In mid-March, a group of friends and I visited Zakouma National Park in Chad for the first time. I have wanted to see this park since 2014 when I watched a video showing the incredible congregations of wildlife in this park.

Zakouma National Park comprises 3,000 square kilometres of savanna habitat. It is situated in the south eastern part of Chad. It is the country’s oldest national park, so Zakouma’s fortunes have been inextricably linked to politics and conflicts with Chad’s neighbours.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” ~ Unknown

Zakouma is in the Sahel which is the transition zone between Africa’s central rainforests to the south and the vast Sahara Desert to the north.  Sahel, means “the shore” in Arabic, and is a vast area crossing 6,000 kilometres across northern Africa from East to West. It covers 12 countries and is home to 400 million people.

Source: PRB.org

“Characterised by perennial river systems, rich floodplains, and seasonal wildlife migrations, Zakouma National Park is an uplifting story of revival for this ecoregion, which stretches across the width of Africa to the south of the Sahara Desert. Once a stronghold for over 4,000 elephant, by 2010 the park had lost 90% to ivory poachers. Nevertheless, in that same year, the Government of Chad invited African Parks into a long-term management agreement to manage Zakouma National Park, protect its remaining wildlife, and re-establish stability for the surrounding communities. With the overhaul of the park’s conservation law enforcement and community engagement strategies in place, the results were palpable. Wildlife numbers began to increase and by 2016, poaching was virtually eliminated. Zakouma became known as a place of safety, a source of employment, and a service provider to communities.” Source: African Parks

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” ~ Saint Augustine

The flight by Cessna Caravan from N’Djamena to Zakouma’s airstrip took around two hours.

We flew over vast tracts of dry savanna. March is the almost the end of the dry season and the rains start, in this part of the world, in May and continue until October.

The mountainous western region of Zakouma is very dry and characterised by granite inselbergs.

The map of Zakouma shows the dry mountainous western side of the park. By contrast, the eastern side is flat and is effectively a floodplain. It is hard to believe but this part of the world gets between 800mm and 900mm of rain annually and the eastern side is flooded making it impassable by road between June and December.

The park falls within the enormous ‘Inundation Plains of the Bahr Aouk and Salamat’ RAMSAR site, one of the largest in the world and an important stop-over for migrating birds and breeding ground for birds and fish alike. The park is largely flat riverine forest and grassland plains. Large pans, around which vast numbers of wildlife and birdlife congregate in the dry season, are scattered across the eastern part of the park.

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” ~ TS. Eliot

The cycle of life in the park is dictated by the contrasted wet and dry seasons. Heavy rains fall from June until October flooding the eastern side of the park. The flood plain has a mudstone base above which is a layer of black cotton clay. This base is key to retaining water in the rivers and pans once the flooding and water flow stops. In the dry months, the water levels in the pans and rivers slowly recede due to evaporation. This causes the fauna to congregate in flocks and herds around the remaining water, offering breathtaking congregations of wildlife and, from my perspective, some of the most impressive game viewing in Africa.

Our base for the seven days was Tinga camp. I was very pleasantly surprised to see it was positioned next to the Salamat river bed. The main lodge faced onto the river which could be seen through a green veil of Tamarind trees. The main lodge and dining area was completely open to catch any passing breeze.

March is hot in Zakouma averaging between 40 and 45 degrees centigrade from about 11h00 until 16h00. It cools down to around 25 degrees centigrade in the late evening. The rooms are simple but adequate because we spent so little time in them. The fan was needed because in the evening when we retired at around 22h00 as it was still steaming hot in the bedrooms.

In front of the Tinga lodge was the mostly dry Salamat river bed. Pools of water remained but were drying out fast which drew wildlife to them.

From camp we saw many Olive baboons, Tantalus monkeys, Western bushbuck and Northern lions down in the river bed. The river banks were lined with large Tamarind trees.

A Red-throated bee-eater in Tinga camp. This beautiful bee-eater is very common in Zakouma much like the White fronted bee-eater we see in southern Africa.

On our drive from the airstrip to Tinga camp we saw our first Kordofan giraffe. Zakouma is home to around 60% of the critically endangered global population of Kordofan giraffe.

Driving to camp we were intrigued by the Sahel acacias which looked like the fever trees we see in southern Africa but they have this red-rust colour to their trunks and branches.

“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” ~ J.K. Rowling

We knew that we were in for a special week in Zakouma when we saw our first congregation of Spurwing geese at a pan. The next image shows just a small section of the pan. The Spurwing geese were concentrated like this around the entire pan.

In the afternoon we drove south to other sections of the Salamat river. This is what I had been wanting to see. There was an amazing scene filled with egrets, storks, herons, guineafowl and waders along the river.

The Salamat river was teeming with fish which attracted the birds and many Western crocodiles. I have never seen concentrations of crocodiles like this, not even in the Mara river.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

This is the first of a series of posts describing our experiences around Zakouma National Park. Everything is different in this park. The first and most obvious difference is the concentration of birdlife. Doug MaDonald of DougMac Safaris was our guide. He is a Zimbabwean who was invited to guide in this park in 2017 and has been doing so every year since then. Doug is very knowledgeable, and showed us many fascinating places and mixed up our experiences with game drives, bush walks, canoeing and fly camping. Our group were entranced by his story telling and wonderful sense of humour.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and it it be.

Have fun, Mike