Ivory Coast, an inspiring land of hospitality, warmly opens its doors to you to experience memorable moments. Ivory Coast is a cultural journey, the country has emerged its charms full of dance, art, food and community interaction. The visit begin on enthusiastic notes of cheerfulness at the place of a warm population, of generous vegetation still virgin and unexplored in places, of breathtaking beach whose purity of waters gives the sun’s rays a particular shine, of a diverse and surprising fauna.

Côte d’Ivoire, officially Republic of Côte d’Ivoire (RCI), is a state located in Africa, in the western part of the Gulf of Guinea. It is roughly in the shape of a square with a side of approximately 600 kilometers. With an area of ​​322,462 km2, it is bordered to the northwest by Mali, to the northeast by Burkina Faso, to the east by Ghana, to the southwest by Liberia, to the west -northwest by Guinea and to the south by the Atlantic Ocean. Ivory Coast is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, the country is the world’s largest exporter of cocoa beans.

Ivory Coast has 520 km of coastline bordering the Atlantic Ocean: fine sandy beaches, coconut palms, coves, cliffs, lagoons allowing swimming, surfing, sport fishing, water sports, sailing. The towns of Grand-Bassam, Assinie or Sassandra are the main seaside tourist destinations. In addition, towns such as San-Pédro, with the sumptuous Monogaga beach, and Grand-Béréby, which owes its popularity to the sublime bay called “The Bay of Sirens”, are also popular tourist destinations.

Côte d’Ivoire is modernizing its lifestyle and culture, also managing to do so without losing its identity. The country is experiencing an amazing economic miracle, which has led to a new image of the country that has refreshed the perception of tourists. The economy, mainly focused on the production of coffee and cocoa, experienced exceptional growth during the first two decades, making Côte d’Ivoire a flagship country in West Africa.

As a country with the most cutting-edge modernity, Ivory Coast’s capital Abidjan is known as the Manhattan of Africa. The city has the most magnificent buildings, the widest roads, countless vehicles, great bridges and ports, and a convenient subway system, which makes people re-recognize the image of modern Africa. A true tropical paradise, in the city full of modern buildings a stunner, shingled with starfish-studded sands, palm-tree forests and roads. Equipped centers and complexes are available to welcome anyone passing through, in a professional setting, for conferences, congresses or seminars. The cities most affected are Abidjan and Yamoussoukro; they benefit, in fact, from strong economic activity.

At the same time, the rest of the country is mostly agricultural, preserving ancient tribal customs and traditions. This dual unity makes Ivory Coast have the richest and most diverse cultural experiences. Culturally, you will be well served by the plurality of this modern culture with strong traditional roots which leaves magnificent artistic imprints; monuments, museums, works of art, music, dance, literature etc., witnesses to the immensity of our know-how.

Traditional tourism which can easily be complemented with cultural tourism: the Ivorian population is a mosaic of more than sixty ethnic groups, representing as many beliefs, languages, traditions and crafts. In Yamoussoukro, there is the Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix basilica, whose dome is larger than that of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The north of the country, with a Muslim majority, also has many centuries-old Sudanese-style mosques. For example, the Kaouara mosque, the Tengrela mosque, the Kouto mosque, the M’Bengé mosque, the Nambira mosque and the two Kong mosques.

The Ivory Coast, an inspiring land of hospitality, no other destination can take all your senses on a journey as much during a single trip. Akwaba is celebrated around festivities; songs and dances punctuated by the sound of tom-toms, copious colorful and spicy meals based on meat, poultry and fish accompanied by Attiéké and Alloco, the tasty palm wine extracted in an artisanal way, cola and chili. To the sound of our Zouglou music, you will live unique experiences from one region to another for maximum emotion and wonder.

The country has numerous national parks and nearly 300 nature reserves which offer a wide variety of wildlife and landscapes, from North to South. Since 1996, the Ivorian government has overseen a project to protect wild areas in Côte d’Ivoire. In addition to these, it is appropriate to add the sites and curiosities offered by the Ivorian villages. However, their sacred nature makes their development and making them available to the general public very delicate.

Top Destinations

Ivory Coast sits on the West African coast, overlooking the Gulf of Guinea, and shares a border with five nations. The south and the centre of the country are flat and lush, home to plantations, forests and national parks. To the west are the mountains, the highland town of Man and Mount Nimba, the country’s highest peak at 1,750m. Further north, as you approach Mali and Burkina Faso, the landscape turns into arid savannah. Other than a few main highways, roads outside urban centres tend to be poor and can be impassable in the rainy season.

A visit to ivory coast is a breath of fresh air and its tropical beaches and national parks are unspoilt by overdevelopment. The country is charming with its pristine tropical beaches backed by crumbling colonial relics; cool highlands home to waterfalls and untrammelled walking trails; and deep, dark forests where monkeys chatter and mysterious woven bridges appear overnight.

The Ivory Coast, this inspiring land of hospitality that is still green and fertile, gives you the opportunity to take a trip that will certainly make you grow in contact with a rich and generous nature that reveals its secrets to you. From the Ivorian coasts stretching from southwest to southeast, illuminated by the sun and bathed by the Atlantic Ocean up to Mount Nimba, the highest Ivorian peak, through mangroves full of plant and animal species, where the forest wealth of the land of Éburnie is expressed with beauty and grace.

Ivory Coast still has many potentialities capable of giving you a unique experience in a place of change of scenery that opens up new horizons for you. Ecological sensitivity, return to nature, interest in consumption and local life, etc. Your trip to the land of Eburnie In search of meaning, simplicity and experiences by combining itinerant tourism & ecotourism for your favorite outdoor activities (hiking, camping, observation, etc.) and discover the landscape, agricultural and heritage riches of the Ivorian territories.

The Lagunes Region

The Lagunes is a defunct region of Côte d’Ivoire along the Atlantic coast, around the de facto capital of Abidjan. It features several large lagoons, which provide access a little ways inland to the ocean.

Abidjan
Serving as the capital from 1933 until 1983, Abidjan is the biggest and most important city of Cote d’Ivoire. With a population of around 4,000,000 people, it is the second largest city in West Africa after Lagos and has historically been the economic power base of the region. A cultural crossroads of West Africa, Abidjan is characterised by a high level of industrialisation and urbanisation. Ivory Coast’s beating heart, Abidjan is modernized City with a tropical West African flavour: a seemingly endless sprawl across islands, peninsulas and lagoons, crowned by glittering skyscrapers. Excellent galleries and markets, a fine national museum and some of the best music in West Africa.

