There are few sites in all of Mali – nay, all of north-west Africa – as impres­sive as the his­toric city of Djen­né.

Crowned at the cen­ter by the adobe ris­es of one fas­ci­nat­ing Great Mosque, it is known for its dis­tinc­tive mud-brick archi­tec­ture and long his­to­ry as a spot on the old car­a­van routes across the Sahel and Sahara.

Made rich by the pass­ing of min­er­als and pre­cious met­als (and – of course – slaves), the town boomed dur­ing the 15th and 16th cen­turies.

The great wor­ship­ping house in its heart stands as tes­ti­mo­ny to the revered reli­gious cen­ter Djen­né became (even though it’s a lat­er recon­struc­tion of an old­er mosque), while the near­by archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions at Djen­né-Djen­no have shown the town to be one of the old­est in the entire Niger basin.