Word: berness
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...manuscripts has filtered out over the past few years, another group of visitors has begun arriving: antiques collectors and dealers looking to snap up rare and valuable treasures at bargain prices. Locals say the number of collectors has increased markedly over the past year. The village of Ber, an hour's drive from Timbuktu across the blazing sand and past boys leading donkeys that haul spindly thorn branches home for firewood, might seem remote and protected. But when I arrived there in May, collectors had recently visited in search of manuscripts, according to locals. "Since April, people have descended...
Preserving the documents in normal times is not easy: a flood flattened one house in Ber last October, obliterating more than 700 manuscripts. Mahmoud says his family's collection of thousands of manuscripts include many with termite damage. One of his sons, Omar Ag Mohammed, shows me about 30 of the books, which are kept stashed in a rickety wooden closet in his small house. The most cherished volumes are not here, but buried in the desert. "We use ashes to protect them from the termites," he tells me. "Then we build a dome on top of them...
...brisk trade in Obama T-shirts, buttons and posters. Obama love reaches even remote communities with no electricity or television. One day in May, a driver took me 30 miles (50 km) into the Sahara Desert from the northern Mali town of Timbuktu. There in the tiny village of Ber, he unfurled from his trunk a rolled-up poster of Obama smiling under the slogan "Change we can believe in." "It's the most important thing I have," he said, as a group of mostly nomadic Tuareg tribesmen gathered to admire his prized possession. (See the top 10 attempts...
...have to say it. Pride in the country was largely unmentioned, taken for granted. In recent years, however, there's been a surge of racially tinged nationalism, particularly among the young and coalescing around the Australian flag, which has become the symbol of a new tribe of über-patriots up and down the land. In 1997, anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson draped herself in an Australian flag for one of the country's most notorious campaign photos - a testament to her "Australianness," and specifically her white Australianness. In December 2005, during the infamous Cronulla Beach race riots, thousands...
...sweeping views of the Pacific, Hotel La Mariposa in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica, is a popular destination (satisfied guests include TIME.com's deputy photo editor), with rooms starting at $150. You can go zip-lining through the rain-forest canopy, sport fishing or whitewater rafting. Not an über-outdoorsman? Then head down to the beach, order cocktails at the hotel's three pools or take a free shuttle to the crown jewel of the region: Manuel Antonio National Park, where the jungle is brimming with howler, white-faced and squirrel monkeys. Try a guided hike to get the most...