literally teaming with traditional
traders offering a variety of locally-produced
commodities and beautiful artifacts. For more
information visit
www.africa-ata.org/mali.htm
Architectural
Jewel
Founded in the 4th
century, Djenné has scarcely changed since
the Middle Ages. In the 13th-15th centuries, Djenne
was a rival of Timbuktu for the wealth of the
Trans-Saharan trade. The city is located on an
island in the inland Niger delta, and is surrounded
by mud brick walls. As well as making a visit to
the archaeological site of Djenné Djeno that
looks backward in time over a 1.000 years.
Generation after generation, a guild of highly
skilled master-builders, the Baris, have ensured
Djenné's architectural integrity. The
atmosphere in the streets brings the traveller back
to medieval times.
For more
information on "To Timbuktu for a Haircut - Journey
Through West Africa," visit our website -
www.africa-ata.org
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