ma-prochaine-aventure: Bandia Reserve

Shops at Bandia

herd of giraffe with babies

Buffalo

The Bandia Reserve is an animal park--most of the animals were brought from other African countries. The only Senegalese native is the hyena; they are kept in a cage for the safety of the other animals--as it is the only predator in the park.

The park has nice shops and a restaurant. We saw all the animals except the rhinos. I was told that it is more likely to see them during the dry season, because they do come to the watering hole then.

We heard the story of the outcast giraffe. He fought with one of the other giraffes and lost. The rest of the herd stays away from him, which we witnessed when he came over towards the herd. The herd ran away. It could be a sad children's story.

Scroll down towards the end to see the picture of the griot's scull in the baobab tree. Griots are story tellers, and somewhat mystical. This part of Senegal was predominately farmers, who disapproved of the girots not tending the land. So they would not allow them to be buried in the ground. When a griot died, the body was put inside a baobab tree. The first president of Senegal, forbade the practice and said they had to allow the dead griots to be buried.

There were lots of crocodiles in the small lake next to the restaurant but I didn't bother to upload one of them because it was hard to see them. At one point, the bread stealing monkey dropped a piece of bread in the water and a crocodile seemed to be aware of the bread, and the monkey considered his options to try to retrieve it. The monkey backed off after his risk assessment and left it to a bird to try to get it. The bird at one point darted into the water near to bread, but he was after a fish, which he got. The bird hopped out onto the bank pretty quickly. Just in case.