Senegal: Parc National de Djoudj

First thing Monday morning we headed to Dakar port to deal with the business of getting Lenny’s passport/temporary import licence stamped. We were lucky to get the carnet de passage document stamped within an hour and we met a few other overlanders doing the same.

We then said goodbye to our saviour Umar and set off back along the N1 towards St Louis. It felt odd to be driving north and not having the Atlantic to our right as we had throughout the trip so far.

Our destination was Parc National de Djoudj (pronounced Jude), near the border with Mauritania.

We arrived at the remote and rustic Djoudj Hotel by the entrance to the park, just before sunset, having made it through the final 15kms track of sand, potholes and corrugations. The hotel was built in the 70s and seemed not have had much investment since.

There was no wifi so we were on a 3-day digital detox, though the hotel staff managed to get Premiership football matches via Canal Plus, but as 3 of the guys sat practically on top of the TV no one else could see the games.

The huge flying crickets were as loud and insistent as a car alarm all night long and there was a constant stream of large, mysterious and noisy critters through our room keeping us alert throughout the night.

Our guide for the visit to the park early the next morning was serious and studious Mohammed whose superpower is an ability to spot wildlife at great distances.

With Mohammed’s guidance we were so lucky to see all the bird and wildlife we could have wished for on land and from a small motor boat on one of the Senegal river tributaries.

There are 10,000 pelican pairs in the park and we saw them up close doing amazing synchronised fishing with the help of their cormorant cousins.

We also stopped off outside the Pelican nursery which smelled as pungent as you’d imagine 10,000 regurgitated fish would.

Along the river we also spotted a Nile Crocodile resting in the sun, but sliding away from the paparazzi into the water after a few moments.

Back on land we saw several Golden Jackals, including a mother with 5 playful cubs and an Arabian Bustard which Mohammed was very excited to see as he explained it’s very much lesser spotted.

Mohammed lives with his extended family in one of 7 villages which were relocated in the 1970s to outside the park, depriving villagers of their way of making a living. Mohammed told us his father has two wives, nine children to house, clothe and feed, and when his sister’s husband died last year she moved with Mohammed’s young niece and nephew two young children to live with them.

No wonder Mohammed described life in Senegal as “very difficult”.