When dawn came, we headed toward the rebel-controlled zone.

We got our first glimpse of the men who now run northern Mali when two pickup trucks flashed their headlights at us through the morning mist. These were the Islamic fighters of Ansar Dine who were to be our escorts to Timbuktu.

There were around a dozen of them, dressed in sand-colored uniforms with turbans on their heads. Each had a Kalashnikov. One of the trucks had a heavy machine gun mounted on the back.

Despite their fearsome appearance, the men were polite. Later, when some of the cars in the convoy got stuck in sand they helped dig them out.

We headed north and came to the first checkpoint — manned by the Tuareg rebels, the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad. It felt like we were entering another country.

When I was growing up in Timbuktu in the 1990s, the region was for the most part peaceful and open to the outside world. Tourists would picnic under the stars on the sand dunes around the city and visit libraries of ancient manuscripts — a reminder that Timbuktu was a center of Islamic learning as far back as the 12th century.

Things have changed.

As we approached the city, I was expecting to see the usual crowd of women and children scrambling to meet passing cars to try to sell the goods they produce, like butter, milk and charcoal.

This time no one was there. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled northern Mali in the last few months.

We arrived in Timbuktu at around 10 p.m. and I went straight to my neighborhood. Usually at this time of night, streetlights would be on and the sounds of TV and radio would be heard from streetside stalls, where people gather to watch a film or the latest soap opera.

But there were no lights, the TV signal had been cut and the only radio station still on the air did not have night broadcasts. The area was silent and totally dark.