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Salt. Yep, that's right. Salt. It seems, back in the day, salt was one of the most precious commodities on Earth, right up there with gold. And it turns out that the African city of Timbuctoo (now located in the country of Mali) had plenty of both. That made it the center of West African commerce for several centuries, and built the city's reputation for wealth. Much later, after devastating wars and alternate trade routes had reduced Timbuktu's wealth to rubble, the name was still used in Europe to conjure up images of distant riches. Hence, the saying "to Timbuktu and back" and similar utterances. So how did we find all this out? Well, here was a case that called for some serious persistence. First, we did searches on
the modern spelling, "Timbuktu." Our search netted some good results, such as The Electronic Passport, but ultimately there were a lot of listings that related to a software product called Timbuktu. Eventually, we got the idea of searching for alternate spellings, including the one you used in your original question, "Timbuctoo." That's when we came across the About.com geography page devoted to the city. There we found stories of the city's history, European exploration, and its current situation, not to mention a list of related articles. Finally, one last browse through the search results brought us to Getting
There, a feature from Salon magazine that explains what a modern traveler would need to make a journey "all the way to Timbuktu."
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