My "Saharagelber" 300TD

We got ourselves some more groceries before entering the park. We arranged to meet Alamata at the entrance of the park. He’s a very friendly guide, who spoke a little bit of english besides french. Before we took off I asked where I could throw away my garbage, an empty 5 liter can of sunflower oil. Alamata took it and gave it to a boy who brought it to the friendly woman who worked there. A bit later she came towards us and thanked us all the time, for giving her this can! She could probably use it for here household. She kept on smiling and telling us how happy she was with the can. We were impressed. Something we just threw away was of great value for her. We we’re happy for here too of course!

We had to get us some food before entering the park and the little village over here did not have anything (useful). So we went back in the direction of Tambacounda to see what we could find. Finding food in the South of Senegal is sometimes quite difficult, except if you only want to eat dry staple food. 10km away we found a village with a small shop. This means, a small cottage with some shelves with cans on it. Most of the things you find there are pretty useless, at least for us. We were lucky if we could find some canned vegetables of some kind. When we walk out of the shop again a boatload of kids are hanging around the car asking for “kado’s”. We decided not to do this, but it’s difficult sometimes. It’s way better to give it to a neutral place like a school or something, or maybe a church. You spoil the people over here if you decide to hand out stuff, even adults start begging for things or money. We continue on finding food and finally give up, we stopped at another small village and try to get what they have on offer. A odd old guy at least had some soap for us, so we could wash ourselves. Bread he didn’t have but apparently some child understood us and ran away to get some bread from a shop a bit further away. After this old man got something out of his nose he took the bread from the girl and packed it in an old newspaper. Yuk! That bread will be food for a donkey or a stray dog. Finding deodorant is surely something we can forget. We go back and before entering the park we arranged the flight for Melissa and Ramon by phone. Funny how one can arrange a flight from Banjul to Amsterdam, but is not able to get some daily stuff like deodorant or vegetables

When we’re in the park with our friend Alamata we drive to an old hotel here in the centre of the Niokolo Koba National Park. On our way to the hotel we already see lots of animals like baboons, various bucks, warthongs, guinea fowls and lots of birds.

Guinea fowl, Niokolo Koba National Park

Baboons

The beautiful Niokolo Koba NP.

When we arrive at hotel Simenti, we seem to pay a lot of money for a room including cold shower and no lights. There is no current at this time, at least not in our room. Low season thing, it seems, as they need to operate a generator for only a couple of guests. We won’t complain, it’s already okay We’re able to get 5000 CFA of the expensive 20000CFA we have to pay. I take the jumpstarter with the TL light light out of the car, so we’ve got some light in here, as the candles they’ve put in the room aren’t very suitable to lighten up the room. Then they promised us a nice menu with a three course menu, especially made for us. Now that would be a nice! It would cost a bit, but a nice meal is very welcome. After a while they came to the room to ask us to come to the restaurant, as the feast is going to start. They start to cook with a torch in the kitchen, so they didn’t have electricity either. He asks me to come to the kitchen. In a completely empty kitchen 2 men were standing with a bit of food. He shows me a can of sardines and asks if that is okay, there were some other cans too. He asks me if this was okay. Apart from the sardines, because we’re vegetarians, the rest was okay.
I was interested in how they could make a meal from this and I assumed they had more food somewhere else. The first course contained canned beans, an olive and peaces of onion and an egg, with some very old bread. This actually was not something to enjoy eating. The main course was eggs with french beans, somewhat better, it was in fact eatable
With a banana as desert this luxurious meal was complete. Well, they did their best. Then we understood why they tried this three course dinner thing… They charged us 5500CFA per person! That’s 8,5 Euro, which is way, way too much compared with the standards. After this tremendous dinner, Alamata joins and and we chatted together about the things to do over here.