Mare aux Hippopotames

The Mare aux Hippopotames is an oxbow lake on the Mouhoun, the Black Volta, surrounded by gallery forest and wooded savanna and designated a biosphere reserve in 1977, and it holds one of the more accessible hippo populations in West Africa: a group that spends the day in the water and is watched from a pirogue paddled out from the shore. Waterbirds use the lake in numbers and crocodiles are present too.

The landscape

• The hippos - the resident group watched from pirogues on the lake.
• The gallery forest - the woodland fringing the oxbow.
• The waterbirds - the herons, storks and ducks using the shallows.
• The biosphere status - the reserve designation covering the lake and its surroundings.

When to go

November to February is the cool dry season and the water is at its lowest, concentrating the hippos. The rains from June raise the lake. March to May is extremely hot.

Practical notes

Hippos are dangerous and pirogues keep their distance, so views are not close. Facilities are a fee hut and boatmen. The track in is rough and difficult after rain.

Nearby

Bobo-Dioulasso is southwest, and the Vallée du Kou is south.

Key facts