After 36 hours of hopping flights, we were finally in Africa.We landed in Bamako, the capital of Mali , and were now confronted with the arduous task of finding a way to get to our destination, The Hand of Fatima. A formation of 5 towers in a remote area of the Sahel Desert outside the village of Hombori. The objective: to put up a new free route on one of the towers, and to document it for a video to be produced by American Adventure Productions in Aspen. Bill Hatcher and myself were there as videographers, along with Bobby Model as the still photographer. The climbers: Paul Piana and Todd Skinner from Lander, Wyoming; Scott Milton from Canada and Andrew DeKlerk and Edmund February from South Africa . We procured a vehicle and proceeded to travel the 500 “or so” miles to the towers, and believe me 500 miles in Mali is like 1500 here in the states. They call it The Hand of Fatima because from above, the 5 towers look like the appendages of an open hand. Our camp was situated behind a huge boulder, just beyond the scree slope leading up to the base. Upon arriving, I was taken back by the sheer size of the formations. The towers loomed over camp as a constant reminder of the task that lay ahead. Negotiating a path through the talus maze was not easy, which rose out of camp about 1200 vertical feet to the base, and had monstrous boulders the size of large houses. The climbers chose a striking line on the arete’ of the tower named Kaga Pamari. Topping out at about 1300 feet , it shot from the earth like a gigantic shark's fin. Directly next to it is Kaga Tondo, a much larger tower about 2000 feet tall. Those of us that were there to document the climb found ourselves in a unique situation. If you have ever taken climbing photos you know that most of the time you are restricted to the same wall that the climber is on, or the ground. This time we had an opposing tower about 50 yards away in which to also shoot from, and once the “photo lines” were fixed on it we could access the two primary ledges. The cavernous area in between the towers created a 1000 foot tall wind tunnel. At night, as we lay in our tents, the wind screaming through the tunnel would sound like a 747 jet hovering over the formations. The climbers had much work to do on the wall before they could free it, so Bobby, Bill and myself headed to the Dogon region. Located along the 150 mile long Bandiagara Escarpment, The Dogon, as it’s called, is a circuit of small villages built along the base by the local people. Over a thousand years ago the area was occupied by the Tellem , who built dwellings high up in the cliffs. No one knows how or why they chose to live in these lofty perches. We had heard of a burial cave in one of these cliffs and set that as one of our objectives. Setting out before dawn one morning, so as not to be seen by the villagers, we made our way to the top of the cliff directly above the cave, which lay about 50 feet below on the face of the wall. Rapping off a sketchy anchor into a cave with about 3000 skeletons was not an ordinary Monday morning. There were pieces of cloth that still had intricately died patterns in them, and jewelry made from tree bark that had been buried with the people that once adorned them. The bones lay at least 6 feet deep and were everywhere, wall to wall. Being surrounded by the remains of humans that walked this land over a thousand years ago was a feeling I cannot describe. The rising sun was filling the cave in golden morning light. We stayed in for about an hour, shooting video and stills, all the while conscious of the fact that we were in an extremely sacred place and once again finding ourselves in a very unique situation.