Rough Guide NIGER

Niger (pronounced: nee-ZHAIR) is an arid, landlocked country of the Sahel. Niger is a former French colony which was granted independence in 1960. The land is mostly desert plains and dunes, with rolling savanna in the southeast with nothing much to see.

Plans: Bus from Burkina Faso to Niamey then try to follow the idealized itinerary.
At end, fly to Chad or CAR.

WARNING: Most of Niger is unsafe for any travel. The capital, Niamey, is safer only by comparison and even that city is dangerous to visit. Areas near the Mali border are essentially lawless. Islamists with ties to the terrorist organization al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) control the regions of Mali bordering Niger. Several western tourists have been kidnapped and at least two have been killed by an al Qaeda affiliate. Agadez has seen periodic unrest for several years and at times the government has required special permits to travel in the region and military escorts for convoys of vehicles. The Nigerien government recommends armed escorts when traveling in the region. There is a heightened risk of kidnapping in Southwestern Niger, especially in the regions bordering Mali and Burkina Faso. As of March 2018, a state of emergency and a curfew were in effect in Southern Niger’s Diffa region. States of emergency were also in effect in Nigerian states bordering Southern Niger. Travel north of Niamey or to Northern Niger is strongly discouraged; there is a heightened risk of armed robbery north of the Tahoua-Zinder-Diffa axis.

Capital: Niamey
Currency: West African CFA frank
Population: 17.1 million
People. Hausa (Zarma and Songhai) are the largest ethnic groups of Niger.
Over 20% of Nigeriens are made up of nomadic and livestock raising tribes, including Fulani, Tuareg, Wodaabe, Kanuri, Arabs and Toubou.
Language. The official language is French, although very few people speak it outside Niamey and even there do not expect a high level conversation with the traders at the markets. The local languages include Djerma (spoken mainly in Niamey and the bordering Tillaberi and Dosso regions), Hausa, Fulfulde and Tamashek (spoken by Tuaregs in north), and Kanuri (spoken by Beri Beri). English is of no use outside the American cultural center and a few big hotels in Niamey. However, you will find English-speakers in border towns along the Nigerian border, such as Birni N Konni and Maradi. These people are usually from Nigeria to the south and in general want something from you. As friendly as they may be, always listen to a professional guide over anyone that speaks some English.
Country Code +227

GET IN
VISA. Visas are required by all nationals except nationals of several African countries.
Yellow fever is mandatory, but Cholera vaccination certification is required only if travelling from a neighbouring country with a recent outbreak.
By plane. There is one international airport (Aéroport International Diori Hamani de Niamey) in Niamey. In 2019, there were connections to Zinder, Maradi and Agadez.
As of August 2017, there were flights from West and North African capitals, Istanbul, and Paris, Algiers, Ouagadougou, Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Tripoli, Casablanca, Lome, Tunis.
At the airport in Niamey there is a taxi monopoly and the lowest you’ll get a taxi for is CFA 3,000 – and that’s if you haggle a lot! However, if you walk south from the airport you’ll hit a main road and for CFA 100-150 you can get a ride from a beat up van to the Grand Marché (Main Market), luggage included.
By car. Travellers can get to Niger overland by roads from Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Nigeria. Some adventurous souls still cross the Sahara from the north (Algeria), but that area is not secure.
By bus. Lomé and Cotounou, Abidjan, Bamako, Dakar, Nouakchott (all through Ouagadougou). The service to Gao in Mali was suspended due to security reasons. Along the Nigerian border there are local minibuses and taxis which connect Maradi and Zinder with Katsina and Kano. Normally you do not have to change vehicle at the border.

GET AROUND
There are no railways in Niger.
Of the 10,000 km of highways, over 2000 km is paved. You can travel from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso all the way to Diffa, near Lake Chad on roads that are in decent to tolerable condition. The road from Niamey to “Park W” in the south is paved. The Zinder-Agadez route is being repaved after being in severe disrepair for years. The Birni Nkonni-Agadez-Arlit road is in poor shape.
By bus. The Nigerien government has recently set up a bus service along the major routes of the country. While taking cars is exciting and interesting, they are dangerous, extremely hot, and more expensive. Plus, they are forced to pull over after midnight due to banditry. Because these cars often only leave in the evening, it can take several days to travel a relatively short distance. The large buses are brand new Mercedes buses and they carry a soldier at night so they may drive all night long. In addition, due to their large size, they can skim over potholes that would destroy the smaller vans.
Tidene Expeditions, BP 270 Agadez, +227 440568, fax: +227 440 578

