Greeting from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. We are staying in hotel (ok, in European standard this would be like 2* hotel but anyway..) for the first time in our trip! Here we have some what good internet too so it`s good time to write a blog.
We applied our Nigerian visas last week, it took one week to get it.. So we went to drive around Burkina Faso. We saw a lot of savannah, a lot of small villages with all the kids waving to us when we passed by and more dust. Was really nice to drive around though. We also went to visit in a National park called Nazinga. We drove in from the back side of the park and saw elephants, monkeys, birds, wild pigs (they looked like Pumba from Lion King) and antelopes. And absolutely no people. It was amazing. Then we went to the park visitor center to pay the park fee (15e per person plus 1,5e for car plus 3e for camera). We paid this with no trouble and when we were about to continue our trip in the park this park guy told us we have to leave now because we did not take a guide (7,5e). I said ok we pay the guide, but there is a minor problem: where do we put him? Under the bed in a drawer, or maybe tie him in our roof? They liked the roof idea, we did not. I saw in my eyes already how he will fall and it`s our fault. So we left. They even sent some park ranger after us to say that we have a problem with this visitor center guy. No we do not have a problem with him, we just wanna leave. Thankfully we saw the park before. If another overlanders go there, make sure you have a lot of extra space in your car. I am afraid that we might need to take a guide in all national parks we will visit, so I guess we will next time tie the guide on the roof.
Sometimes I forget the nice things in Africa, because of meeting couple wrong people who ruin your day. There is plenty of good things: happy people who really want to help you, good and cheap food, nice weather, waking up for the sunrise and listen all the birds singing, new adventures every day…
Now we have our Nigerian and Benin visas (good news to other travellers: Benin visa takes 30min and you have it on your passport!) and we are heading down to the coast. After that its time to Nigeria. We will see how it goes and if we are able to get through the Cameroon border which claims to be closed.
Jasmin
We applied our Nigerian visas last week, it took one week to get it.. So we went to drive around Burkina Faso. We saw a lot of savannah, a lot of small villages with all the kids waving to us when we passed by and more dust. Was really nice to drive around though. We also went to visit in a National park called Nazinga. We drove in from the back side of the park and saw elephants, monkeys, birds, wild pigs (they looked like Pumba from Lion King) and antelopes. And absolutely no people. It was amazing. Then we went to the park visitor center to pay the park fee (15e per person plus 1,5e for car plus 3e for camera). We paid this with no trouble and when we were about to continue our trip in the park this park guy told us we have to leave now because we did not take a guide (7,5e). I said ok we pay the guide, but there is a minor problem: where do we put him? Under the bed in a drawer, or maybe tie him in our roof? They liked the roof idea, we did not. I saw in my eyes already how he will fall and it`s our fault. So we left. They even sent some park ranger after us to say that we have a problem with this visitor center guy. No we do not have a problem with him, we just wanna leave. Thankfully we saw the park before. If another overlanders go there, make sure you have a lot of extra space in your car. I am afraid that we might need to take a guide in all national parks we will visit, so I guess we will next time tie the guide on the roof.
Sometimes I forget the nice things in Africa, because of meeting couple wrong people who ruin your day. There is plenty of good things: happy people who really want to help you, good and cheap food, nice weather, waking up for the sunrise and listen all the birds singing, new adventures every day…
Now we have our Nigerian and Benin visas (good news to other travellers: Benin visa takes 30min and you have it on your passport!) and we are heading down to the coast. After that its time to Nigeria. We will see how it goes and if we are able to get through the Cameroon border which claims to be closed.
Jasmin