Zakouma National Park is an African Treasure

The journey to Zakouma National Park is not an easy one. It’s 800km/500mi from the capital of N’Djamena, across the hot and dusty arid landscape of Central Africa. It takes 12 hours to get there. The first 8 hours of the drive is on paved roads that are filled with potholes amongst other obstacles like sheep, cows and camels and the last 4 hours are on bumpy dirt roads. The 4X4’s that transported us did not have air conditioning so we had to roll the windows down to beat the 107F/42C heat, which would have been fine if it didn’t seem to suck in all the dirt flying from vehicles in front of us. Even though I took some Dramamine, I was still sick within the first hour of leaving N’Djamena and had the driver pull over so I could puke on the side of the road. All that being said, it was totally worth it. Zakouma was incredible and I don’t regret going for a minute.

Zakouma National Park has been around since 1963 but has had a rough history much like the rest of the country. The elephant population has had the hardest time, mainly from Sudanese poachers, killing the animals and anyone that stood in their way in order to sell the ivory on the black market. Once a thriving population of 300,000 in 1970, it was down to a mere 400 by 2010. However the Chadian government has now been working with South African NGO African Parks and they have brought in the people and resources necessary to stop the poaching. The anti-poachers are essentially an armed militia that are there to protect the animals and the rangers as well.

At 3000 square kilometers Zakouma is a pretty massive park. One of the things that impressed me the most was large variety of bird species. It seemed like at least 10 different species of birds were flying overhead at any given time.

In addition to birds and elephants we also saw giraffes, buffalo, wild boar, civits, monitor lizards, various kinds of antelope, hyenas, crocodiles and baboons. I’m sure i’m forgetting some of the fauna 🙂 African Parks also facilitated the move of 5 black rhino’s into the park for April of 2018, after that you should be able to see the “Big 5.”

My favorite of all was the lions and their cubs. So awesome to see so many lions!

It was adorable to watch the mama lion and her three cubs getting a drink from the creek, but the cycle of life came full circle when we discovered a giraffe kill about an hour later. The giraffe was a full grown adult and the kill was very fresh. The lion ripped its insides out and left a cavern of perfectly sculpted ribs where the stomach once was. In the photo you can see the lion in the background licking it’s chops.