Staying a whole week in Ouagadougou, waiting for our visas to come through was a bit too much so we were looking for an excursions from the capital for a day or two. Reading up online and in guidebooks we came across a village about 30 kilometers outside of the Capital called Bazoulé where people have been living peacefully among some crocodiles they considered sacred for over 600 years.
We rented some scooters for 3000CFA/5EUR per person, bought a couple of living chickens for 2000CFA each and paid an entry of 1500CFA, which all was cheap for the experience we got. All of us got to sit on the crocodiles back, hold its tail and stroke it for as long as we wanted. It’s tail and claws were surprisingly heavy and it’s skin much more soft than expected. Being so close to such a big and powerful animal was quite scary but the crocodiles had not hurt anyone the last two hundred years so it was all safe. When we threw the living chicken in front of them afterwards they seemed happy enough and we were ensured that there was no drugging or bad treatment of the animals (like tigers and elephants in SE Asia etc) that made them respect the people but rather them being smart enough to see that they would benefit from cooperation by being fed.
When walking into the village I also saw people making mud bricks which obviously were made for houses and when I asked my guide Paul about it he said that he also made his own house for free mud when he was only ten and that it took 4 days to dry the mud and in total 10 days for him and his family to complete it.
People making mudhouses for free that only take ten days to complete
Riding back with 80cc scooters through traffic and checkpoints at the highway went fine but when we got back to Ouagadougou the girls managed to crash their bike into a fruit stand making both the fruit vendor and the rental shop quite upset, but luckily enough they could just pay them off to avoid all the hasse of involving the police.
