Yankari

Saturday morning, we woke up early (although not too bright) and gathered our things for a trip to Yankari National Park. Barbara and I grabbed our cooled water from the fridge, our food, and our bags, and met Becca and Marion at the van. We’d rented one of the SIM/ECWA vans and Michael from the SIM office had offered to be our driver for the weekend. Yankari is a 3-4 hour drive from Jos, and is located northeast of Jos in Bauchi province.

The drive to Yankari was the first time any of the four of us had been off the plateau that Jos sits on since we first arrived. Although we were very sleepy, Michael seemed wide awake and drove us safely. The countryside didn’t seem too different from on the plateau, and for the first few hours of the trip, the roads were smooth and traffic wasn’t too bad. At least, that was the impression I got when I wasn’t trying to sleep off the early wake up time. I did my best to stay awake with Michael at first, and after fighting off the sleep for about half an hour I succumbed to the weight of my eyelids and dozed most of the rest of the way. I did wake up when we drove through Bauchi, which is the capitol of Bauchi province. Bauchi struck me as very similar to Jos although much less hilly. Michael said it was a bit smaller than Jos, but we didn’t really drive around enough there to be able to tell.

A little ways after Bauchi, we turned off the main road, and a little further down we came to the gates of Yankari. We had to stop there and pay the entrance fee, for which we had to get out of the van and sign a guest book. We also had to pay a fee for the van and for the use of our cameras in the park. Altogether it came to a little less than $20, more than a third of which was for the use of our digital camera. A regular old film camera is 10 times less to take into the park. As we were waiting for everyone to sign the book, two Nigerian policemen came up to me and we started chatting, and soon they asked if they could have a ride to their motorbike which had a flat tire about 20 km down the park road, so we invited them along and put their spare in the back and drove in. The park road was paved. Well, I should really say it was paved once, and now the pavement had gigantic pot holes in it, so we drove with at least 1 and often both sets of wheels on the shoulder. It wasn’t any less bumpy but at least the bumps were smoothed out, without jagged pavement edges to rip at our tires. The clay under the pavement is easily washed away in the rainy season. Regular signs were posted indicating that “Animals Have The Right Of Way”. I later learned that this didn’t apply to guinea fowl. We dropped the police at their bike, and a little while later were at our destination.

Arriving at the welcome center an hour after we entered the park, we checked into some huts. Accommodations come in varying sizes at the park, and Barbara and I stayed in a round hut with a large bedroom and a single bathroom. There was no running water, but there were buckets and giant stores of water spread throughout, so used that. There was a porch outside as well, and there were baboons and warthogs wandering around. I haven’t mentioned yet that the moment we got out of the air conditioned van, we were struck with sweltering heat the likes of which I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced before. It was a dry heat that felt like it was well over 100 degrees, and the breeze that blew felt like it was wafting air directly out of an oven into my face.

Fortunately, the compound is located right next to the Wikki Warm Springs, so we changed into our swim suits and headed down to the water for a swim. The spring bubbles up out of the base of a sandstone wall set in a ravine down from the hut area. The water comes out at 88 degrees all year round regardless of weather. I was surprised that it still felt warm to the touch when I got in, but it was much cooler than the surrounding air and was quite relaxing. There was a small current, and swam up and down the 300 meter length of spring, sometimes just sitting in the shallow areas for about 3 hours.

Being in the middle of a nature reserve, the spring wasn’t devoid of wildlife near the banks, although there weren’t any fish. There were small lizards everywhere, although that’s no different than Jos. They’re more common than squirrels in Nigeria. The primary thing the spring had in abundance was flies, including tsetse flies, which would fly around your head and occasionally bite you in the shoulder if you held it above water. Fortunately, I didn’t get bit, although Barbara got a bite on her hand which was not so pleasant. I also saw a light brown bat flying around and watched him settle in a tree about 3 feet from the water. At one point, I was watching him and he stretched out his wings and hung by just one claw and I soon realized that he was getting ready to move so I stayed and watched. After a few moments, he swooped down towards me, and as I ducked away he landed in the middle of the spring! He began flapping his wings in a swimming sort of motion and swam about 10 feet along the surface of the water while drinking before heading back onto the bank. It was one of the oddest things I’d seen. A short while later the baboons came down the hill from the hut area to join us. We watched from the water as 50-80 baboons descended the slope towards the water, ignoring the stairs completely. How rude! I was expecting to see them jump right in and join us, but instead, they either walked along the bank or stopped at the edge to have a drink. They drank in a position similar to a swimmer on the blocks at the start of a meet, and I really wanted to get behind one and shove him in the water, but I thought better of it. Barbara and the others cooed at the babies clinging to the backs or bellies of their mothers. I have to say they were awfully cute. Much cuter than human babies. ;)

After our swim we went up and had lunch and then took a quick nap, preparing for the 3:30 pm Safari truck. At about 3:15, Michael came by and told us he’d seen the truck leave at 3:00 with a full load of students, but when he asked about it was told they’d have another at 4, so we waited some more. When the truck came back, we watched it unload about 50 people, and although large, they were literally packed in there. We got the later tour and had about 15 people, which gave us just enough room for everyone to have a seat and we were VERY thankful that the first truck had taken most of the folks interested in going.

