Mali

Timbuktu, long the very synonym of farfetchedness, is often considered *Mali*’s main attraction (“That impracticable place Timbuctoo,” Lord Byron called it in Don Juan, “where Geography finds no one to oblige her / with such a chart as may be safely stuck to”). But there’s much more to relish in this West African country than the faded glories of this fabled city, once a dazzling center of scholarship and trade perched on the edge of the Sahara (and now mining its neglected libraries for lost treasures). Travelers delight in the brilliant ethnic mélange of Mopti, where all of Mali’s trade routes converge at the largest salt market in West Africa; the Grand Mosque of Djenné (the world’s largest mud mosque, lovingly restored each year after the rains); and the Dogon region, where a complex animistic cosmology reigns, inspiring mask ceremonies, vibrant rock paintings, and mystical cliff dwellings.