Musée National du Niger

The sprawling Musée National du Niger is one of West Africa's standouts. Numerous themed pavilions, each tipping their hat to Hausa architecture, give visitors a peek into Niger's present and past. The Pablo Toucet pavilion displays the dress of Niger's different ethnic groups - a quick way to train the eye for differentiating these groups as you travel around Niger.

While common sense and science dictate that there are no 2m-tall, 15m-long crocodiles wandering the earth today, one jaw-dropping glimpse of the Boubou Hana pavilion's 100 million-year-old Sarcosuchus imperator, or 'Super Croc', and you'll be second guessing everything - chilling indeed! Oddly, similarly aged dinosaur skeletons (with comparably sized teeth) in the Palaeontology/Prehistory pavilion don't elicit any similar irrational fears, only thoughts of these past creatures' majesty. Nearby, anchored in concrete, is the infamous Arbre de Ténéré.