Sometimes referred to as the “Paris of West Africa”, the Abidjan Autonomous District, which encompasses the city and some of its suburbs, is one of the 14 districts of Ivory Coast. Abidjan has officially been designated as the “economic capital” of the country, because it is the largest city in the country and the centre of its economic activity. Many political institutions and all foreign embassies continue to be located in Abidjan as well. With its accommodation facilities – such as the Golf Hôtel – and sporting facilities, its lively night life, transport and communication lines as well as its impressiveness, it is the perfect city for business tourism.

Abidjan is a unique city in Africa. Its nicknames, such as “Manhattan of the tropics”, “Small Manhattan” or “Pearl of the lagoons”, which boasts a large selection of restaurants, hotels, sites and other reasons to visit, a city with one of the liveliest night scenes to be found for 1,000 km. The public zoo is very nice with loads of interesting animals. Abidjan also has beaches around the lagoon, with palm and coconut trees, in the Vridi area, which are very popular at weekends with the picturesque sight of the pineapple and coconut sellers.

Cathédrale Saint-Paul d’Abidjan is a Roman Catholic cathedral, which was designed by the Italian architect Aldo Spirito, serves as the mother church for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Abidjan. The structure of the Cross, which is winged on both flanks, is held in position through seven cables which are anchored to the main building of the cathedral which is in a triangular shape; it creates an elevated vision that the structure is being tugged towards the lagoon. Symbolism represented by the overall structure of the cathedral and the cross is of Jesus Christ spreading his arms, akin to the statue of Christ in Rio, with metaphysical significance of pull towards the ultimate trinity.

The external feature of the cross of the cathedral is also inferred to depict a view as though a devotee is bent on his knees offering prayers with his cloak flying backwards merging into the attractive concrete slab which is integral to the cathedral’s roof. On the exterior face of the cathedral there are fourteen panels of different sizes in many colours, which are made in terracotta ceramics with the Cross and the story of Christ as the main theme (as relevant to the local ethnic perceptions). These panels are affixed sequentially (matching the story) on the side wall of the steps leading from the lagoon to the forecourt of the cathedral.

The Museum of Civilizations of Côte d’Ivoire is a state museum located in Abidjan, the economic capital, exhibiting ethnographic, archaeological and iconographic pieces from all regions of the country. The Museum of Civilizations has a rich and varied museographic collection estimated at 15,210 authentic pieces from all regions of Côte d’Ivoire. Of ethnographic, archaeological and iconographic types, the museum’s collections are made up of various categories of objects: statues, masks, musical instruments, archaeological pieces, attributes of power, weights for weighing gold, everyday objects, ornaments, photographs, slave shackles, carved doors, pottery, textiles, etc.

Banco National Park is a 30 km² national park just north of Abidjan featuring many tropical rare woods (mahogany, avodirés, waffle wood and more). There are several walking paths and popular for trekking. Converted in 1926, this park has 3,000 hectares and ancient “sacred wood” lies at the entrance to the city, in the Attécoubé community, which has been conserved as a relic of the first forest which surrounded the lagoon in the past. A tarmaced road goes straight to the lake at the heart of the park and trails go throughout it. The park is inhabited and there are coffee and cocoa plantations.

The district has an abundance of night-clubs, maquis, out-door areas, and go-go bars. These entertainment platforms provide a musical ‘pipeline’ encompassing mainly DJs, Coupé Décalé and Zouglou, and, in lesser amounts, other local and international varieties. Formerly containing only local traditional varieties, Congolese music and Western music, Abidjan’s night life has experienced a positive cultural disruption in its music since the start of the 2000s, with the arrival of Coupé Décalé.

This musical genre was introduced in 2002 by Douk Saga and La Jet Set, with the help of Sagacité, created a phenomenon which has not stopped spreading and reaching out to the hot nights in the capitals of the sub-region. It has given a globally identifiable cultural identity to entertainment ‘made in Côte d’Ivoire’. The very popular Zouglou additionally benefits “Wôyô” spaces; furnished and dedicated so that the most famous, the Internat at Fitini’s and the Lycee at Vieux Gazeur’s, attract ‘zouglouphiles’ the whole weekend. Treichville, with its many maquis, discothèques, and jazz clubs, used to be the liveliest area in the city, but since the end of the 1990s Youpougon, Marcory, and Cocody have taken over this role.

Assinie
Assinie-Mafia is a coastal resort town in south-eastern Ivory Coast, a seaside resort in the Gulf of Guinea. One of the most impressive parts of Assinia is the perpetual battle between the sea and the lagoon. The Assinie pass and its exceptional landscape constitute an ideal relaxation for lovers of tourist discovery. This place breathes pure air, It is relaxing with an atmosphere lulled by a harmonious orchestra of waves. Assinie area offers you a magnificent setting lined with fine white wet sand.

The Assinie area starts at the location of the Paul-Emile Durand cottage in the west bordered to the south by the ocean and accessible by the Assinie-Mafia road. Opposite the town of Assinie-Mafia is a narrow peninsula (from 100m to 1000m wide) extending from the west and 15 km long which is occupied by luxury villas and huts. Access is by car, private boats, or canoes across the lagoon. The mouth of the lagoon which marks the end of the Assinie-Mafia peninsula is called La Passe where the high-rise resort and the smoking of tchoukourou is very popular.

There are beautiful houses built of wood and straw and bricks. Most of the inhabitants of this town are fishermen who live between the sea and the lagoon. crossing the Aby lagoon, there is a small lake located between very beautiful houses. Assinie is a privileged destination with magnificent beaches, luxurious villas and several high-end hotels which offer activities such as jet-skiing, canoe rides, towed tubing on the vast body of water of the Aby lagoon and mini cruises for visitors wishing to discover more.

It was the filming, in 1978, of part of the film Les Bronzés and, then, the 1998 song, in Dioula, Assinie Mafia (Yitzhak Rabin album) by the Ivorian singer Alpha Blondy which launched the fame of the seaside resort.

Created in 1986 by Pierre Dupuy, the DIPI zoological park, with an area of ​​7,000 m2, is one of the major attractions of Assinie. Stopping by during your stay in the seaside resort will be an opportunity to discover a space dedicated to the protection of animal species of all kinds. Crocodiles, snakes, ostriches, chimpanzees, fish and other deer, mongooses and monkeys are all animal species that you will find.

Located in the village of Mafia, the Aniaba museum in Assinie is a place of pilgrimage for those who want to immerse themselves in the cultural richness of the N’Zima heritage. There are many relics of the past, as well as costumes, ornaments, traditional objects, as well as a guide who will help you discover the history of the peninsula.

Ehotilé Islands National Park, created in 1974 and made up of six islands, including the sacred island of Bosson Assoun, it covers an area of ​​550 ha (not including channels) and is home to 128 species of birds, forest mammals, monitor lizards and, above all, a colony of African palm fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) and manatees (Trichechus), which is an endangered species. The park is included on the UNESCO tentative list.

