Park W

I thought it would be fun to take my visitors to the less explored Park W during their visit this holiday season.  It turned out to be an interesting choice.

Day 1:  We set out from Kandi for the park at 6am.  6:30 am our car breaks down on the side of the road.  We wait an hour for the mechanic to come and another 30 minutes to get things fixed.  Off again.    7:30 we enter the park.  No one even checks our tickets.  We then commence on a 5 hour drive through the bush where we see one babboon.  Literally, that was it.  To get to our lunch spot/hotel we have to cross the river on foot because there is no bridge.  After 3 hours of nap time, our guide then takes us out for some kind of "nature hike" where I'm mostly hoping that we don't see any animals because we have no way to protect ourselves.  Bedtime.

Day 2:  We get started an hour late because we've crossed the border to Burkina which is in a different time zone.  Funny how that doesn't change the time the sun rises.  Now the road starts getting really bad.  There isn't any discernable path, so we rely completely on the memory and experience of our guide to carry us through 6 hours of bumpy, unmarked, uncleared bush.  We see some antelope, warthogs, birds, and lots of huge Baobab trees.  But mostly dry landscape.  Our tent hotel across the Niger border awaits us with ice cold beers, however, which does a lot to lift our spirits.  We take a relaxing boat cruise along the Niger River.  We might not have seen any hippos, alligators, or other animals along the water, but at least it was a smooth ride laying on mattresses in the boat.  We headed to a lookout spot to search for some evening wildlife and saw so much elephant dung--but no luck.

Day 3:  Woke up after not really sleeping because of the freezing cold.  Well, freezing to me.  But we finally got the early morning start we'd been trying for.  Saw a higher frequency of what we'd been seeing (different kinds of antelope, warthogs, babboons, crocodiles in lakes, big birds), as well as a group of water buffalo.  We retraced our steps through the 6 hours of horrible roads, forging the river, and then 5 hours of OK roads.  Most notable sighting: vultures circling above a recently dead elephant.  The smell was so strong and our guides guessed that he had been taken down by poachers.  They hacked off his tusks to 'give to the local authorities' and keep them from the poachers... so I hope that this is where they actually ended up.  Although I'm not sure I have much faith in the local authorities.

So that was our experience in a nutshell.  Perhaps a month farther into tourist season things would be different, but for us the park seemed desolate, of both people and animals, and like a perfect spot for poachers.

The video attempts to capture pretty much how we spent our three days: bumping around in the backseat of a toyota SUV.

Looking for things.  Did a lot of that.

The only elephant we got to see :(  sorry, dumbo

Vacation

I was lucky enough to spend the first 2 weeks of October with my good friend Nora road tripping through South Africa.  We started in Cape Town and worked our way along the coast to Durban, then headed north through the Drakensburg mountains, ending in Johannesburg.  It was an absolutely gorgeous drive--I don't think I've ever been on a trip so consistently and diversely scenic--mountains, beach, rolling hills, you name it.  We're both "bang for your buck" travelers so we did far too much to write about, so I'll just cover a couple highlights that I thought were particularly fabulous.

"All dressed up but nowhere to go".  One of our first outings was to visit the Simon's Point penguins!  We took the local train out to Simon's Point and spent the day in the relaxed beach town eating fish and chips and playing with penguins on the shore.  You can walk right up to them!  They're small and really into hiding in the bushes and making this honking noise.  Also, they have the incredible ability to tilt their heads all the way backwards, which they do when the honking gets really serious.  We spent a couple hours just being entranced by the penguin waddle.  It never gets old.

The ostrich.  Quite possibly my favorite stop on the trip was Oudtshoorn, town with the world's highest ostrich population.  Such interesting creatures.  Running, they can reach speeds up to 40mph, the top land speed of any bird.  They are notoriously dangerous for their powerful kicks (pretty much their only defense) with their funny looking two-toed feet.  They also have the largest eggs of any bird, which are so strong that you can stand on them.  At the show farms you can ride the birds--quite an experience.  I feel like this would not be legal in America.  They pull the bird up, put a bag over its head, and have you climb onto its back.  You hold onto its wings with your arms extended and leaning back.  A very unnatural position.  Then they take the bag off its head and let the bird loose.  It runs around frantically for a while, the ostrich jockeys following the whole time to catch you if you lose your grip, and eventually they'll tell you to let go and you just trust fall back into their arms.  I couldn't stop hysterically laughing pretty much the whole visit.

Sights from the drive.  The Garden Route is an absolutely gorgeous ride.  Even when we veered off the route to go to the Wild Coast and up north, it never stopped being scenic.  The highways were impressively well maintained, although this involved passing through significant roadwork and toll booths.  It was a nice contrast to the crazy potholes even on the main roads of Benin, however.  Also we had to drive on the left side of the road which was quite a trip--it always seemed like the cars going the other direction were heading straight for us.  Our little rental car could barely make it up a lot of the big hills, and since most of the drive was one lane highway we had to adjust to constantly passing by going into the wrong lane.  It definitely made me realize how much I miss driving though.                     

