Bandiagara's Monday market is one of the largest in the Dogon Country, drawing traders, farmers, and herders from villages across the plateau and the plains below. Millet, sorghum, dried fish, cloth, and livestock change hands in a sprawling space at the edge of town that expands dramatically on market day.
The market gives you a sense of the region's economic life that a trek through the villages cannot — the volume of goods moving across the plateau, the mix of Dogon, Peul (Fulani), and other ethnic groups who share this landscape, and the practical business of feeding and clothing a large rural population. If you are in Bandiagara on a Monday, get there early in the morning when it is most active. Guides and transport to the escarpment are also often easier to arrange on market day, when more people are in town.