We had gone to Mayonami to confirm the arrangements for sunday, and then
either catch the ferry and explore the other side of the river, or go for a
drive on this side. We met Peter and Henk, another couple of Shell employees,
who had hired a Beninois boatman to take them up river in a pirogue, and they
persuaded us to join them.
Here's Ru talking to a couple of local youths while the boatman was getting the
outboard ready. He was trying out his Baloumbou phrases and describing what my
video camera could do while I demonstrated. The last picture is of Peter and
Henk.
It was quite a fast trip up river but we saw many different types of birds, and several hippos in the distance. We stopped for lunch at a place which, from the tracks, was clearly used by quite a few different species to access the river.
The encounter with this group of hippos was one of the high points of the trip. It's quite hard to get more than one in a shot, and it was especially nice to see the little baby hippo.
It was then back to Mayonami, passing more birds and two types of monkey (Mangabey and Moustached). This tree isn't a baobab, but it is in the same family. It's actually a Ceiba pentandra.
We had a look in this quite backwater on the way back. These undercut tree roots show just how shallow the root systems are.
Searching for elephants on the way home took us to Colas beach where I filmed
the sunset. The logs that scatter the beach and play in the surf are
escapees from the logging industry.
