To create a Timimoun of his own has been Alan Donovan’s dream ever since he took his first transcontinental trip by car across Africa and encountered the original ‘red city in the desert’ in the late 1960s. Now the north African city is situated near the centre of Algeria, but back in pre-colonial times Timimoun was known as the last oasis having fresh water for travellers and camels before they journeyed across the Sahara.
It’s taken him almost 50 years since he took that first cross-continental journey and arrived in Kenya in 1970, but he has finally begun building his own Timimoun. Situated next to his African Heritage House in Mlolongo, he’s been designing what will finally be the Timimoun African Journey Museum for a month or possibly even years. But since he began the project, it has taken time just clearing the bush that had grown up during the two years when he was unwell and out of commission.
