Giraffes

Ibrahim our driver & the giraffe looking in the same direction :)

The big male.

The little ones.

The giraffes are living free. I think the guide told us there are 196 giraffes in this area.

Hippopotamus

Des hippopotames se baignant dans le fleuve Niger. J'admets... on ne voit pas grand chose mais on ne peut pas s'approcher, il parait que c'est aggressif les hippos.

The lambs and the little boy

My absolute favorite. A spontaneous shot on the Kanazi island.

Vue sur le fleuve Niger

I like this picture. I discovered afterwards while looking at my picutes that someone had drawn a heart in stones.

The engineer, the mechanic and the assistant

Our red Mercedes before leaving the city.

Repairing the spare tire, just in case...

On the road

This week-end we decided to leave our computers, the city and go into the near bush. We rented Ibrahim and his red mercedes and off we go: "Les paysans sont en voyage"*!

Here street indications are easy, you have only 3 roads leaving the city: la route du Burkina, la route de l'aéroport, la route de Tillabéry. If you take the direction of the airport at about 40 kms you will find the giraffes. You take on a guide (at that point we were 6 adults in the mercedes :) and drive into the bush to come closer to the giraffes. These animals are not scared, you can come really close to them. After a picture session we drove back to Niamey.

In the afternoon we headed North: route de tillabery, turn left after the toll in direction of the rio bravo golf court. I haven't posted pics of the golf but it is funny because instead of the green, it is made of stones! We wanted to have a quiet time sitting under the mango trees along the river. It was in deed a nice choice. But as we met fishermen, we decided to rent a pirogue and experience the Niger from the river. They took us to the hippos and their village on the island. The little girls come to hold our hand. I didn't know how to react but it was just a simple kids friendship gesture :) cute.

*"the farmers are travelling". We got stopped for passport check at the first toll. And we presnted Karl as a farmer from the North. And the policeman, curious wanted to see how a farmer from the North looks like :) on the way back the policeman greets us again friendly, "How are the farmers!"

Journey to the heart of Africa

One of our trucks being loaded for Maradi or Zinder with plumpy doz coming out of a 40'container. The container is coming from Lome, Benin and was originally shipped in France. That's what I like about logistics: you can see things happening! Numbers become real trucks.

My new home

Streets

The street in front of my house.

Lezard africain

Waiting for the driver this morning...

Loggies in Niger

We are loggies and after one week you should at least know Niamey, Tillabery, Ouallam, Tahoua, Agadez, Zinder, Diffa and the corridors: that Cotonou is in Benin, Lome in Togo and Tema in Ghana.