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Taï

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A village on the edge of half a million hectares of primary rainforest, where a troop of tool-using chimpanzees can be tracked at dawn and the pygmy hippopotamus survives.

Fly to Taï All of Côte d'Ivoire
Arrival
San-Pédro · SPY
To the park
About five hours by road from San-Pédro
Private jets
San-Pédro, 2,000 m runway, daylight only
Best time
December to March · August

The city

One of the last great forests of West Africa.

Taï National Park covers more than 500,000 hectares of the south-west, between the Cavally and Sassandra rivers, and UNESCO has listed it since 1982 as one of the last large tracts of primary rainforest in West Africa. Eleven species of monkey live here, with red colobus, forest duikers and the rare pygmy hippopotamus, and the Guéré, Dao and Oubi peoples live around its edges.

Treat it as an expedition: visitors sleep at Ecotel Touraco, a camp of chalets above the Taï river just outside the park, or in tents at Camp Chimpanzee inside it, and walk out before dawn to find a habituated, tool-using chimpanzee troop. The driest weeks are December to March.

  • Chimpanzee tracking Early-morning walks from Camp Chimpanzee to a troop used to the presence of people.
  • The Taï river The Ecotel stands on its bank, its restaurant looking out over the forest.
  • Pygmy hippopotamus A threatened forest animal that UNESCO names among the park's reasons for listing.

Arriving

Fly to the coast, drive into the forest.

The nearest airport is San-Pédro, the port city on the coast about 120 kilometres south-east in a straight line. From there the road to Taï takes around five hours, much of it rough.

Business & First Class Scheduled flights Air Côte d'Ivoire flies from Abidjan to San-Pédro on its domestic network. Long-haul passengers arrive at Abidjan first. Business & First fares Private Jet Private aircraft San-Pédro has a 2,000-metre asphalt runway with jet fuel, open in daylight hours. There are no customs at San-Pédro, so a flight from abroad first enters the country at Abidjan, which is open around the clock. Charter a jet
Approximate flying time by midsize jet
  • Abidjan 50 min
  • Lagos 1 h 50
  • Marrakech 4 h 05
  • Rome 6 h 05
  • Athens 6 h 30 long-range jet

When to go

December to March, and August.

Warm and wet, with afternoons from 26 to 31 °C. December to March is the drier season; the heaviest rain falls in May and June, and August brings a brief pause on the coast.

  1. 30° J 29
  2. 31° F 40
  3. 31° M 78
  4. 31° A 118
  5. 29° M 298
  6. 27° J 437
  7. 27° J 143
  8. 26° A 75
  9. 27° S 121
  10. 28° O 136
  11. 29° N 143
  12. 29° D 84
Best months weather2travel.com, long-term averages (San Pedro, the nearest station)

Elsewhere in Côte d'Ivoire

More reasons to come.

All of Côte d'Ivoire

Flying to Taï?

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Business & First Private Jet