The Biandiagara Escarpment Of Indelou Village

Exploring the villages in the Dogon Country was a major, major highlight of my trip through Mali. To be fair though, there's not a lot of major tourism sites in Africa's eighth-largest country. Spending three days in the area, I had time to visit several villages including that of Indelou Village, where I took this photo from. The village is on the flat land, while the cliffs of Bandiagara shown, contain the ancient dwellings of the Tellum and Toloy people.

As the structures are made primarily of mud, unless they are maintained and repaired annually, they'll quickly fall into disrepair. The majority of the buildings that you see along the lower-third of the photo are granaries. Having to bring millet from the fields up to the granaries in the cliffs is extremely labor-intensive, let alone the water and food for the people that lives there, to survive. Truly an impressive lifestyle for the time.

Impressive dwellings carved out of a cliff.