Well, I got sidetracked and picked out pictures of the animals we saw instead of scenery.
There really wasn’t much wildlife – some birds (the brilliant blue roller was pretty) and a handful of crocodiles that were pretty tame. Everything else was domesticated.
The animals from the Dogon area were driven off about four hundred years ago when the Dogon people moved in as farmers, cut all the forests for their fields, and forced the Tellum hunters out. Not sure about the rest of the country’s wildlife.
The donkeys pulled everything imaginable and loads that were huge. Horses weren’t as prevalent.
Geckos or lizards or ??? skittered all over the place. They blended in so well that you didn’t realize they were there until they moved. Usually didn’t find them inside our rooms, but the outside walls and patios of the hotels were alive.
The roosters were alarm clocks – the crowing started around 4 a.m. with one rooster in one part of town, spreading to other roosters throughout the village and ending back with the original instigator; they went round and round with their calls. The donkeys couldn’t take it anymore by 5 a.m. and added their voices – very strident and insistent. You knew exactly what they were saying! And then the imams would begin their call to prayer about 5:45 a.m. If your windows were open to catch the night cool (or you were sleeping under the stars), you better have your earplugs in to get any morning sleep!
And, of course, the mosquito! Didn’t get any pictures of them but did manage to get several bites when we were near the rivers. We were delighted that it was the cold season and the mosquitoes weren’t out. 🙂