Araouane or Arawan is a small village in the Malian part of the Sahara Desert, lying north of Timbuktu on the caravan route to the salt-mining centre of Taoudenni. The village once served as an entrepôt in the trans-Saharan trade. History Between the 16th and 19th centuries Araouane acted as an entrepôt in the important trans-Sahara trade. The French explorer, René Caillié passed through Araouane in 1828 on his journey from Timbuktu across the Sahara Desert to Morocco. He travelled in May, the hottest month of the year when the average maximum temperature in Timbuktu soars to 43–44 °C. He left Timbuktu with a caravan of 600 camels transporting gold, slaves, ivory, gum arabic, ostrich-feathers and cloth. The caravan mostly travelled at night and took six days to reach Araouane where it stopped for nine days before setting out again towards Taoudenni with an additional 800 camels. Caillié gives this description of Araouane: El-Arawan like Timbuctoo possesses no resources of its own. It is the entrepot of the salt of Toudeyni [Taoudenni], which is exported to Sansanding on the banks of the Dhioliba [River Niger]. Its soil is even more barren than that of Timbuctoo. As far as the eye can reach no trace of vegetation is to be perceived. The camels of the numerous caravans have to go a great distance for forage. Wood is so scarce that nothing is burned but camel dung, which is carefully collected by the slaves. This is the only fuel used even for cooking. The Moors collect their camels every six days, in order to take them to drink at the wells, which are in the environs of the town. These wells are about sixty paces deep. They employ a camel to draw up the bucket, which is made of hide. A pulley is also used. The water of these wells is brackish, warm, and very unwholesome. Some of the goods passing through Araouane bypassed Timbuktu. Caillié mentions salt being taken to the town of Sansanding and Heinrich Barth, during his visit to Timbuktu in 1853, learned that some of the gold trade also passed directly from Sansanding to Araouane. Sansandig is a town on the northern (left) bank of the River Niger, upstream of the Inner Niger Delta and 634 km south west of Araouane. Caillié was told that caravans took 25 days for the journey between Araouane and Sansanding. Post-independence Author