The most important and best preserved remnant of West Africa's powerful Songhai Empire.

These homes carved into the mountains seem to defy the laws of nature.

The central mosque of this Mali town is entirely built from mud.

This amateur-built East African church with mismatched towers is an architectural abnormality.

This underwater cave in Madagascar is home to what is thought to be the country's largest fossil graveyard.

This picturesque island graveyard is the final resting place of dozens of notorious pirates.

The centuries-old trees lining both sides of this dirt road may become Madagascar's first natural monument.

Empty since 1989, now falling into ruin.

Strange sandstone canyon known as the "place broken by itself."

Abandoned city hidden from the world by tropical forest and isolation on the coast of Kenya.

The world's largest church atop a political fault line.

On the grounds of a hospital in Ghana, a legendary sword said to have been plunged into the earth hundreds of years ago.

The first mosque in Ghana is known as the "Mecca of West Africa."

Where thousands of slaves passed through the "Door of No Return."

This series of rope-style bridges brings visitors into a jungle layer that is usually reserved for birds and monkeys.

The skeletal remains of the famous hominid "Lucy" were found at this spot.

Massive stele returned to Ethiopia after 70 years in Rome.

Supposedly this Ethiopian chapel holds the Ark of the Covenant, guarded by virgins who cannot leave the building.

Reaching the "Church in the Sky" requires scaling the cliff face of a sandstone pinnacle with a 650-foot drop.

The hottest place on the planet.

An Ethiopian "Jerusalem" featuring a church hewn out of a single rock.

An otherworldly restaurant perched on the edge of a jagged cliff next to a medieval holy city.

Wander among hulking piles of rusted machinery left over from the Eritrean-Ethiopian War.

Source for a sizable portion of Egypt's freshwater supply is more than an optical illusion.