Bassari Country is almost contiguous with that other East Senegal WHS, Niokolo Koba National Park. However, you must drive around the park (2.5-3 hours) to get to where the Bassari live. Along the way, you will already see plenty of traditional houses in mixed villages by the roadside.

We started our visit at location #3, Dindefello. This is a typical mixed village on lower ground, inhabited mostly by Fula and with ‘modern’ houses as well. It has a fine setting with the massive wall of the Fouta Djalon Massif rising behind it. On its main street, there’s a Visitor’s Center where you have to pick up a local guide and pay for access to the waterfall. 

Dindefello Falls are the region’s pride but it is hard to imagine a sizeable waterfall in this dry landscape. We had to walk for half an hour through the forest to get there. The path is adjacent to a river, where women cleaned their laundry by ‘beating’ it on stones. The noise sounds like gunshots. The waterfall was no disappointment: a long, sheer drop coming from the rocks. A pool had formed below it; my guide and driver tried it, but the water was too cold in the early morning for a swim.

The guide had promised me a visit to a ‘real real’ village as well. After some deliberations with the guys at Dindefello reception, we were given a contact number for a local guide who could give us access to Andiél. This is a Bedik village, part of WHS location #2, Bedik Bandafassi. It required a 20-minute drive. The guide was already waiting by the roadside and he directed us to the town. We had to pass a large army compound and then parked our car under a tree near a farm. 

From there we had to walk – but to where? A steep rock wall was looming but no village could be seen from the ground. Upon closer look, there was sort of a natural flight of stairs against the rocks. Climbing this, we reached the village in 20 minutes. The forefathers of the Bedik had chosen this hidden location to preserve their traditions and not be assimilated into the Islamist culture of the Fula. The Bedik still are mostly animist, although this village has a Catholic church as well (a round reed hut like all the others, but with a cross on the roof). The biggest difference with the roadside villages is that the huts in the mountain villages are built much more closely together – an extra layer of defense.

We started our visit by shaking hands with a few village notables and the village chief, who wasn't doing well (it looked like he had suffered a stroke). Some money was paid (I believe we paid the chief and the local guide 5000 XOF each) and then we could look around the village freely. The local women in the meantime had set up a display of souvenirs for sale, mostly bracelets made of beads. Children were following us all around. 

Andiél is the first village on this ridge - if you walk on, you will encounter even more isolated Bedik villages. It has 235 inhabitants. The Catholic missionaries had built a pharmacy and a school, but at least the latter has now fallen into disrepair. If I understood well (the local guide and I communicated in broken French, even my Gambian guide with Wolof, Mandinka and Fula on offer could not find a common language with him), the children go to school now at the army base at the bottom of the hill. One of the biggest dangers nowadays of living in this village is wildfires - a stretch around the village is deliberately burnt down to prevent fires from encroaching.