Grand-Bassam
Filled to the brim with French colonial charm, Grand-Bassam is a town in the Lagunes region of Côte d’Ivoire. During the late 19th century, Grand-Bassam was briefly the French colonial capital of Ivory Coast. Because of its outstanding examples of colonial architecture and town-planning, and the juxtaposition of the colonial town with a traditional Nzema village, the historic center of Grand-Bassam was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.

The town is divided by the Ébrié Lagoon into two-halves: Ancien Bassam is the former French settlement, facing the Gulf of Guinea. It is home to the grander colonial buildings, some of which have been restored. The district is also home to a cathedral and the Ivory Coast National Museum of Costume, located in the former Governor’s Palace. Nouveau Bassam, linked to Ancien Bassam by a bridge, lies on the inland, northern side of the lagoon. It grew from the African servants’ quarters and is now the main commercial centre of the town.

Grand-Bassam has an important cultural heritage, mainly in the France Quarter, the colonial city built on a narrow strip of land between the ocean and the lagoon. It houses remarkable examples of colonial buildings dating from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in a varied state of conservation. The colonial city follows planning by districts specialized in commerce, administration, colonial housing and indigenous housing. The site also includes the African fishing village of N’zima.

As you stroll through the streets of the city, you will be able to: admire the Ceramics Center whose building once housed the European Union Circle, a focal point for reunions of settlers, gather at the feet of little Marianne de Grand-Bassam who has been immortalized there since 1914 in homage to the colonists decimated by the plague between 1899 and 1903 and paradoxically, you will be admiring the fresco and the statue of the women’s march from Abidjan to Bassam against the colonial power to demand the release of the activists anti-colonialists imprisoned “the beginnings of the leadership of Ivorian women”.

National Costume Museum Boulevard Treich-Laplène, the oldest building in the district is the Governor’s House which now houses the National Costume Museum. It was built in 1893 when Grand-Bassam became the first capital of the colony of Ivory Coast. Former courthouse Boulevard Treich-Laplène was built in 1911 and is particularly damaged by time. Former post and customs offices, the two buildings with their distinct eras are now united and host photo exhibitions, in particular old photos telling the history of the city.

The Grand-Bassam Ceramic Center is the former Cercle de l’Union or circle of settlers, built in 1910 which, at the time, constituted a center of games and leisure for colonial society. It was donated by the Ivorian Ministry of Culture to house the Grand-Bassam ceramic center created in 1982 by a group of seven artisans trained in the ceramic profession in Abidjan. Maison des Artistes Boulevard Treich-Laplène – Built in 1905, it was the first warehouse used by the French to store goods and trade. It was taken over by a collective of artists who decorated the walls.

Commercial zone of the France district and former Nzema indigenous village, the eastern part of the France district, houses the main old commercial houses of the colonial period, but also the Royal Palace of the Nzema chiefdom and the place where the Abissa is celebrated. The Pont de la Victoire, which has linked the France district to the city since 1928, is a metal structure 150 meters long and 10 meters wide.

Ganamet House was built in 1920 by a national of the Gold Coast (today in Ghana). It was later acquired by Mr. Ganamet, a large Lebanese-Syrian trader who made several modifications to it. The architecture of the house is different from that of buildings built at the same time, and the floor plan follows a typical layout of Middle Eastern housing.

Maison Varlet, built in 1918, is one of the largest and most imposing merchant houses in the city. The Treich-Laplène house was built in the 1920s, and at the time formed a homogeneous whole with the Édouard Aka and Borro houses, around a regular curved square open onto the lagoon. Built around 1920 by Mamadou Ketouré, a large Dioula trader, Maison Ketoure is the type of trader’s house with its oblong plan and its veranda gallery on two floors on the street side.

As a seaside resort, Grand-Bassam has placed emphasis on a key element to attract more tourists as well as international meetings for conferences and seminars. In addition to this rich cultural and traditional heritage, its hotel complexes along the beaches, its restaurants with varied dishes, mean that the city welcomes thousands of visitors from various backgrounds, who sometimes also come to participate in the various traditional festivals such as the “Festival of Koundoum” or that of “Abissa”.

The Northern Savanna Region

Savane du Nord is the northernmost region of Côte d’Ivoire. It is made up of the districts of Denguélé, Savanes and the Bandama Valley as well as the regions of Bafing, Béré, Bounkani, and Worodougou. The Northern Savanna generally occupies the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire, a largely-Muslim portion of the country.

This comes to life through eight magnificent mosques punctuating cities from the North to the North-East such as; Sorobango, Tengréla, Kouto, Samatiguila, M’bengué, Kong (2 mosques), Kaouara,. They all have the same typical architecture dating from 1741 and now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Through this discovery of the KONG mosques, a true neo-Sudanese architectural feat, you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in this era of expansion of Islam, conquest, crusade and anti-colonial struggle with the epic of Almamy SAMORY TOURE (1830-1900). This land of history has also seen other great men such as Captain Louis-Gustave Binger and President Félix Houphouët Boigny.

Bouaké
Bouaké is Cote d’Ivoire’s second-largest city, located in the Eastern Plantations region. Served by the Abidjan-Niger railway line which connects Abidjan to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Bouaké constitutes an important commercial crossroads, and is therefore home to a sub-regionally renowned wholesale market, the only one in West Africa. The city has a modern urban transport network which includes buses and taxis. The city also became famous through its carnival, a highly publicized cultural event until recently.

The city is animated by a daily market, called a “super market”, the Sainte-Thérèse Cathedral market where the surrounding villagers come to stock up on supplies and sell their produce, as in all cities in the country. Tobacco products, building materials, and textiles are produced, and cotton sisal and rice are processed. Gold, mercury, and manganese are found nearby. Cash crops such as cotton and cashews started to be transported in higher quantities to be processed in Bouake.

The goods, between the bush taxi and the sellers’ stalls, are most of the time transported by rickshaws. The government is stimulating this regrowth through policies, such as price floors, and projects to increase trade, including the construction of a highway to connect Bouake to the nation’s capital, Yamoussoukro. Roads were repaved after years of neglect, which allowed the transportation of goods to become an easier task.

The Bouaké wholesale market: the total investment in this market is around 23.5 million USD, with 10.5 million USD for the construction of physical infrastructure. The whole thing was financed by the European Union as part of the 7th European Development Fund (EDF). Bouaké is already the hub in the country for the yam trade. The supply is consolidated in Bouaké, then distributed throughout the country and to Mali and Burkina Faso. The wholesale market accommodates the trade in yams and other food products.