                                      

South Africa was beautiful.  However, talking with locals and friends of Nora's who are Peace Corps volunteers in a smaller village, it's also a country with really complex social problems.  Apartheid had so many strict rules separating and giving specific rights to each racial and cultural group, and the social tensions are still very present.  For example, we locked our keys in the car while visiting the smaller village of Nora's friends and, even though he had been first approached by the rental car company and we agreed to pay an exorbitant fee, the locksmith refused to drive out to where we were.  Many white South Africans that we talked with were quite openly bitter against the strong 'affirmative action'-esque hiring policies in practice, and society in general seemed to still be pretty self-segregated.

Overall, we had an amazing trip and I would definitely recommend the country for anyone's vacation-- particularly for adventure tourists or those, like us, who like making spur of the moment decisions--we had made hardly any plans ahead of time and it was no problem.  And although apparently it's pretty bankrupt, South African Airlines had great food, movies, and unlimited mini-bottles of South African wine :o)

mango spiders

the season of the fruit has passed and the season of the spider has emerged.  these huge spiders make their webs around the mango trees and typically if you see one of them, you see at least 20.  i took some shots around my neighborhood.

Safari-time

My brother's visit to Benin offered the perfect excuse to finally go to Park Pendjari.  Phenomenal.  Rainy season is the off season for the park--animals are supposed to be harder to spot since there isn't a central water hole everyone is crowding around.  However, this means that the area is gorgeous and green-- and that we basically had the place to ourselves.  We spent 2 1/2 days on top of a SUV trying to spot animals, and saw most everything we were hoping to, minus the big cats.  Total cost of the 72 hour expedition (with food, hotel, driver, etc.) was about $165 a person.  Not too shabby.  Photos come from me, Erik, and Stephanie's camera.

Day 1... the crew, ready to go

setting out

family of babboons by the water hole

huge termite mounds everywhere we went

Our first elephant!  Munchin on some tree for lunch

How we spent the 3 days

Waterbuck; also known as "horse antelope"

Babboon crossing.  They were always travelling in big groups

Swimming in the waterfalls near our hotel after a long day on the road

this older monkey was apparently sick, but let us get really close!

With our guide, Bernard

Family of 5!!

Trunk action

the smaller monkeys would usually run off and hide in the trees but we got a quick picture of this one

Deer crossing during a rain break

Babboon clan... making their escape

Scampering away

Out at the park first thing to better our chances...

and saw a herd of water buffalo!

They wouldn't stick around us for long...

Yeah... the mornings were a bit chilly

More babboons.  This group was really close to the car.

The closest we got to an elephant!  This dude was eating a tree near our car.  Here he's showin' off them dumbo ears

love this picture.  looks like he's laughing for us

One of many cool trees.

The ever attractive Hembre duo

Our hut for the stay

OK so we didn't actually see lions... but we did see some lion tracks in the mud!

At the entrance: Ouesse commune close mates; safari pose!

Animal themed jumping pic.  Goodbye Pendjari!!

The Coronation of a King

One of my first weekends after moving to Parakou I was invited to Péréré to participate in the festivities for the coronation of the new village king.  Ryan, a former Peace Corps volunteer, has been living in this village for 14 years now--a small, rural Bariba community that he has become a part of.  After being placed in Péréré for his service, his work partner unexpectedly died, leaving behind a home full of children that needed caring for.  Since then, Ryan has taken in 10-15 kids (I can't remember the exact number) and has been putting them all through school and acting as the father they are all missing.  He is an incredibly gracious host and made the weekend incredible for the 6 of us who came out.

Saturday was spent touring the town, playing with the mobs of children excited about seeing new white people, and visiting the village elders and king-to-be as they perform all of their pre-coronation rituals.  The entire village was celebrating, so everywhere we went there were huts filled with families and friends and music playing in the streets.

Sunday was the big celebration.  The morning started off with parades coming in from all the nearby villages.  Groups of women would march in behind drum troops, stopping every now and again to dance, in the center would be a few with basins on their heads filled with gifts for the new king and topped with bizarre decorations--baby dolls, inflatable Santa Clauses, photos of deceased relatives, rubber ducks, etc.  All the women of Péréré were out making food and dancing to the drums.  Later in morning, the village kings made their entrance on their elaborately dressed horses to march through town, ending at the king's hut.  All the dancing and drumming troops ended up there, setting down their gifts in a row.  A young boy sat in the middle and was publicly washed by women as he prepared to take the old name of the new king.  Becoming the king, he leaves his old identity behind--passing along the name to a younger relative-- and accepting his new identity as chief.

The photos are a peek into the weekend's festivities.  Such an incredible experience and glance at traditional Bariba culture.  All photo credits go out to Eric Newton