This was a visit to Mali and Burkina Faso - two exciting, surprising, and unfamiliar countries. They are mystical lands: huge, ancient African empires large in territory, but sparse in population.

Among the poorest nations in the world, landlocked and arid, their deserts are dotted with the ruins of prehistoric cities. But those who live in this beautiful, but harsh, environment are proud of their illustrious history, even as they struggle to cope with day-to-day relentless poverty. Because their strength, independence, hard work, and optimism enable them to somehow survive.

As I traveled through these countries I discovered surreal landscapes, beautiful artwork, castellated mud-built mosques, and sandstone villages cut into cliff faces.

I also found astounding cultures in little hamlets of grass huts, in Timbuktu at the edge of the Sahara Desert, and at an escarpment where people living on a bare rock face somehow survive.