The Dogons resisted Islam when it swept through West Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They are mostly animists, although I am told there are a few churches clinging to the rock-face here and there.

Dogon country is a real tourist-magnet. You can buy anything from baobab fruit castanets to bronze tortoises to Fulani masks. Which is suspicious, come to think of it, since the Fulani do not make or use masks and never have.

Each Dogon village offers of three levels of camara-clicking wonder:

Level 1: The plateau (on top of the cliffs) consists of flat-roofed houses, dry stone walls and onion terraces - the Dogons like their onions and grow very little else - even in Djibo one can buy dried Dogon onion balls. As my friend Lee wisely questioned, 'Why do they pound their onions into mush, only to make them into balls? They were already balls before they got pounded.' The reason is that the women can charge tourists 1000 CFA a throw to photograph them pounding onions. Yes, I know it seems unlikely.

Level 2: The Dogon shrines are extraordinary little mud-brick huts built in horizontal crevices in the cliff face - the Dogons are animists and they keep their idols and fetishes in the shrines, accessible only by certain men using magic climbing-cream. The Dogons are proto-Spiderman - they climb sheer cliffs and they never fall off. Yes, I know it seems unlikely.

Level 3: The 'pepperpot granaries'at the bottom of the cliffs are circular mud-brick huts with tall cone-shaped grass roofs. Here men store their millet and women their jewellery. They are very picturesque indeed. There is also a Dogon debating forum - a very low shade-shelter where old men sit to chew cola-nuts and resolve disputes. The reason for the low ceiling is so that if someone gets angry and stands up they will bang their head hard and sit down and be quiet again. Yes, I know it seems unlikely.

The oldest man in a Dogon village is called the Hogon (yes, I know), and he is both priest and magistrate. He does not wash in water, but enjoys the services of a magic snake who visits him at night and licks him clean. Yes.

All in all, an exciting (if rather improbable) place.

If you want some even more improbable information about the Dogons, follow this Dogon link, which explains how the Dogons received complex knowledge about the Sirius star system from visiting 'fish-men' thousands of years ago - extraterrestrials from Sirius B. Noice, noice.