Zakouma Dry-Season Spectacle

Zakouma National Park, Salamat · Chad

Moderate6 daysAfrica~£4,500 est.

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Overview

By March the Salamat floodplains have burned down to a handful of pans, and everything that walks or flies in south-eastern Chad converges on them. Five hundred elephants — a herd that survived the poaching wars and is growing again under African Parks' watch — mass at Rigueik alongside thousands of black-crowned cranes, quelea clouds that move like smoke, Kordofan giraffe, roan, tiang and unbothered lions. It is the closest thing left to the Africa of the nineteenth-century journals. Zakouma runs on a short, hard season: roughly December to April, before the rains close every track. Days are open-vehicle drives and walks with rangers; nights are spent listening to lions from an open-fronted room at Tinga Camp or, if you can get one of the handful of places, under the stars at Camp Nomade. Heat is the variable that catches people — by April it passes 40°C daily, which is exactly why the wildlife concentrates. Access is a charter from N'Djamena arranged with your camp booking. This is a remote, high-commitment trip: budget £3,500–£6,000 land cost for six days depending on camp, and book close to a year ahead — the whole season sells out.