One of Adventure's star contributors is Robert Young Pelton, freewheeling reporter at large and coauthor of "The World's Most Dangerous Places." Normally I enjoy Pelton's work as a sort of mercenary journalist, always poking around in the planet's most volatile hotspots -- Chechnya, Liberia, Somalia.

"EXTRA!" shouts the cover of the latest Adventure, the "Best of Adventure 2005" edition. "Pelton Picks the World's Most Dangerous Airline."

...

Then we have "Worst Airport." Pelton gives it to Bamako, Mali. "A crowded, smelly shack next to a potholed runway." Having ridden Air France to Mali a few years ago, I'll vouch that the facilities at BKO aren't exactly posh. Neither are they squalid by any stretch, and it's tough to believe that Pelton, for all his exploits in the globe's most forlorn corners, couldn't have found a worse spot. (Also in Mali, I'll add, and as detailed in my book, the airport at Timbuktu is rather fetching.)

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The train station in Bamako is much worse.

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2005/02/04/askthepilot122/index1.html