Taghaza

Finally we reached Taghaza after many days on the road. We were also now in the territory of the Songhai Empire. Outside the city we meet a man who appears to be out of place. He introduces himself to us as Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan explorer. He also has similar plans to travel the World and we hit it off immediately. He agrees to travel with us as our companion and share ⅓ of any profits we make off of trading. He described the “village as an unattractive, desolate place of sand, with salty water and no trees.” He also talked about how  “houses were built from blocks of rock salt, with roofs of camel skin.” This turned us off from the city and made us want to leave as soon as possible. In the city we purchased 2 more camels and traded our old ones for fresh ones. We also traded out some of our glassware for some copper that we would take South with us. We refilled our water canteens and containers and set back off. Our new friend however was reluctant to go. He “worried about running out of water, losing their way, and falling prey to the demons which hunted those wastes” We reassured him all would go well and left the desolate city behind.