Bouaké organizes a famous carnival every year, the apotheosis of which takes place at the Palais du carnival. Bouaké by night has long been, before 2002, organized around the emblematic “Papadaye” maquis, where everyone met for long nights with beer, attiéké dishes, grilled chicken or braised fish and night -club Le Fokker 100. The city, like most cities in Africa, has many other maquis and allocodromes.

Korhogo
Korhogo is a city in northern Ivory Coast. Korhogo produces goods such as cotton, kapok fibre, rice, millet, peanuts, corn, yams, sheep, goats and diamonds. The settlement was on an important pre-colonial trade route to the Atlantic coast. The city is a strategic crossing point to Mali and Burkina Faso. Sights in Korhogo include the Péléforo Gbon Coulibaly Regional Museum and the woodcarvers’ quarter. Korhogo is also home to an airport, a large market, a cinema, a mosque, and a swimming pool.

The two main sights are the Péléforo Gbon Coulibaly Regional Museum and the woodcarver’s quarter, where wood sculptors can be seen at work all around. The Mosquée de Korhogo, the city’s main mosque, sits in the centre of town and serves as a real landmark. Mount Korhogo, a panorama hill of 549 m and highest point of the city. The sides of the mountain and especially its summit are also places where residents come to make ritual animal sacrifices. There is a sacred rock which is a place of worship for local people who practice indigenous belief systems.

Korhogo Grand Market, very active market presents the usual goods. The part opposite the SGBCI, protected by a large metal roof, houses the traditional pharmacopoeia (dried lizards, skulls of various animals, etc.). Market for traditional objects of worship, this market sells esoteric and mystical objects that can be used in particular for sacrifice or ritual worship. This small market is commonly called “chicken market” because of the poultry that is sold in large quantities nearby.

Gon Coulibaly Museum reopened its doors in January 2022. Looting took its toll, and the museum lost most of its parts. Those on display were saved or partly provided by the Gbon Coulibaly family. Despite this, the guided tour of the few rooms on the first floor presenting masks, musical instruments, traditional furniture, etc. is particularly interesting. Antique dealer in Korhogo, Haoussabougou district – Souleymane Arachi continues a collection of old objects, mainly traditional, started by his father. Today, ten rooms adjoining the courtyard of his house are filled to the brim with these objects.

In the village of Natio-Kobadara, which has become a district of Korhogo, almost all women work for the production and sale of shea butter, an activity whose women also have the monopoly. There is also a cooperative further south, in the Petit-Paris district. Around thirty people, almost exclusively women, operate a granite quarry with very rudimentary means in difficult conditions.

Comoé National Park
Comoé National Park is in the Northern Savanna of Côte d’Ivoire. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the largest protected area in West Africa, with an area of 11,500 square kilometers (4,400 sq mi), and ranges from the humid Guinea savanna to the dry Sudanian zone. This steep climatic north–south gradient allows the park to harbor a multitude of habitats with a remarkable diversity of life. Some animal and plant species even find their last sanctuary in some of the different savanna types, gallery forests, riparian grasslands, rock outcrops, or forest islands.

The national park was established in 1968, and in 1983 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The park was initially added as a World Heritage Site due to the diversity of plant life present around the Komoé River, including pristine patches of tropical rainforest that are usually only found further south. As a well-eroded plain between two large rivers, the land in the area is home to relatively infertile soils and a moisture regime suitable to a richer biodiversity than surrounding areas. Comoé has a diverse plant life and is the home to several crocodile species, hippopotamuses and migratory birds. The park is centered around the Comoé river that flows through pristine tropical rainforest in the south of the park.

Comoé National Park has the most biodiverse savannah in the world and forms the northern limit for many animal species, like the yellow-backed duiker and bongo. There are a total of 135 mammal species in the park. This includes 11 species of primates like the olive baboon, green monkey, lesser spot-nosed monkey, Mona monkey, black and white colobus, olive colobus, white-collared mangabey and chimpanzee.

The property contains around 620 plant species, composed of 191 ligneous species (62 trees, 129 shrubs and vines) and 429 herbaceous species, including 104 grasses. The park encompasses various transitional habitat, from forest to savannah, with various plant associations typical of more southern regions. Gallery forests, open forests and riparian grasslands occur alongside all types of savannah, which occupy roughly 90% of the park. The forest is composed of many leguminous trees. In the gallery forests Cynometra is the most dominant genus while patches of dry forest islands are generally inhabited by Anogeissus leiocarpus, Antiaris africana, Isoberlinia doka, Cola cordifolia, the nationally threatened Chlorophora excelsa and Blighia unijugata. In the flood plains Hyparrhenia rufa is the most common species.

The Southwestern Forests Region

The Southwestern Forests are an area of Côte d’Ivoire consisting of broadleaf tropical moist forestland, populated primarily by the Kru people (also in neighboring Liberia). It is made up of the districts of Bas-Sassandra, Gôh-Djiboua, Montagnes and Sassandra-Marahoué. Boasting a magnificent rocky landscape where flora and ocean mingle, Grand-Béréby beach is simply impressive. Grand-Béréby is home to the first marine protected area in Côte d’Ivoire, 378 km from Abidjan. 2 km further, on the Taboulé side, we witness a wave of seasonal migration of sea turtles coming from various horizons for the nesting season where they stay until the eggs hatch.

The trip on Lake Nero in a canoe kayak will give you the opportunity to reach the sanctuary of wild monkeys that you can feed and also to discover the fishermen’s craft boats, each more original than the other. The region has numerous beaches, wildlife and a rich forest around which has developed a gastronomy based on fish and shellfish cooked in an original way, according to European or local recipes such as lobster kédjénou which leaves no visitor indifferent.

San-Pédro
San-Pédro is the second economic region of Côte d’Ivoire behind the city of Abidjan thanks to its port and industrial zones. Largely developed from the 1960s, fishing is an important industry, while the town is known for its nightlife and its beaches. In addition to its economic attractiveness, it remains one of the most popular tourist areas among populations. There are very beautiful beaches in the city and surrounding towns like Monogaga and Grand-Béréby which are highly touristy places. Northwest of the city lies the Taï National Park, known as one of the last sanctuaries of the pygmy hippopotamus, which is listed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

San-Pédro is the second economic center of Côte d’Ivoire after Abidjan, because of its port, but also because of the presence of numerous factories operating mainly in the cocoa industry, in flour milling, cement and the wood sector. Tourism plays a significant role in the economy of the city and the Bas-Sassandra region. Many crops such as rubber, oil palm, cocoa, etc. enrich the region making San Pédro one of the most dynamic cities in the country. Fishing is also an important activity in the region. The city of San-Pédro has several shopping centers and sales spaces. It has two large markets for public use, one in the Cité district and the other in the Bardot district, the largest and busiest being located in the city center.

