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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.


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