Timbuktu

All images and text © Kevin Moloney

Photographed and written on assignment for The New York Times

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Tuareg riders watch the Festival au Desert music and culture festival in Essakane, Mali, from atop a nearby dune. A crescent moon sets in the evening sky over the start of the annual festival that brings Malians, western tourists and musicians from around the world to celebrate Tuareg culture and world music.

Tuareg nomads camp in the dunes around the Festival au Desert music and culture festival in Essakane. The festival drew several thousand Malians and international music aficionados for three days of varietal music and performance.

Nomad tents glow with campfires and dim, generator-driven artificial lights in the dunes near the Festival au Desert stage structure.

Festival goers chat under one of a few artificial lights erected to help thousands of visitors move across uneven sand under the dark desert night.