Since 2015, the artistic festival known as “Bollo Carnaval” has been held in San-Pédro where a range of artists from San-Pédro take part in this gigantic artistic, cultural and tourist festival of the second port city performs of Côte d’Ivoire. The Saint Pierre festival as well as the Color Beach, the largest seaside festival in all of Ivory Coast. Tawê festival which, in addition to promoting Kroumen culture, contributes to the tourism development of the Tawê village, full of unchanging tourist potential.

Sassandra
Sassandra is a town in southern Ivory Coast. Sassandra lies on the Gulf of Guinea at the mouth of the Sassandra River. The town was founded by the Portuguese as Santo André and was later run by the British, then the French as a seaport for timber. The town declined in the 1960s after San Pédro’s port was completed. Sassandra’s main industry is now fishing. Sassandra is known for its beaches and lighthouse, while the Gaoulou National Park lies nearby. It is served by Sassandra Airport.

The coastal region is covered with mangroves. The Gaoulou National Park is located nearby. In Louga, a village located at the confluence of two arms of the Sassandra river, 20 km north of Sassandra, buffaloes live in a savannah area. The coast has multiple beaches: Batélébré, Niézéko, Lateko, Labléga, Kadrokpa and especially Poliplage and Monogaga which are located approximately 60 km on the road to San-Pédro. Bordered by coconut trees, Poliplage unfolds its sandy expanse between the reefs sometimes forming modest capes where the ocean bar breaks. Sassandra is surrounded by idyllic beaches, this alternation of sand and rocks characterizes the portion of coast which extends from Fresco to the border with Liberia.

Toura Mountains
Man is a city in western Ivory Coast, snuggled next to the vivid green peaks of the Toura Mountains and surrounded by farms and cocoa plantations, this relaxed mountain town entices visitors to come and hike in the crisp mountain air, visit the tumbling La Cascade waterfall or explore the surrounding rainforest: a green world home to sacred monkeys and mysterious liana bridges, built secretly in only one night by young men being initiated into the Dan tribe.

Man is part of Montagnes District and is an important market town lying between mountains, including Mount Toura and Mount Tonkoui (the two highest in the nation), and La Dent de Man, popular with hikers and most recently, rock climbers. Man is an agricultural region, with many cocoa, rice, coffee, cassava, banana (plantain), and soybean plantations. The area is the largest producer of coffee in the Ivory Coast. It is the home of a UNICAFÉ (The National Coffee Manufacturer of Côte d’Ivoire) factory, and Nestlé operates several coffee plants in the area. The central market of Man buys and sells a large variety of fabrics (Yacouba traditional clothes, so-called Boubou Yacouba), and an endless collection of Dan (Yacouba) masks.

The main attractions around Man are La Cascade, a large rocky outcrop which overlooks the town known as the La Dent de Man (the tooth of Man), and the forest monkeys. Les Cascades Naturelles de Man, surrounded by a tropical forest, the habitat of many colorful dragonflies and a wide variety of butterflies. La cascade de Man, at the north side of the town, Surrounded by a tropical forest.

The monkey forest is a wooded area in which monkeys live. There are three mountains that lie near Man, Mount Toura, Mount Tonkoui and Le Dent de Man, which make them popular for hiking. Mount Tonkoui Peak. Rising to 1,189 m, Tonkoui means “Great Mountain” in Yacouba, a language of the same geographical region. Mount Le Dent de Man. Reaching an altitude of 881 meters, the Dent de Man is the symbol of the town of Man. It takes its name from its characteristic shape. It is made up of two distinct peaks, a small tooth and a large tooth, the highest.

Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve
Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve covers parts of Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. It is an endangered UNESCO World Heritage Site. The reserve covers significant portions of the Nimba Range, a geographically unique area with unusually rich flora and fauna, including exceptional numbers of single-site endemic species, such as viviparous toads, and horseshoe bats. Its highest peak is Mount Richard-Molard at 1,752 m (5,750 ft), which is the highest peak of both countries.

The reserve includes Mount Nimba, the highest mountain in Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea (1752 meters). It is located on the border between the two countries. Mont Nimba lies between the tropical forest and the West African savannah zone. It is part of an archipelago of peaks and plateaus, a secluded refuge covered by Guinean montane forest at a higher elevation, which rises steeply above undulating lowland forest plains.

The Nimba Range has a sub-equatorial montane climate. Temperature changes extremely with altitude, with a daytime maximum ranging between 24 °C and 33 °C, and the nightly minimum can fall below 10 °C. Some parts of the reserve receive significantly less precipitation, due to rain-shadow effect of the high ridge. In general, southern slopes are moister than the leeward northern ones, which are affected by dry Harmattan wind from the Sahara. The Nimba Range, as well as the reserve, has exceptional microclimatic diversity.

Mount Nimba is covered by dense forests, with mountain pastures at its foot. These habitats are especially rich in flora and fauna, with several endemic species such as the viviparous frog and chimpanzees that use stones as instruments. The endangered pygmy hippopotamus, many species of monkeys, buffalo and duiker can also be found here. There are also said to be some herds of elephants.

Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve lies within the Guinean Forests of West Africa Biodiversity Hotspot. It harbours an especially rich flora and fauna, and it is the home of more than 2000 vascular plant species, 680 vertebrate species, 132 of which are mammals, and to more than 2,500 invertebrate species. The reserve is a subject of biological surveys, because there are still large numbers of unknown species.

Terrestrial ecoregions within the reserve include Western Guinean lowland forest, Guinean montane forest, Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, and West Sudanian savanna. The Nimba Range is a part of a distinct freshwater ecoregion with a high portion of endemic aquatic species. Terrestrial vegetation varies with altitude and cardinal orientation.

Taï National Park
Taï National Park is in Côte d’Ivoire, in the southwest of the country about 100 km in from the coast and near the Liberian border. It is a large park at 4,540 km², containing tropical evergreen forest. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List and is also listed as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It is one of the world’s largest protected areas of virgin rainforest and has very diverse flora and fauna.

The park consists of 4,540 square kilometers of tropical evergreen forest located at the south western corner of Côte d’Ivoire, bordering Liberia. Altitudes vary from 80 meters to 396 meters. The park is situated on a Precambrian granite peneplain of migmatites, biotites and gneiss which slopes down from the gently undulating drier north to more deeply dissected land in the south where the rainfall is heavy. This plateau at between 150 and 200 meters is broken by several granite inselbergs formed from plutonic intrusions, including the Mont Niénokoué in the southwest.

