We decided to go on a small tour of the South of Burkina, partly as we hadn't had a chance to get out of the city over Christmas as Lon was on IT duty, and also to reconnoiter for visitors who may brave the heat and dust to come and visit us.
An hour or so away (normally when the road isn't being repaved) is the town of Koubri, which is
Auberge Bouganvilliers the guidebook was quite positive about it being a reservoir side oasis of calm and we'd heard of people going there for the weekend for a break. It turns out that the auberge is a little past its heyday, and that the facilities and leisure activities are slowly decaying without anyone bothering. We however made use of the Connect Four set with additional coke bottle lids to replace the missing pieces, and read our books.
Onto the town of Po the next day - another place to miss if on a tour, highlights were the drunk man who joined us at our table at a maquis, and opened his beers bottle with his teeth, and the porn style sex noises coming from next door at the hotel (again the guidebook was optimistic ...
at the time of writing building was ongoing ..well at the time of visiting three years after the book was reprinted, the building work had never been finished, and again was slowly decaying).
Our third night was spent in Tiebele - at last a proper tourist destination.
Tiebele is
famous for its sukhala (colourful and fortress-like windowless traditional houses). Decorated
by women, who work with guinea-fowl feathers, in geometrical patterns of red, black and white. We had a great time, in the morning we arrived and went on a guided tour of of the Royal Court,
elderly lady whose house we crawled into - she is SO supple
grinding stones for peanuts and millet
fully equipped kitchen
in the afternoon we went to a market near the Ghanaian border Gueleoungo, and then on a circular tour through some hilly countryside near Tiebele.
There were a LOT of yams for sale!
The Kunkolo has huts painted on the inside in the geometric patterns, is really basic in the sense of the shared latrine and bucket showers outside, but had a laidback and welcoming atmosphere
the only downside for us was that every other visitor in the auberge was either dutch or dutch speaking belgians...
Our room
We heard drumming in the distance, and it turned out there was a memorial party for an important elder, which takes place some time (4 months) or so after the death, giving people a chance to remember the loved one, to our eyes it seemed part party, part market, but our teen-guide / stalker assured us to go along for a short while.
Despite the bed actually being a solid lump of concrete topped with a mattress we slept well.
Our final day away was at Nazinga, a national park known for it's elephants.
Hut no. 5
We arrived around noon to see a group of fifteen elephants bathing in the reservoir at the Park headquarters and camp - fantastic! We sat in the observation area watching them, until it was time for lunch, when we sat in the restaurant watching them....there is a swisher camp on the outskirts of the park, but I have to say, being so close to the els made up for the lack of running hot water!
After a nap we went for a game drive round the park and were fortunate enough to see waterbuck, warthogs and antelope and more elephants - not quite the majesty of the Serengeti...but still a treat nonetheless.
After dinner, the moon was full so we went to the observation point armed with a torch to illuminate the crocodiles eyes and saw four pairs of eyes, and heard hyena whoops in the distance - magical!
Home to Ouaga on Friday, where showers, internet, and the cats were calling us
