MAPA Project - West Africa Expedition

Eve guys,

Thought I would let you all know my upcoming itinery .

(Expedition because it has a purpose )

In just over 2 weeks time I will be flying out to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to pick up a Land... Cruiser and driving through all the national parks and protected areas into Mali, Senegal and the Gambia.

We are out there to help MAPA (MAPA Project) tracklog all the routes in, around and out of these parks and protected areas as well as logging important waypoints along the way (like fuel, banks, food, accomodation, river crossings, boundaries etc). They are working in conjunction with Tracks 4 Africa (T4A) to produce digital mapping for conservation and overland traveller purposes. If you have Google Earth it is worth downloading their overlay as they outline the national parks, protected areas, RAMSAR sites etc and give info on wildlife, park details etc.

They have all ready completed east and South Africa, now its time for West Africa. This is by far the most difficult region for many reasons, but mostly due to the fact that little information is known about the status of the protected areas and their condition on the ground. Our job is to explore, map, geotag and report this.

we have 5 weeks to do these countries while the other team heads south through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. I will post up some pics and a little report on my return as ever, my website will have more info.

see you all in a few weeks!

G

Have a good trip mate - stay safe.

Wow, sounds excellent. A trip with a purpose, good stuff

Good luck with it all

Thanks guys

right, we fly out early monday morning.

rough route has been outlined. Mapsource screenshot attached along with photo of or steed that the guys before us took a few weeks back.

route is to traverse south to Po and then onto the NP at Deax Bales, We then head back north crossing into Mali to see the 'Dogon Country' and then south to see the Mosque at Djenne (It was on Human Planet a few weeks back). through Bomako's Botanical Gardens where we hope to pick up advice on Baoule and Wonga/Kourafing NP to the southwest.

From there we cross into Senegal and Koba NP. This one is pretty big so probably be here for 2-3days. heading north we have 2 priority parks on the coast near St. Louis. If we have time we head down past Dakar to Saloum NP and possibly Gambia (Which I am hopeful for).

car will be shipped from Dakar.

G

back in 1 piece photo's to follow shortly

G

Good stuff

Mission complete?

yer just about. Mapped 7 parks and finished up in Dakar. T4A also now have 476 new waypoints to add to their maps for Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal. We covered 6625Km in the 5 weeks which works out a little less than our Morocco trip! but it felt like 10,000km! had trouble with fuel leaks, tank mounts, propshafts, fuel and breathers. Routes were rough. highlights were the mosque at Djenne and Dogon Country in Mali, the people of Burkina were also fantastic if very very poor. Im just trying to work out how to best write this report, but I dont know where to start.

I will hopefully get photos on tonight. Im slowely going through and converting RAW files and putting them on Sirocco's facebook page. wildlife 1st (allready up) others to follow. I will post here when I get time.

Hope everyone has been busy planning their next adventure?!

G

Start at the beginning, the rest will then follow quite easily

Sounds like an eventful trip, look forward to the pictures and report

no advance on the report yet. Just pulled some photo's off our FB page (Sirocco Overland).

Here they are. Still loads to go, mostly the Mosque at Djenne and Dogon which I have not finished sorting out yet.

1 - Piste to Nazinga Park. This is actually a national route called RN25!
2 - Inside the park. Sign for a barrage (watering hole)
3 - view frm the campment. Elephants in the background, I was watching a croc swimming away.
4 - The Elephant photos shown later where taken from this platform.
5 - LC 105 on the only hill in Burkina Faso
6 - breakdowns (still dont know what is wrong with it)
7 - fuel fill up. note the hand pump. we were empty so took 180 Litres of Petrol!
8 - Sunset
9 - Elephant footprints at Deux Bales National Park (NP) left from the last wet season
10 - Poor children of Burkina. The 1 in the middle has a distended belly from malnutrition. we gave them each a 1.5L plastic water bottle and a pack of biscuits which they were very happy to see. Even plastic bottles are rare out here in the sticks

1 - The Piste into Mali
2 - Dogon Country on the Bandiagara Escarpment
3 - dirty feet every day
4 - Beat this wildcamp. 300km from tarmac and town
5 - Ferry across the River Senegal
6 - African Axle Stands 20t SWL
7 - Pirouge out to the Luange de Barberie NP, GPS in tow to mark the track taken (who said it was all driving?)
8 - Night time reading
9 & 10 - Elephants back at Nazinga

1 - Olive Baboon Nazinga NP
2 - Bushbuck
3 - White headed Vulture
4 - Absynian Roller
5 - Gecko @ Zebrabar/Senegal

There are many more on FB these are just a good pick of the bunch. More to follow as I edit them.

should also add that I have 365 RAW files from the Nikon and 202JPEGs from my Leica! so these really are the best of the lot.

G

Griffdowg said:

no advance on the report yet. Just pulled some photo's off our FB page (Sirocco Overland).

Here they are. Still loads to go, mostly the Mosque at Djenne and Dogon which I have not finished sorting out yet.


6 - breakdowns (still dont know what is wrong with it)

Click to expand...

It's a Toyota

Amazing stuff. Glad you got lots covered, even if you did have setbacks I have said it before but I really do like the idea of a trip like this with a purpose.

1. River bed crossing 150m wide! Lucky it was dry (West Mali)
2. Town of Djenne
3. Djenne Life
4. Dogon Country, south of the Bandiagara Escarpment
5. Life on the River Senegal (south of St. Louis)
6. Majority of remote village within Boaule NP (Mali) there were many more that followed/guided us through their narrow cart tracks between mud huts.
7. Dogon
8. typically stacked minibus
9. Butcher at Djenne
10. Inside the mosque

1. The grand Mosque at Djenne, biggest mud structure (Adobe) in the world.
2. The Imam that let us in (for some Backshish)
3. Inside between the pillars (not even the BBC got in here for Human Planet)
4. Outside Front
5. Fishing Eagle at Djudj NP Senegal
6. Lots of Pelicans
7. Nile Monitor Lizard
8. Croc
9. Fighting crabs, Fiddler?
10. Warthogs

Trip Report finally finished

Can be found here: West Africa Trip Report 2011 Sirocco Overland

More photos on Facebook.

G