A large zone of varied schists runs north-east to south-west across the park, dissected by tributaries of the main watercourses which run parallel to it: the N’zo, Meno and Little Hana and Hana rivers, all draining southwest to the river Cavally. In the wet season these rivers are wide, but in the dry season become shallow streams. The northern border of the adjoining N’Zo Faunal Reserve is formed by the large reservoir behind the Buyo Dam on the N’zo and Sassandra rivers. There is some swamp forest in the northwest of the park and in N’zo. The soils are ferralitic, generally leached and of low fertility. In the southern valleys there are hydromorphic gley and more fertile alluvial soils.

The park is one of the last remaining portions of the vast primary Upper Guinean rain forest, it is the largest island of forest remaining in West Africa remaining relatively intact. The park contains some 1,300 species of higher plants of which 54% occur only in the Guinean zone. The vegetation is predominantly dense evergreen ombrophilous forest of Upper Guinean type of 40–60 m emergent trees with massive trunks and large buttresses or stilt roots. Two main types of forest can be recognised grading from diverse moist evergreen forest with leguminous trees in the southern third to moist semi-evergreen forest in the north.

The fauna is fairly typical of West African forests but very diverse, nearly 1,000 vertebrate species being found. The park contains 140 species of mammal and 47 of the 54 species of large mammal known to occur in the Guinean rain forest, including twelve regional endemics and five threatened species. The region’s isolation between two major rivers has added to its particular character.

The Dans, indigenous people of the region among whom “sacred beings” remain, represented by a diversity of masks; singers (generally decorated with bells), griots, war, dancers, sacred. They express the majesty, the wisdom, the mystery of the supernatural forces which animate them. They are responsible for showing the invisible. They are involved in very specific ceremonies, rites of passage, purification, sacrifice, initiation, conjuration…

The forest plants still play a large role in the lives of people in the Taï region. The fruit of Thaumatococcus daniellii locally known as katamfe or katempfe, yoruba or soft cane is used in traditional medicine and contains a protein substance five thousand times sweeter than sugar cane. The bark of the Terminalia superba, or “tree of malaria”, is used by the ethnic Kroumen for the treatment of malaria. This means that the park is an attic of genetic potential not yet explored by natural science and medicine.

The Eastern Plantations Region

The Eastern Plantations area Côte d’Ivoire is the partially cultivated area stretches to the east of the Bandama River and Lac de Kossou to the border with Ghana. It is made up of the autonomous district of Yamoussoukro, the Lakes district as well as the regions of Indénié-Djuablin and Gontougo.

Yamoussoukro
Yamoussoukro is the capital of Côte d’Ivoire and is perhaps the single most bizarre modern city on Earth. A majestic city with its Notre Dame de la Paix basilica, symbolizes ethnocultural mixing. Yamoussoukroa became the political capital of Côte d’Ivoire in March 1983, and the birthplace of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. It is the only city in Côte d’Ivoire to have benefited from a personalized urban plan, which differentiates it from the others.

Its extensive layout is distinguished by its wide avenues, often lined with rows of sometimes double trees, wide aisles and sometimes grassed and planted with ornamental shrubs, and by its numerous wooded areas of varied species, true “urban forests”. The main infrastructures, each more imposing than the other, are: the Prefecture to the north, the Foundation to the south, the Presidential Hotel to the east and the Basilica to the west. The first letters of each building placed end to end form the initials of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Yamoussoukro is also a crossroads and cosmopolitan city, located in the center of Ivory Coast in V Baoulé. The town is equipped with a market which operates daily and where the surrounding villagers come to stock up on supplies and sell their produce. The population is a clever mix of peoples of diverse origins. The art of weaving Tanny (artisanal loincloth) and local gastronomy attracts many visitors.

The public gardens, the Fondation Felix Houphouet-Boigny and the old Presidential Palace are all impressive results of public expenditures during Houphouet-Boigny’s rule. The town of Yamoussoukro hosted the Adja Swa museum, the most important in the country after the national museum of Abidjan: One could admire masks, musical instruments, Baoulé statues and multiple objects there. Also noteworthy are the Kossou Dam, the PDCI-RDA House, the schools of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute, the Town Hall, the Protestant Temple, the Mosque, and the Palace of Hosts.

Among the places of worship are predominantly Christian churches and temples: Roman Catholic Diocese of Yamoussoukro (Catholic Church), United Methodist Church Ivory Coast (World Methodist Council), Union of Missionary Baptist Churches in Ivory Coast (Baptist World Alliance), Assemblies of God. There are also Muslim mosques. Yamoussoukro is the site of the largest Christian church in the world: The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, consecrated by Pope John Paul II on 10 September 1990.

However, the Ivorian administrative capital is a disproportionate and somewhat neglected city. It is a large grid of paved streets and lights with almost nothing at all in between them. Punctuated by immense, almost empty official buildings and traversed by avenues that are far too vast which suddenly lead you into the middle of the bush, there is an atmosphere of a ghost capital.

One of the largest places of Christian worship on the planet, the Notre-Dame de la Paix basilica, built on 130 hectares and equipped with 8,400 m2 of stained glass windows including the one represents the face of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, air conditioning, tubular elevators in the columns, marble and precious wood. It exceeds Saint-Pierre de Rome by 17 m, and rises 158 m above the surrounding vegetation. The floor of its square is made entirely of marble from Italy and it has 14,000 m2 of marble. With its 600,000 m3, it constitutes the largest volume ever provided with sound in the world. It is accessed by a 1 km long marble path which crosses 37 hectares of French gardens.

Fondation Félix-Houphouët-Boigny, this gigantic building houses amphitheaters (including one with two thousand seats), meeting rooms, lounges and offices, to accommodate all official and private meetings. These infrastructures are largely underutilized. South site of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute, its imposing arcades and futuristic architecture make it a particularly interesting part of the campus to visit.

House of the PDCI-RDA, this Party House is located between the President Golf Club and the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Foundation for Peace Research. It is located in the middle of an eighteen hectare park, on a hill from which the view extends over a large part of Yamoussoukro. Inaugurated in 1972 and became the Institute of Political Studies of the PDCI-RDA in 1998, the building was abandoned and is now falling into ruins.

The Toumbokro plantations form an orchard planted with 1,500 ha of cocoa trees and 527 ha of coffee trees. Initially, they constituted a set of 150 ha which belonged to a settler. They were bought by the young Félix Houphouët-Boigny, then a doctor, and enlarged to reach today’s surface area. The employees have housing, a school, a dispensary and a market on site.

Guiglo Park is located near the private residence of the former President of the Republic, in the northeast of the city. It is a 150 ha plantation of coffee, cocoa, banana and kola trees created in 1927 and completely fenced. It was named Guiglo, in memory of the passage of the young doctor Félix Houphouët-Boigny in the locality of the same name.

