The next day it was 16 hours at 100 kph across a ridged desert road. We turned orange in the dust that flowed in waves through the door. It was like being tied to a mechanical digger with five other people, relieved intermittently by river crossings in the scorching sun.
The final push was to Timbuktu. And our guide knew it was his last chance to get a tip. He told us he hadn’t been paid and that we needed to give him money so he could feed his family… and what seemed to us all to be a very heavy drug habit. We refused. Now everyone felt ripped off.
Eventually we made it, paying again at the door for our pre-paid tickets, and walked into what felt like a refugee camp. Tuareg families huddled around fires. Fat tourists, wearing blue Tuareg scarves to cover their burnt foreheads, stumbled around in the sand. We joined them, looking for our part of the camp. I had the name scribbled on a piece of paper, but had no idea where it might be, or who I could call to find out. But we did find it and thought the organizers were lovely until they charged us double too.
On the last morning, when our red-eyed driver turned up to take our bags to the car, we told him that he could give our seats to one of the six extra people we found sitting on the roof of his jeep. We had managed to get ourselves two precious tickets for a flight to Bamako, the capital of Mali. After three bone-rattling days on the road, followed by four in boiling-hot Sahara sunshine during the daytime and freezing temperatures at night, plus a good dose of food poisoning, we felt we deserved them.
I broke every rule I know about travelling during that holiday, all for the romance of the journey. It started with not following my instincts when Aly Guindo began to barter with me from the moment I left the airport.
/USE YOUR INSTINCT
Your first and last tool should be your instinct. When you are on the move in a dangerous world you have to make snap judgements. Trust your instincts. If you feel something isn’t right although it looks like the perfect day for it, whatever it is, stop and turn back.
Sherine Tadros told me a story that she attributes to diet-spurred guilt, but is probably as much to do with instinct: ‘Dr Atkins [of diet fame] saved my life. On the first night of the war in Gaza – 27 December 2008 – we were filming live shots from the main hospital in Gaza City. When we were done I was starving; we hadn’t stopped for 12 hours, since the first bombs started falling. There’s a great falafel stand next to the hospital, so I asked the team if we could stop and get a sandwich. When we got there I had an attack of food guilt: it was 11 p.m. – I shouldn’t be eating fried food and carbs. So we left it and went back to the office. A few minutes later we heard a huge explosion. The falafel stand and everyone in its proximity was blown up. Had we got the sandwiches, we would almost certainly have been killed. They say you should always trust your gut. Suffice to say that every decision you make in a war zone is vital and has consequences. Go with your instincts but realize that when it’s your time to go it’s your time to go.’
/COMMUNICATION IS KEY
You should have a communications system in place from the moment you arrive. And even if all is quiet, it needs to be enforced from day one. Regular calls into base and from base should be established, even if it is just to say hello three times a day. This is especially key when you are travelling. Your point person should know where you are going, when you expect to arrive, the route you are travelling, and the plane, train or vehicle you are using to get there. You should arrange a time to call them when you arrive, and if you haven’t arrived by that time, you need to find a way to call in before they begin to panic. Communication is a priority.
Leith Mushtaq told me about the arrangements he made: ‘I made a deal with my base: “I will text you every hour. If I stop sending you texts, you must send help and try to find me.” And I keep drafts of two text messages, saying “We have been arrested” and “We have been kidnapped”. When we get stopped, before they take away the phone, I can send it.’
Being able to communicate is also vital if or when your vehicle breaks down. Make a note of a safe taxi number, along with your hotel address in the local language. Use your hotel’s taxi service when possible.
/TAP INTO LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
The people you rely on from the area you are visiting will provide you with invaluable guidance on how to live your life in their world. You need to create a careful balance between respect for their opinion and faith in your own instincts.
Tom Coghlan spent five years in Kabul as a freelance reporter. He worked with Afghan journalists, who risked their lives on a daily basis to bring news from their country to the world. As Tom admits, over time and through the forest of a long-established beard, it is all too easy forget that you are only a visitor:
‘In 2006 I pushed my fixer to come with me into a market in the town of Maiwand, near Kandahar, which he said was full of Taliban. I wanted a vox pop [soundbites from the man on the street] on the day the British announced their deployment to neighbouring Helmand. (It seemed appropriate because the town had seen the great defeat of British troops in 1882, during the Second Afghan War.) I overruled my fixer’s misgivings and we went in there, though I persuaded two local militiamen to come too.
‘The first person we tried to speak to looked at us with incredulity and terror, and said his shop was now closed. Although I was dressed as an Afghan and trying to be discreet, few locals seemed to be fooled. We quickly found a crowd building around us. Our so-called bodyguards looked increasingly frightened. A man gestured at me and I tried to shake his hand. He continued to talk and gesture, as a look of increasing panic and indecision came into the eyes of our bodyguards. My fixer explained later that the man and other members of the crowd were trying to persuade the guards to shoot me as a spy and enemy of Muslims. The guards were unsure what to do, but my fixer was assertive and quick-witted, and dominated the indecision within the crowd for the crucial minute it took to pull me out of there.
‘The obvious lesson to draw from this is to think very carefully and really weigh the costs and benefits before you overrule local knowledge. It is, unfortunately, a lesson that I have learnt a few times.’
Zeina Khodr had the opposite struggle. It was sticking to her instincts and overriding the local advice that saved her life, she says.
‘Your life should be in your hands, no one else’s. Take advice, but also follow your instincts. My team and I were travelling to Helmand from Kandahar in late 2009 along a single-track road. We passed an area that was in the middle of an attack by the Taliban, and continued as far as we could until we came to a bridge that they blew up. There were three choices: go back on the single track; go off-road through the Taliban-controlled villages; or stay put. I said we should head back along the single track – we were all disguised, so there was no reason for them to suspect us. But after 500 metres, we saw Taliban fighters coming out of civilian homes. They were approaching the highway. A bus was stuck and there was a traffic jam. I said, “Don’t panic. Go forward.” The last thing I wanted was to go back and be a sitting duck. The rest of the team disagreed with me, reversing backwards until we had a police checkpoint full of drugged-up officers on one side, the bridge in front of us and the Taliban all around. We were stuck there for seven hours. We hadn’t brought water, so dehydration alone could have killed us. Reversing had been the wrong decision.