We were told that the animals are free to roam and were wild, so anything we saw would be based on the luck of the day, so we set out with hopes that we’d catch a glimpse of some animals along the rivers drinking.

We saw some water buck as well as some bush buck, which people in the US would know better as antelope. One of the things we quickly learned with both these animals was how well they were camouflaged for their habitat. Eyeing movement was the key t seeing them, and once you saw them, it was often hard to point them out to other people until they moved again. The terrain was referred to as the savannah woodland, with tall grasses and many small trees in the range of 10 to 15 feet tall. There were also much taller trees mixed in, and near the river the bush was thick with flora and the trees were much taller, too. We saw many birds including the red-throated bee-eater and the gray-headed kingfisher. The latter was a particularly beautiful bird, as the non-gray part was a brilliantly bright blue with black trim around the wings and tail. Most of the birds fled at the approach of the large truck, so we weren’t able to get any good pictures of them. We also saw quite a few tantalus monkeys in the forest, and they eyed us with curiosity as they jumped among the branches.

After driving for some time, the guide suddenly stopped the truck and commanded us to be quiet. He then pointed into the woods and as I looked, I saw trees and nothing else. Then I noticed movement about 200 yards from the vehicle as someone informed me that there were elephants. The guides led us out of the truck and into the forest to get a closer look, and soon we were 50-100 feet from a pack of about 50 elephants ranging in size from ones that were about 10 feet tall to enormous beasts that looked as big as the hut we were staying in. The sight of these elephants filing through the woods in a tight cluster looked like a pack of boulders on the move. Several of them turned to eye us warily as they passed, but since we didn’t get any closer, they soon decided we weren’t a threat and they moved on. The elephants were taking a path that led them around a rocky hill outcropping and as I watched, one of the Nigerians on the tour with us tapped me on the shoulder, pointed, and said, “There’s the king.” As I looked up, I could see what appeared to be the largest elephant in the pack standing atop an outcropping of rock, surveying his pack as it went by. It was breathtaking to see this parade of gigantic animals from so close, and humbling to see how their leader watched over them. Seeing one or two of them in a zoo in the US doesn’t compare in the least to the experience.

After the tour, we returned to our huts and then headed down to dinner at the restaurant. Since the power had gone out in the entire compound, we had a candlelight dinner of chicken and our choice of starch (I had spaghetti while Barbara had fries) covered in a red sauce that we’ve come to love here. It’s sort of a spicy meat sauce, and probably tastes so good in large part due to the amount of oil in it. After dinner, we stayed up and chatted a bit on the porch given that it seemed even hotter inside our huts, but we were so worn out by the heat that we went to bed not long after. With the fans not working because we had no power, we tried to get rest in the heat, but it was not easy. In the morning, shortly after we woke up we heard a banging on the door, and Barbara went to the door to ask who it was and got no response. She looked out the window and there was a rather large baboon. I went to one of the other windows, and remarked that there were three more just off of our porch. With that, one of the smaller ones jump up at the window right at me and clawed at the screen before rejoining his friends. Seems they were looking for some breakfast, too.

We had some breakfast in our hut with no more interruptions from the baboons, and then went on the morning tour. We saw many of the same animals, although we saw a rather impressive species of stork, several red monkeys, as well as a pregnant water buffalo. We saw another pack of elephants that we drove a little way off the road to see. As the last one passed, we soon realized there was one more bringing up the rear. It was a rather large elephant and was probably somewhat old, and it hobbled with a limp that prevented it from keeping pace with the rest. Our guide mentioned that it would either heal or eventually be left behind to die by the rest of the group. The same group of elephants crossed our road a little further down, and the lame one had caught up by this point.

We returned back to the camp and went for another swim being joined only briefly this time by the baboons. We had some lunch and then loaded up the van to head back to Jos. The drive was uneventful again, although after talking with Michael for a bit I was very glad he was able to drive us. His wife is pregnant with their third child and is due in May, so they’re saving up for the expensive C-Section she’ll have to undergo as well as the post-surgical care, which is a total of about 30,000 naira, quite a lot for his family. The driving trips pay him well, and it’s extra income he hasn’t planned for so he can put it directly towards those savings. I told him that I hoped he enjoyed the trip, too, and he seemed to really enjoy his time swimming with us. We were very glad to have him along, not just for his driving, but also for his ability to translate when needed (not too often), and just for the chance to get to know him better. He's an awfully kind person and we felt very much like he cared just as much about us having a good time as we did for him.