Natuurfoto Van Der Hart

New Year started with our trip through West Africa. Beginning of January we flew to Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. There, a 22-year old Toyota Landcruiser (belongs to my cousin Gert van der Hart) was waiting for us. The deal was that we had to bring it back to The Gambia, but we had 2 months time to do so. So Ellie and I started exploring Burkina for about 3 weeks. First we went to the southeastern part of the country, to Parc National du W.

Burkina is a very nice country to travel through, people are extremely friendly and it is not overrun by tourists, to say the least. We were just about the only visitors in NP du W. I was able to picture this stunning bird (see picture above of  the Redthroated bee-eater.).
Our next aim was going to the Sahelregion of the country, in the  northeast. We had a very satisfying stay at Oursi, with it's sanddunes and enormous shallow lake with thousands of migratory birds. A little bit south lies Gorom Gorom, where we've spent a couple of nights visiting the colourful market and, lucky us, the Festifal of the Camels, where Touaregs and Peultribes gave a fantastic show like the big camelrace and horseriding (see picture).

Our last trip in Burkina was heading south to the Nazinga Nature Reserve, at the border with Ghana. Here we had some thrilling encounters with elephants. On the picture you can see a herd crossing the dirttrack in early morning counterlight.
More pictures of our trip through West Africa will be shown under Portfolio on this website.

After Burkina we've visited another fascinating country: Mali. In Pays Dogon we hiked a couple of days and try to understand more of this extraordinary culture. The picture below shows the houses and granneries of both Dogon and Telempeople against the escarpment of Bandiagara.

We also went to famous places like Mopti and Djenné. The latter is a Unesco World Heritage Site and well known for  its mudhouses and mosques. On the picture you can see a muezzin and a little boy walking in front of a mosque made of mud. Along the Bani River we saw quite a few Egyptian Plovers, very beautiful birds.

Picture below: boats at sunset on the Niger and Bani rivers near Mopti.

From Mopti we drove to the town of Segou, also lying on the banks of the mighty Niger, the main arterie of Mali. Beginning of February we visited the Festival sur le Niger, a fantastic event with a market, traditional dances and a lot of extremely good music. Some of the best bands and singers of West Africa were present, among them one of our favorites: Habib Koite (see his performance on the picture below).

An hours boatdrive from Segou along the Niger lies the tiny village of Kalabougou. The entire village is into potterymaking. Twice in a week all the potteries are baked in huge piles of dry grass. This is a spectaculair dramatic sight to see. (see picture below). If you don't know the story behind it ,you might think of something very serious that is happening here...

Mali is a fascinating country in terms of culture and people. From a naturephotographers point of view, Senegal and the Gambia are better, more green and lush on several places and full with birds. Although on the other hand I was able to picture this young Piapiac on a sheeps head, while we were still in Mali.

In Senegal we went to the very beautiful Niokola Koba NP in the southeastern corner of the country and had a great time there. At the end of our 2-month trip we were back on wellknown terrain, in the west part of The Gambia. At Marakissa River Camp, a birders heaven, I was very lucky in picturing one of the most beautiful waders on earth, the Painted Snipe. (see below)

We can look back on a fabulous trip through West Africa with lots of great nature and many lovely people.