To get back on the beaten path (if there is such a thing in Burkina) we decided to take a ‘short cut’ through the Nazinga Game Ranch, a 94,000ha park, for a West African safari. DH has an absolute fixation with elephants, particularly since our East African trip a couple of years ago, and with over 800 elephants and numerous other mammals in a relatively small park, sightings had to be guaranteed? We knew that during the rainy season the road to Nazin...

The drive to Gaoua was supposed to take 3 hours (which we immediately doubled to 6) but it quickly became apparent that both our driver and our vehicle were a little off centre. The engine started overheating and prompted a couple of stops which drew crowds and plenty of loud advice but no actual fixes. At the next major centre we were encouraged to wander through the local market while a mechanic, who appeared out of nowhere, replaced the rad hose (which, of cou...

We had closed out the Mali portion of our West African Adventure and now needed to make our way to Burkina Faso and it’s wonderfully named capital, Ouagadougou (pronounced just as it looks- O-wa-ga-doo-goo, although the it’s widely known as Waga). We changed vehicles three times before hitting the border which was driven by no apparent logic but by this time we have been in West Africa long enough to not even question some of the daily idiosyncrasies ...