Cultural Tourism

The diverse culture of Ivory Coast, a coastal West African country bordered by Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea, is exemplified by a multitude of ethnic groups, events, festivals, music, and art. The country’s strong cultural and political ties to France mean that Ivorians are at once fascinated by the West and fiercely proud of their own indigenous customs, creeds and artistic modes. Such hybridity is a delight to experience.

Côte d’Ivoire is a nation of artists and throughout the country talented craftspeople perfect their wares using methods unchanged for centuries, and villagers from different ethnic groups perform vibrant dances, not only to celebrate but also to mourn. In the high flying metropolis of Abidjan, meanwhile, the air throngs with reggae, jazz, Afrobeat and innovative coupé-decalé, a style and music movement that evolved during the long civil war.

Ivory Coast strikes vistors with its socio-cultural, economic and architectural contrasts. There is a chasm between the hyper modernism, even the futurism of certain districts of Abidjan, the neo-classicism of Yamoussoukro and the traditional habitat of remote villages. In Ivory Coast, everyone can find something to satisfy their interests: relaxation, fishing, photogenic landscapes and ethnological, artisanal or agricultural discoveries…

Music
The traditional music style of many of the ethnic groups of Ivory Coast is characterized by a series of rhythms and melodies that occur simultaneously, without one dominating the other. Music is used in many aspects of the culture; the Dan celebrate rice, death, marriage, birth, and weather all with music. Instruments include the Talking drum, djembe, Kpalogo, Shekere (Youroo), Akombe, and cleavers, and are typically made with local materials, such as gourds, animal skins, and horns. In the past, music has been the main forté of one social group, the griot (village entertainers). Ivory Coast’s Alpha Blondy, the world-famous reggae artist, is probably the country’s best known singer, though his music is not necessarily representative.

Masks are a prevalent art form in Ivory Coast. The variety and intricacy of masks created by the people of Ivory Coast is rivaled by none. Masks have many purposes. They are used mostly for representative reasons; they can symbolize lesser deities, the souls of the deceased, and even caricatures of animals. They are considered sacred and very dangerous; as such, only certain powerful individuals and families are permitted to own them, and only specially-trained individuals may wear the masks. It is held to be dangerous for others to wear ceremonial masks, because it is believed that each mask has a soul, or life force, and that when a person’s face comes in contact with the inside of the mask, the person is transformed into the entity the mask represents. The Baoulé, the Dan (or Yacouba) and the Senoufo are all known for their wooden carvings.

Literature
Côte d’Ivoire presents an abundant literature with a great diversity of styles and its proverbs, supported by relatively solid editorial infrastructures and authors of different notorieties. The most famous of these authors are Bernard Dadié, journalist, storyteller, playwright, novelist and poet who has dominated Ivorian literature since the 1930s, Aké Loba (L’Étudiant noir, 1960) and Ahmadou Kourouma (Les Soleils des independances, 1968).) who won the Inter Book Prize in 1998 for his work which has become a great classic of the African continent, Waiting for the vote of wild beasts.

Added to these is a second generation of increasingly widely read authors including Véronique Tadjo, Tanella Boni, Isaie Biton Koulibaly, Maurice Bandaman, Camara Nangala… A third generation is already making its mark with authors such as Sylvain Kean Zoh (The Way of My Street, 2002 and The Spring of the Faded Flower, 2009) or Josué Guébo (Gold has never been a metal, 2009 and My country, this evening, 2011).

Sport
Many sporting disciplines are practiced in the country. Various possibilities for playing golf exist with the golf courses of Abidjan, Yamoussoukro and San-Pédro which offer four courses of 9 to 18 holes. Every year, an international open, with the Félix Houphouët-Boigny prize, is organized and attracts well-known participants. The lagoon bodies of water and the sea also offer real sporting possibilities, including sport fishing, diving and spearfishing, surfing, sailing, windsurfing, canoeing and even beach-going volleyball.

Horse riding as well as motor sports (Bandama rally, motocross) are also practiced in the country. Handball, basketball, volleyball, rugby, athletics and tennis are among the sports disciplines also practiced in Côte d’Ivoire. However, football remains the king sport in Ivory Coast. It attracts large crowds and unleashes passions. This sport, popular even in the most remote areas of the country, is widely practiced by everyone as a sport of social cohesion.

Events and festivals
The Fêtes des Masques, (Festival of Masks) held in December in the region of Man is one of Ivory Coast’s biggest and best-known festivals. Competitions between villages are held to find the best dancers, and to pay homage to the forest spirits embodied in the elaborate masks. Another important event is the week-long carnival in Bouaké each March. In April, there is the Fête du Dipri

The primary Muslim holiday is Ramadan, a month when everyone fasts between sunrise and sunset, following the fourth pillar of Islam. Ramadan ends with a huge feast, Eid al-Fitr, where everyone prays together, visits friends, gives presents and eats.

Gastronomy

The traditional diet in Ivory Coast is very similar to that of neighboring countries in its reliance on grains and tubers, but Ivorians have a particular kind of small, open-air restaurant called a maquis that is unique to them. Attiéké (grated cassava) is a popular Ivorian side dish. Maquis normally feature braised chicken and fish smothered in onions and tomatoes, served with attiéké, or kedjenou, a chicken dish made with vegetables and a mild sauce. One of the tastiest street-vended foods is aloko, which is a ripe banana in palm oil, spiced with steamed onions and chili, and eaten alone or with grilled fish. Bangui is a local palm wine.

The gastronomy of Côte d’Ivoire is a manifestation of its culture which features different dishes from all the ethnic groups that make up the country’s population. The culinary specialties have also been influenced by those of the countries of the sub-region, which are strongly represented on Ivorian soil. Most large cities have many French, Lebanese, Chinese, Italian, North African, African, etc. restaurants. Spicy Ivorian cuisine highlights local products in a festive atmosphere so as to share with others a rewarding cultural taste experience and to express Ivorian hospitality in a very beautiful way.

In Ivory Coast, eating is celebrating because Ivorian cuisine responds to much more than the simple need for sustenance. Eating Ivorian means experiencing a moment of pure delight in a festive, warm and friendly atmosphere. The meals are colorful, varied, tasty, spicy, sometimes sweet or spicy and finally, they are fully nutritious. For an insider as well as a long-time fan, Ivorian cuisine always has something to awaken all the senses.

For tourists whose food and beverage tasting is one of the main reasons to visit a new destination, it is the destination to take your taste buds on a journey to various gastronomic styles supported by various musical sounds. Thus many regional dishes have developed to the point of being known and recognized internationally, Ivorian-style braised chicken and fish accompanied by Atiéké, chicken kédjénou stewed with vegetables, banana or yam foutou with seed sauce, cassava placali with okra sauce, sometimes giving rise to variations from one region to another.

