A day out with the elephants of Boromo
on Wonderous Wanderland (Burkina Faso), 21/Mar/2011 13:38, 34 days ago
Dedicated to Frieke, Birgit& Sybille.....with whom I shared five amazing days of frantic searching for elephants - a ghost hunt it seemed almost - in Mudumalai, India 2001 :-). The very same weekend the world‘exploded’ (again) - in Libya this time - we finally managed to get our very first African wildlife experience. It is amazing how small and ignorant and (sometimes blissfully) isolated your world becomes when you’re away from the big cities, from the internet, television, radio, newspapers. Ithappened to me before. The first time when we were backpacking through India and a terrible earthquake shook up the province of Gujarat and killed thousands. On top of all the distress a disaster like this causes, this upheaval also happened the day before a bank holiday. So no newspapers about. Nature obviously follows its own calendar. We were merely in the neighbouring province - lying on an idyllic beach (!!) - when we heard the horrifying news via a very worried phone call from our family in Belgium.... Weird experience: “Eternal sunshine on a spotless mind”, and so it was also for our little group last weekend until we were on our way back yesterday afternoon.The nature reserve is called‘Deux Bale Forest’ and is situated just outside Boromo, a town  to the West from Ouaga (180km) about halfway on the road to Bobo-Dioulasso - Burkina’s second main city. The nature, the quietness, being out off the city (although I absolutely love Ouaga, I am definitely NOT a city-person. I realize that now!)....and loads of wild elephants, playing and bathing in the river, only a few meters away. It was absolutely fantastic and definitely worth going back for some time!I could just not stop myself taking pictures or making video’s - yep, I was that mad woman with the camera (but in my defense: I was not the only one)......and no, we have no elephants roaming around free in Belgium, so I have an excuse :-)! I made a very limited selection here but will try to upload some in an online album very soon.Children playing and fishing in‘Le barrage de Tita’ on the way to Boromo‘Le Kaïcedra’ - a very idyllic hotel with little (but very expensive!) bungalows. As we are on low budgets :-), we slept somewhere else - "Sama camp", very nice place too by the way - but it is a great place to hang out and relax for a while, enjoying the cool-ish breeze, watching (and hearing)loads of different birds and....to spot elephants!Panoramic view over the river Mouhoun where the elephants come to drink and bathe during the hottest parts of the day.And there they were....so amazingly close!A very happy - but tired - me after seeing all the elephants :-)!!!And on our short walk in the morning in search of the elephants - we were too impatient to wait for them to come to us - we came across this huge baobab tree!Abdoulaye - the brother of one of the people working at the VSO office - and his white Mercedes, our ride for the weekend.Finally, some roadside shopping on the way back to Ouaga in the evening.