I had just over an hour to tour the site of the ancient city of Koumbi Salah. I left my orange bag sitting in the ruins to mark the place where we would meet.

It’s amazing how important the locals like Hassan feel it is to show me the “mosque” at each ancient village, even though I’m pretty sure the Wagadu kingdom wasn’t an Islamic kingdom. The site is vast and I wandered around imagining what it must have been like to ride a horse or walk through the city. I saw what looked like the remains of houses and many pottery shards, although no where near as many as at Aoudaghost. Both sites look like they could use a lot more excavation than what has already happened there so far.