Zakouma Park – Gaoui Potter Village – 10 DAYS

Meet & greet and hotel transfer by your guide. After check-in, we have a briefing at the hotel lobby to fine-tune the next day’s program.

We leave Ndjamena early in the morning for Mongo toward the Zakouma National Park.
Mongo is located eastward from N’Djamena at a distance of around 450km over a partially paved road dotted with numerous isolated rustic villages. The landscape is dominated by Sahelian, savannah and mountains, and the ride offers a great view of this natural background as we approach Mongo which we likely attain after 7 hours’ drive. If we have more energy in the evening, we might stroll towards the “Queen’s Mountain”, famous among the numerous surrounding peaks, for its silhouette resembling a woman laying on her back. Night in PAM Guest House

Early in the morning we depart for Zakouma which we attain in the middle of the afternoon. Although the road towards Zakouma isn’t paved, yet the landscape is rewarding, mostly dominated by savannah and Sudano-Sahelian vegetation and owing to the road conditions, it takes around 7 hours to reach the park in a comfortable 4WD. In the afternoon if time allows, we go for a P.M safari before nightfall in the Zakouma National Park that is ideal for visiting during the dry season lasting from November to May. We spend the night in Tinga Camp.

Zakouma National Park belongs to one of the best-known landmarks in Chad Rep. covering an expanse of more than 3000 km². As the oldest park in the country, this impressive wildlife asset is remarkably still full of Savannah Elephants, despite the negative impact of the past sad history of illegal poaching during the turmoil era. Today, the park is the preferred habitat for almost 50% of the world’s population of the Kordofan giraffe, as well as a wide range of rare animal species like the Roan Antelope, Lelwel’s Hartebeest, more than 10,000 buffalos, Black Rhino, Lions and Leopards among other mammals. Avian life is also prolific here as you can easily spot Black-breasted Barbet, Abyssinian Ground Hornbills, Cranes, Ibis, Herons, Pelicans, Egrets, Storks and even eagles just to name few. We have a full day safari in the park. Overnight at the Tinga Lodge.

We leave the park this morning for Mongo which we attain after approximately 7hrs. In the afternoon, we have a sightseeing tour of Mongo. Located in the middle of a mountain circus and ideally settled on Mt Guera, Mongo is the second biggest city of the country, flanked by numerous villages nestled in massifs where customs and traditions have remained intact despite the strong influence of the outside world during the Jihad era. Depending on time, we may visit the local market, the Cathedral St Ignace, the Mosque or a farmer family in one of the numerous villages adjacent to Mongo. Alternatively, we may visit the ‘Queen Mountain’ if we didn’t had the chance to do so on our way to Zakouma.

Today we drive for N’djamena that is located 450km from Mongo over a partially asphalted road. Along the drive, we may have stops and encounters with some local tribes in a few of the villages flanked on the bank of the road. Mostly dominated by dryland vegetation and mountains, the road is also full of encounters with nomadic pastorals and farmers on duty, who still practice slash & burn agricultural techniques and other ancestral modes of agriculture. After a long drive, we arrive in N’Djamena in the evening and have dinner in the hotel where we spend the night.

In the early morning, we embark on a culturally highly rewarding visit to the Fula tribe in Dourbali. Dourbali is located a hundred kilometres away from N’Djamena; it is the core village of the Bororo tribe, famous cattle rearers best known for their annual spectacular and colourful Gerewol Festival that takes place during September. Notwithstanding, a visit to this Fulani Village is the genuine way to meet with the folks, share their culture and history, visit their chieftaincy, farm and market. and ultimately witness a treat of a spectacular fantasia as we get ready to drive back to N’ajamena in the late afternoon.

Early in the morning we leave N’Djamena and depart for the locality of Gaoui, located 10km away from the Capital. Gaoui is the village of the Kotoko people, more famous for their skill in pottery that is best displayed in the Gaoui Museum which we visit this morning. We then have a stroll along the village as we pay a visit to cast potter women and experience their creativity and abilities that have been in practice for centuries. From here, we drive back to N’Djamena for lunch in the hotel so that in the afternoon, we go for a N’Djamena city tour.
N’Djamena is the largest city of the country with a total demography of approximately one million inhabitants mainly of Muslim faith and as such, there are plenty of picturesque mosques including the Grand Mosque de N’Djamena which is in full swing on Fridays P.M. when the spectacular procession of believers make their way to the mosque headed by the powerful Imam.
A visit to the Cathedral is interesting on Sundays as you can experience melodious chanting and hymns from colourfully dressed choral groups and a massive horde of Christians also colourfully dressed as they practice their faith under the guardianship of the clergy or the Bishop.
We also visit the National Museum. It displays a wide collection of artworks and objects of historical value, including the skull of Toumaï, a hominid fossil found in Chad and considered a human ancestor. From here, we drive to the handicraft market where we have the opportunity to purchase handicrafts, and if time permits, we end up our visit at the central Market where we soak in the local ambiance. In the late afternoon, we drive back to the hotel passing through a series of colonial buildings alongside Charles De Gaulle Avenue.

Today we embark on an excursion to Lake Chad where we visit a few fishermen villages along the bank of the waters. We depart N’Djamena early and drive for a couple of hours or so to Guite, the Lake Chad harbour from where we board our boat. We then sail the Lake towards the 1st Island of Siaka, a fishermen Island where we spend some time visiting the dwellers. Later, we continue our cruise over Lake Chad, sailing further to the Island of Kinaseroum which the biggest and most cosmopolitan island of the lake. Here Malians, Niger, Senegalese, Burkinabe, Cameroonians, Ghanaians and other fishermen depend on fishing for a living. Although concerns have been raised about the negative impacts of climate change, with direct effects on drying the Lake, yet we might still have chances to spot some aquatic wildlife including crocodiles, hippos, bird and some rare species of fishes. In this cosmopolitan village, we pay a visit to the chief and visit a pond of crocodile (4 different species), before sailing back to Guite from whence we board our car and drive for N’Djamena which we attain in the late afternoon.

Depending on the onward flight, we pick you up at the hotel a couple of hours or so prior to your departure time and drive to the airport for check-in for the connecting flight back home. In case your flight is late in the night, we can fill-up this day by driving a couple of hours to Doungia where we embark on a pirogue ride over the Chari River to pay a visit to some of the fishermen village on the bank of the river. Navigable for almost 800km during the rainy season, Chari River meets the Logone River near N’Djamena and form altogether the most important tributary of Lake Chad where they concurrently flow. The River was revealed to the world by a trio of famous British explorers: Dixon Denham, Hugh Clapperton and Walter Oudney who attained Lake Chad in 1823.