SAFARI - Zakouma National Park

A drive of over 450 miles in one day (150 of them on dirt roads) from the capital N’Djamena to south central Chad to this remote national park gave a taste of the real Africa with few tourists. However, the dust and bumpy roads and long hours in our convoy of SUVs was worth it! The road enters the national park and after over 10 miles of acacia scrub, we arrive at a clean, spacious and airy safari camp of a main restaurant-lounge area and a series of rondavel huts of 12 rooms across the central clearing. The rooms and beds are spacious, with freshly starched sheets (mosquito nets are obligatory) and the food in the central eatery is varied, plentiful and tasty - in fact, a pleasant surprise in the middle of nowhere!! The camp is run by a friendly and very welcoming French family, who earnestly want every visitor to have a memorable experience out in the wilds. The camp run game drives from three large Toyota off-road vehicles with banked seats for an excellent view of the wildlife. Game drives at dawn, late afternoon, and night last for several hours each and cover all kinds of habitats in the park. The variety of wildlife is surprisingly varied - elephant, giraffes (a rare sub-species), buffalo and a wide range of antelope are also accompanied by a richness of bird species from West Africa. With few visitors, the big game is very unused to people and this makes the spotting and photographing species a more authentic experience than the mass-tourist approach one sees in parts of Kenya and South Africa. All in all, a really memorable experience out in the true wilds of Africa.....