A holiday maker laps up the sun on the second largest island of a five-island archipelago. This slice of paradise was one of the few places that was safe to visit during the final years of this country’s protracted civil war. As the photograph suggests, it is everything that an Indian Ocean island should be. White, palm-lined beaches give way to superb diving …

Visitors to this sleepy town in North Africa are greeted by the remains of an enormous amphitheatre rising from the desert sands. Photo © Ali Afghah Second in size only to the Colosseum in Rome, it was built in the third century AD by the Romans during their 600-year occupation of this part of the continent. The …

Like a scene from Dante’s ‘Inferno’, this low-lying geological phenomenon in the Horn of Africa experiences hellish conditions. Photo © Jean Filippo Temperatures reach 55 °C, rainfall is scant and its floor is seismically unstable, with pools of sulphur-laden water that evaporates and cools to reveal salts of every hue and shape. In addition, the earth’s crust is so thin …

Whispering palms and a tumble of granite boulders line beautiful Anse Source d’Argent beach, one of the star attractions of this Indian Ocean island. Photo © Tobias Alt The island is the fourth largest in a popular holiday archipelago, and its beaches have featured in numerous travel magazines, fashion shoots and commercials. Beneath the tropical waters …

Palm trees fringe a sandy beach and cobalt sea at Tarrafal, a small town situated on the main island of a volcanic group that lies some 450 kilometres off the coast of West Africa. The islands’ position on shippinglanes across the Atlantic once made them the perfect stopover as a supply station and slave-trading depot. Photo © Iwoelbern Today …

Multicoloured fishing boats line the shore of a North African city that was founded in 323 BC by a mighty Macedonian leader.  The city grew to become a centre of trade and learning, and housed a library said to contain some 500 000 volumes. The institution’s fate is the stuff of legends, but it is thought that the building and its contents …