Things to Do in Comoé National Park

Night drive along the Comoé River

Your spotlight picks out the ruby eyes of crocodiles sliding into black water while nightjars flutter like moths in the headlamps. The air turns cool and damp near the river, carrying the smell of wet clay and hippo dung, and you'll hear fruit bats squabbling in the borassus palms overhead. It's not unusual to spot a serval hunting in the grass margins, its ears swiveling like radar dishes.

Walking safari from Komborodougou

The laterite path crunches under your boots while your guide stops to show you sausage tree bark scraped by forest elephants just hours ago. Vervet monkeys crash through the canopy above, showering you with dried leaves that smell faintly of pepper, and you'll taste the citrus-sharp flesh of wild medlars when your guide hands you one. The grass here grows chest-high and waves like an inland sea when the harmattan blows.

Hippo pool at Kakpin

You approach through a tunnel of strangler figs and suddenly the river opens up, twenty-plus hippos packed into a pool the size of a football field. The smell hits first - fishy and sour - then the sound, a constant chorus of grunts and splashes as they jostle for space. If you're patient, you'll see calves riding their mothers' backs like wrinkled grey submarines.

Birdwatching at Leraba crossing

Before the heat builds, the river crossing becomes an avian airport - bee-eaters hawking for flies, fish eagles diving with a splash that echoes off the sandstone cliffs, and the improbable shoebill if you're absurdly lucky. You'll hear the mechanical whirr of crowned eagle wings overhead while your feet sink slightly in the damp sand, leaving prints next to monitor lizard tracks.

Market day in Bouna buffer zone

Just outside the park boundary, Thursday market spills across laterite packed hard by thousands of sandals. You'll taste attiéké scooped with calabash spoons, smell grilled capitaine basting in red palm oil, and watch Lobi women bargaining in rapid-fire Dagara over bundles of kintampo cloth. The whole scene pulses under acacia shade while motorbikes buzz past like angry hornets.

Kakpin camp - basic concrete huts with river views and resident bushbabies

Komborodougou lodge - slightly better mattresses but cold bucket showers

Research station at Ganse - spare rooms when scientists aren't using them

Bouna hotels - air-con and cold beer an hour from the gate

Campement at Kakpin village - simple rooms but the family cooks excellent capitaine

Wild camping at designated sites - need advance permission and armed scout