After a lovely Christmas in Natitingou (“Nati”) with fellow volunteers, 7 of us headed up to Park Pendjari, the national park/animal reserve/safari locale here in Benin. It’s only about a three-hour ride North from Nati; only 2 hours of which is on a red dirt, very bumpy road. We hired a guide and a driver and even brought a mattress to put on the top of the car so when could more comfortably view the animals from the rooftop! Even though my legs are pretty bruised from the mishaps on the roof, it was totally worth it.
We left Dec. 26th at 6 am to get to the park as soon as possible. The first stop when we got into the park was at this lake where we saw crocodiles, hippos, and huge birds, which I later named “human birds” because of their creepy resemblance to humans. Instantly we realized that this park is not for Africans, but rather for Frenchies, Canadians, and other ex-pats who happen to be in the country. In fact, most Beninese people do not even know what Park Pendjari is. It was strange to be considered a “tourist” in Benin but also amazing to have a bit of a vacation and stay in a hotel and have a real shower! After the lake we headed to the hotel, which is on the very far north side of the park. Along the way we saw warthogs, monkeys, and tons of antelope/gazelles-type animals.
The hotel is more like a compound with big open paiute for a dining hall, about 40 rooms, and even a swimming pool (even though it was not filled). The only food you can find in the park is pretty expensive (for poor Peace Corps volunteers at least) so we baked bread and brought it in with us along with other snacks. After taking a short nap we headed back out around 4 pm. We saw tons more animals like elephants, baboons, really cool birds, more antelope things, monkeys…and watched an amazing sunset!
The next day started around 6:30 am and boy was it cold!; we climbed to the top of our van, bundled up in blankets and sweatshirts, and headed out to watch the sunrise. By this time we wanted to see one thing and one thing only… LIONS. The other animals are great but we really wanted to see Simba or Nala. We saw tons of Timon and Pumbas and even Rafiki but we there’s nothing like seeing a lion in the wild.
On our way back to the hotel for lunch we saw a cute little family of elephants about 30 feet off of the road. Naturally we stopped and watched them until Mama started charging our car to protect her little baby Babar! That was the scariest moment of the safari as elephants are quite large, intimidating animals and could have knocked over our van with their pinky toe. Thankfully, we lived through it and made it safely back to camp. We headed out again around 4 pm and saw some more creatures lurking in the distance. Supposedly, there are hyenas, rhinos, and leopards in the park too but they are very rarely seen. The tall grasses make for a great hiding place for most of the animals. I imagine there were many that we passed but missed because they were lounging beneath the trees.
The landscape of the park is SO diverse. Dry, marshy, savannah-like plains, trees, palms and ferns (I called this area the Jurassic Park terrain because it felt like a T-Rex was going to crawl out of the jungle at any moment). The park is relatively flat and is speckled with tall baobab trees, which make for a stellar horizon. [Refer to pictures to better understand.]
After looking at the stars and being creeped out by the things moving in the dark where we were sitting (by the way, the hotel is not fenced in at all and any kind of animal can wander through) we headed to our bungalow to sleep. Mind you, we are cheap and have 5 people in one bungalow, which is a circular hut-like thing with a thatched roof. It was very cozy J.
Day 3 started early and we headed back to the lake to see animals come down to the water to drink. After arriving at the lake, with 4 other cars full of whiteys, we heard a fierce growling in the distance. Pretty soon all of the guides were scampering to the vans and drove off to find the creature that was making this terrifying growl. They came back and waved all of us clueless tourists to get to the vans because there was a LION close by! We piled on top in true safari fashion and headed down the road to hunt down this lion. After about a minute of searching the grasses we saw her walking about 40 feet off the side of the road!! We stopped and watched her for a long time. She napped, yawned a lot, and then called for her husband. Unfortunately, word got out that there was a lion and tons more cars started showing up so Mufasa never showed his mane but we were just excited to see the female. She was so majestic. I went into the park wanting to see a lion...mission accomplished! After the lion citing we were satisfied and headed back down the road to Natitingou.
My first safari experience was a HUGE success and of course the people I went with were a major reason why I had such an awesome time. So, if you ever come visit me in Benin we can go on our own little safari here in this Pennsylvania-sized country haha.
Happy New Year and stay warm over there J
PS Look at my pics!!
