Day 70: Wassadu – Campment de Lion

St. Nicholas Day and wedding anniversary and day 70 of our trip. And we are on the Gambia River in Senegal. Wonderful.

Tonight the baboons made a lot of noise, but other than that it was totally quiet.

At the entrance to Niokolo Koba Park we discover that our passports are not where they should be. Brigitte can't remember exactly when she last had it in her hand – somehow we both think that it was actually necessary to register yesterday when we arrived in Wassadu. Somehow the memory is deceptive – which is actually the frightening thing. Brigitte doubts her sanity. So back to Wassadu. There we are told that no ID is necessary, so it is not there. Ultimately, the passports ended up in the wrong bag at the border or shortly afterwards when the money was being “moved”. So big apologies to the Wassadu camp staff and back to the park gate.

We pay 10,000 for the car, 10,000 per day per person and 10,000 per day for a mandatory guide (one night makes two days). That's a hassle, because the parking space (10,000) and dinner (3x 5,000) have to be paid extra again. That's around 145 euros. In hindsight we realize that 5,000 per person would have been correct. If you're not always super vigilant... Getting cheated is annoying, we hear that from other travelers too.

The unfortunately only French-speaking guide, Papa, squeezes himself into the jump seat of our extra cab version and has no problem at all.

The park is more natural and animals are not as present as in the parks of the South African region. Nevertheless: It’s fun to be on “Safari” again.

There is a short break in the “Campment du Lion”, like Wassadu, a very simple round hut complex, where we can spend the night in our car, a little out of the way. At 4:00 p.m. we do another lap. Whenever Papa says “Piste no problem” then we are probably driving too slowly for him :-) The funny thing is that we can somehow exchange some information with a few French phrases and words.

What's interesting is that we pass a series of small fires that apparently start naturally and go out on their own within a few hours, even though the subsoil is actually completely covered with dry grass and branches.

After the tour, a shower from buckets (Gambia water) and it's time for dinner.

In the evening there is simply rice with vegetables, where the vegetables consist of an onion sauce. But we weren't in the mood for chicken again and so unfortunately our guide was denied the chicken today.

We go to bed early and set the alarm for 6:30!