Going on a Safari

  Natitingou, Benin
Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Mom wrote....

Hard to believe it, but we are up and on the road at 6:15 AM.  It is dark, but the streets are busy with people walking and traffic buzzing by us.  The first stop is at a darkened gas station.  It appeared to be closed.  No.  A man slowly comes from a building behind the station.  We fill up with gas and are on the road.

As we leave town we are stopped by the "police".  From the conversation we gather that there is a little known law in this community.  Our driver, Franck, needed a special license to drive tourists.  A conversation develops about the law.  Traffic is starting to back up behind us and drivers are getting a little restless.  Another uniformed police officer comes from a building across the street and tells the "police" to have us move along.  They advice Franck to pick up a license.

About 7:00 AM we arrive at a place called Camp Nino.  Since we have never been here before we do not know we are heading down the wrong road.  The driveway is bumpy.  The path is narrow and ungraded.  White painted rocks mark the trail we should take with our vehicle.  We arrive at a set of buildings.  African men are working around the property.  A French speaking man with a white mustache with a unique hat and safari clothing wants to talk us into "camping" at his business.  Ten men are ready to help us set up camp.  I feel like we are in Jurassic Park.  Ten minutes later we are on the road towards Pendjari National Park.

The National Park begins at the edge of an African Village. We stop at the gate and wait while Jen and Franck "negotiate" our fees and hire our guide, Guri.  Soon we begin our adventure through the park.  A hunting zone surrounds the park.  During hunting season you will find many hunters from Europe, Australia and especially America. 

We had our guide and we are off into the Parc.  The speed limit is 40 km/h.  (I don't think you could even go that fast with the number of ruts in the road.)  Driving is forbidden in the park during hours of darkness. (Who would want to be out in the dark anyway?)  The soil is very red and it is quite dusty in the park. The best time of the day to see animals in the morning is from 6:30 AM until 10:00 AM.  We are closing in on 10:00 AM so the animal watching is pretty quiet. 


One of the first structures we noticed were the "huge" mud structures all over the park.  These condo like -tructures are termite hills.   We stop at a Mare Bali.  (Mare is french for pool)  The watering hole is a busy place.  Two happy hippos are playing in the water.  Baboons are playing tag on the edge of the water pool until a flock of beautiful big birds chase them away. Deer are sipping water by a smaller pool off to our right and alligators are laying on the edge of the pool watching it all.  I'm glad we are in a little look-out house overlooking the entire scene.  (Now this is what we would call a safari!  What an experience!)

Back to the car.  A sign directs us to our hotel.  It must be close.  Wrong!  Two hours later we are still bumping over the rough roads on the way to the hotel.  At 12:30 we finally arrive at our oasis.  It is a very attractive area with bungaloo rooms and porch type buildings.  There's a swimming pool. Beautiful flowers.  Who would believe we are out in the middle of no where in Africa?  Checking into our room we find it to be very comfortable.  We've got running water, but no electricity.  (It's day light, who needs electricity.)  We put our stuff in our rooms, eat lunch and have an afternoon nap.

At four o'clock in the afternoon we get together for our evening safari tour of the park.
In the parking lot of the hotel we saw a tree full of turkey vultures.  I hope they are not waiting for tourists who do not make it back for the evening.  Gari pointed out many animals, but I think we found almost as many critters as he did.  Our best find of the day was the lion.  She was stalking prey under a tree that was not far from our car.  We watched this magnificant animal for quite some time and she patiently waited for the right moment to strike.  Other amazing animals we saw this afternoon were elephants, African hunting dogs, hippos, beautiful birds and a variety of African deer.  Our stop at the mare on this end of the park this evening was not as eventful as our morning visit to the other mare.  It was getting late so we start heading back to the hotel.  We don't want to be out in the middle of the park after dark.  (I think we broke the park curfew by 30-45 minutes.)

Time for dinner and off to bed.  Tomorrow we want to be up with the jungle animals!