These very popular dishes are found both on the menus of high tables but also on the menu of maquis, a type of restaurant serving as a place for reunions and socializing, often in the open air, generally open day and night. Street food is not left out with alloco, garba, round-trip fritters, braised mutton and beef choukouya, etc. and their specialized maquis, allocodrome, garbadrome, etc. Ivorian cuisine is rich and the strong gastronomic culture is constantly celebrated by the many festivals. Lovers of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish, lovers of sauces and soups, subscribers to kebabs and pizzas, etc.

Ivory Coast cuisine, which fuses French fine dining with traditional African ingredients and techniques. The choice is far broader and the ingredients generally of higher quality than neighbouring countries such as Ghana and Guinea. The most common dishes are juicy barbecued meat and fish, and hearty stews liberally dosed with palm oil and accompanied by either rice or foutou, a kind of dumpling made from pounded cassava and a touch of plantain, which gives the concoction a slightly sweet undertone.

A rarer alternative is toh, a maize-based foutou with the consistency of blancmange. The ubiquitous main lunch or dinner course is poulet braisé, which is chicken that hasn’t been braised so much as marinated in garlic, lemon juice, mustard, pepper and chillies, and then cooked on an open charcoal grill and served with a tomato and onion salad. Other accompaniments include attiéké (a light, couscous-like preparation made from ground cassava pulp) and/or alloco (sliced plantains pan-fried with onions, chilli and salt). Poisson braisé is prepared and presented in the same way as poulet braisé except the chicken is substituted with carpe (carp), machoiron (sea catfish) or capitaine (hogfish).

Brochettes are decent-quality chunks of chicken, beef, fish or liver cooked on skewers on the same types of barbecue used for the braisé dishes above. In addition, up north you’ll find little brown paper packages of mouton (mutton) slow-cooked in the drawers of a wood-fired metal oven. Sauce claire is a casserole with a distinctively sweet-sour yet briny flavour that’s derived from slow-cooked aubergines, shrimp paste and fish scales. A warming broth of garlic, onions, tomatoes, chilli and palm tree grains, sauce graine’s killer ingredients are kable, an indigenous aromatic leaf and akpi, an African spice that not only thickens the sauce but adds a smoky dimension to the flavour. Sauce graine is so versatile that it works with chicken breast, beef thighs and white fish. Sauce arachide comprises chicken, mutton or fish in a creamy groundnut sauce, while the thick, earthy thono is a delightful combination of spinach and tuna fish.

Ivorians claim to have the cleanest tap water in Africa, but it is still recommended to stick to drinking inexpensive, bottled mineral water. The main brands are Awa, Celeste and Organe, available in 1.5 or half-litre bottles. Sucrerie is a catch-all term covering tinned and bottled Coca-Cola, Fanta, tonic water and other globally recognised carbonated soft drinks, also widely sold in stores, maquis, restaurants and hotels. Lipton and Nescafé seem to have a grip over the tea and coffee market and should be ordered by brand name to avoid confusion. Only high-end restaurants and hotels will have real filter coffee.

For a more local flavour try kinkéliba, an aromatic tea made with herbs from the north, and hot or cold bissap, a sweet and sticky beverage made from sorghum, hibiscus flower and vanilla sugar. For some reason the finished product tastes like blackcurrant. Also consumable hot or cold, gingembre is a tart and spicy brew of ginger, lemon and pineapple juice. For next to nothing and particularly along the coasts you can purchase a nutritious and delicious coconut from a machete-wielding vendor, who will chop the top off so you can drink the juice and then cut the fruit in half so you can eat the flesh.

Lager is Ivory Coast’s number one alcoholic tipple, served ice cold in more or less every hotel, restaurant, maquis and magasin (convenience store). Flag and Castell are the most popular brands, followed by the gassier Bock Solibra, nicknamed ‘Drogba’ after the country’s best-loved footballer due to its large, litre-sized bottle. Locally produced and scandalously good value, Valpierre would give any mid-priced French vin de table a run for its money. Most bars and higher quality eateries stock US and European spirits, from blended whiskies such as Chivas Regal and Johnnie Walker to Smirnoff vodka and Gordon’s gin. Ivorians are also partial to foreign liqueurs such as Campari, Chartreuse and Baileys.

Eco-tourism

Ivory Coast’s nature is as alluring as its culture, whether you want to sunbathe on the cream-hued beaches of Assinie, trek through the crimson savannahs of the north or scale the sublime Mount Tonkoui for panoramic views of Liberia and Guinea. In the Taï, Banco, Azagny and Ehotilé Islands national parks, it’s possible to glimpse elephants, leopards and lions (if you’re very fortunate), as well as chimpanzees, antelopes and 500 bird species.

Discover a nature with unique and ecologically protected charms through the national parks of: Taï, Comoé, Marahoué and the Mount Nimba integral reserve and its extraordinary viviparous toads, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. The Ehotilé Islands Park and the Ahouakro Archaeological Park, included on the UNESCO tentative list, bridge the gap between nature and artifacts, a living testimony to the country’s history.

Feel the energy of this green paradise which still has two primary forests (Taï and banco forest) with a privileged climate and unique fauna, of 134 species divided into 5 orders, 21 families and 70 genera. The largest number of species (99 species) is represented in the snake group, followed by the lizard group (22 species), the turtle group (10 species) and finally the crocodile group (3 species) etc.

Nestled on the banks of the N’Zi River, N’Zi River Lodge Reserve sets a benchmark in ecotourism and offers unparalleled encounters with nature. An area of ​​41,000 ha made up of vast hilly landscapes created by the capricious courses of the N’Zi River and the Mafa River which provides its natural belt. Welcome home to these friendly lodges in the N’ZI Voluntary Nature Reserve, where guests are treated like family and safaris and bush walks are unparalleled. Wake up to the sun rising above the acacia trees, see a herd of buffalo across the savannah, and enjoy a gourmet dinner under a dazzling starry sky.

Go by bike or on foot to meet this lush vegetation, this diverse fauna, these parks and reserves, these coffee and cocoa plantations, these rivers, waterfalls and beaches, these villages and these populations of the interland anchored in folklore, at your own pace while respecting the concept of sustainability and therefore in accordance with your conscience to live a very personal and unique experience rich in emotion. In Ivory Coast, experience the art of traveling while taking the time to fully immerse yourself in the nature that surrounds us and the richness of the heritage by favoring meetings, savoring the local dishes of the regions while respecting the territory and its inhabitants. Slow tourism has never been expressed so well.