Niger - Another Tour On The Niger River
February 2005
After my recent post about a Niger River boat tour that we did in Mali, here´s one of a tour we did close to Niamey, the capital of Niger. A friend of mine who travelled with me on that tour had been to the region before, and therefore could direct me around as I was driving. He fingerpointed us out of town into what looked like the Sahel heartland. There was not a single spec of green , or any other color for that matter besides a brownish-beige. Even the sky had a light beige hue to it since it was Harmattan season (a trade wind that blows dust and sand from the Sahara desert south towards the West African coast). After leaving a smooth gravel road, we followed a bumpy version of gravel road until we came to a vast field with strange grassy bumps rising slightly out of the flat and dusty ground. It must´ve been one of the strangest sights I encountered during my African travel adventures: it was a golf course with lots of fairway and proper putting greens with pins and all. Only that the color of everything including the putting green was sand beige. The large swaths of fairways were of course dry, hard and barren ground. We continued our drive through the golf club until after a short while we came to a slight descending slope, that lead us towards the river and a lush and fertile strip of wooded land which ran parallel all along the river. A grove like forest grew along the banks and sideways beyond that was a strip of irrigated land with seemingly fertile and productive farming activity. We parked the car underneath the trees and walked towards a group of narrow buildings in the shade of the grove. It was a very pleasant leisure and relaxing zone with a distinct lounge atmosphere. A restaurant cum bar area with tables and chairs facing the mighty stream alongside a playground for children and swings hanging from trees. Considering the general circumstances this appeared like paradise on earth. We sat down and had a drink before we boarded a pinasse for our river tour.
The landscape around this part of the Niger River is quite different from the one we saw around Mopti in Mali the year before. Here, the influence of the river on the surrounding geography is more immediate and direct. Trees, bushes and tall grasses grow everywhere along the river and this in turn attracts animals, especially many birds. And of course the communities seem to thrive and prosper from their micro agricultural efforts, just like the ones we saw in Mali. The lushness of this scenery stands in stark contrast to the otherwise dominant dry and arid Sahel and Sahara landscapes.
Cattle are a precious livelihood
As anywhere along the river, boats (mostly pinasses)
are an indispensable way of transportation
The island village of Kanazi
A way of bird hunting that has become illegal
in many other parts of the world
A ferry
The sun just barely makes it through the Harmattan haze
Punch Mali or Niger into the search field above for related posts.
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