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Bird watching in Senegal

THE RIVER SENEGAL VALLEY
From Saint-Louis to Bakel the river Senegal presents a series of great reaches in a circular arc of about 800 kms, through lands that are often dry, a more or less broad strip of which it fertilizes.

Apart from a few hillocks and dunes the region is rather flat and dull. Temperatures vary from 15° in November in Saint-Louis to almost 50° in June in Bakel.

The vegetation is scarce, mainly composed of acacias (a variety of which, named "verek" produces gum arabic).

From Bakel, a woody savannah takes the place of that steppe.
In this rather inhospitable context, the river Senegal with its broad meanders is the nourishing stream that flows from the Fouta Djalon down to the Atlantic.

Floods set to Bakel at the beginning of September then reach Dagana in mid-October or so.
The level of the river shows a general increase, up to 4 metres and the rate of its flow is three hundred times more important than during the dry season.

Travelling eastbound from Saint-Louis as we suggest you should do has always fascinated the traveller.
Indeed the first European ships sailed into the estuary as early as 1558.

In 1638 reconnaissance missions reached Podor ; at the end of the XVIIth century, explorers reached the falls of Felou (situated in present Mali).



The river may be divided into three zones from the estuary :
- the delta, from Saint-Louis to Dagana, very low area inhabited by Wolof, Peul and Moors.
- the medium valley, from Dagana to Dembankané, where the river is himmed in by steeper banks, inhabited by Toucouleur and Peul.
- the high bassin, whose narrow valley situated upstream from Bakel is inhabited by Soninké, Bambara and Malinké.

The History of this region begins with the first populations that settled in Senegal : the kingdom of Tekror was founded during the XIth century (in the region of Podor) and helped to make the islamization of the sub-region easier ; later the influence of the empires of Ghana and Mali was important, coming before the foundation of the kingdoms of Fouta Toro and, farther downstream, the kingdom of Walo.
Europeans established themselves in the country during the XVIIth century ; the foundation of Saint-Louis may be said to have marked the beginning of the colonizing era that was to end in 1960.
   
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