My neighbor travels fairly often, but they’re usually short business trips. A few days ago, he told me he was going to be gone maybe a few weeks. I asked him if he needed anything before he left or if there was something I needed to do for him while he was gone
He seemed surprised and said, “it’s not like I’m going to Timbuktu.” I hadn’t heard that in a long time. It’s a phrase that that’s usually used when referring to somewhere very far away or sometimes maybe to mean a journey you really don’t want to take. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the most distant place imaginable.”
Some people even think it’s not a real place, but imaginary.
But it is a real place and I’ve been there — Timbuktu is in Mali, West Africa.
I don’t think it holds the mystique it once did — even the last time I was there it seemed a bit “run-down.”
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