IDEALIZED ITINERARY incorporates all of the main cities of Niger, and focuses on the cultural and population centers of the country. You will get a pretty thorough run of the culture this way. Niger Airways has flights linking the capital Niamey to Agadez and Zinder.
Tudor Clee Nomad Mania member with knowledge of Niger

14 days Maradi, Zinder, Agadez, Tahoua, NaimeDay 1 – Enter Niamey
Day 2 – Niamey Tours
Day 3 – On to Maradi
Day 4 – Maradi Tours
Day 5 – On to Zinder
Day 6 – Zinder Tours
Day 7 – On to Agadez
Day 8 – Agadez Tours
Day 9 – Agadez Tours
Day 10 – On to Tahoua
Day 11 – Tahoua Tours
Day 12 – Back to Niamey
Day 13 – Depart Niamey

WEST AND CENTRAL (Niamey, Tahoua, Tillaberi, Dosso)
Day 1-2 – Niamey
NIAMEY. Both the administrative capital and commercial centre, possibly the least crowded and hectic capital in West Africa
(Overnight Niamey, Homeland Hotel)
What to do:
Trip on the Niger river to Boubon depending on time of arrival.
Musee National Boubou Hama
Niamey Grand Mosque
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral
Prince Sultan Mosque
Grand Marche
Dinner at Maki 2000, the best restaurant in Niamey for a newcomer.
Other Destinations:
Yaama: Yaama Mosque
Complexe Kokorou-Namga National Park
Dosso Partial Faunal Reserve
Gadabedji Total Reserve
Fulanis (Woodabe, subgroup of Bororos). Tribes
Balleyara Market — Two hours from Niamey, one of West Africa’s largest animal markets, plus a colourful array of other traditional market and artisan wares (Sundays)

Day 3. Visit Koure National Park and Giraffes, Continue to Tapoa for Overnight.
Leave from Niamey south 1½ to Koure National Park, to pick up your regional expert from the local community and track the herds of giraffes that wander the park. Once dwindling to a population of only 48, the park now hosts over 600. Giraffes are among the only animals in Niger that pose no danger to humans at close range. (Overnight Hotel De la Tapoa)

Day 4: Visit Niger River and W Park for Game Drive
Overlook that stretches far into the distance to the frontier of Burkina and Benin. Take to raised lookout platforms to watch elephants come to the waterside to drink and shower themselves.
(Hotel de la Tapoa.)

EASTERN NIGER
Day 5. Depart for Maradi
The road is overall excellent. There are checkpoints, but no problem with no bribes. The police are genuinely there for safety.
Birni Nkonni, Dosso. Border tow with an emir’s palace. Stop at Hasani and Fulani villages and a weekly market if coinciding with the day of our visit. Local villages use earthen materials to construct all aspects of town design and structures of architecture. Mud mosques, adobe homes, huts with river-reed fronds, dug wells, and pastoral life. The best onions in the world, sought after by Europe are grown here, as well as peanuts. These are largely the 2 only main crops in Niger. Everything else is imported.
MARADI. Centre of agriculture (especially peanuts), home to a colorful chief’s palace, and near seasonal rivers/floodplains which have caused interesting land formations to the south. Visit the grand mosque, the sultan palace, old city market and artisanal center
(Overnight Maradi Guest house)

Day 6-7. Depart to Zinder, Visit Zinder, village
ZINDER. Niger’s second biggest city and the cultural capital of Niger, this Peul-Hausa city has perhaps the most colourful craft markets (pottery & tanning are local specialities) as well as a noteworthy regional museum and sultan’s palace and is a busy, bustling town. The people are mainly Hausa, culturally very different from the Tuaregs in the Agadez area.
Visit the Grand Mosque, French Fort, the sultan palace, regional museum, cattle market and artisanal market. The old center of Zinder with the Birni and Sultanat quarters are a tentative WHS (La vieille ville de Zinder, quartier de Birni et le Sultanat (26/05/2006) – minarets and mud houses, intricate carved doors, glazed windows, and otherworldly architecture of Zinder Nigerien tradition.
Sultan’s Palace, still active and in use, and see his ministers presiding over affairs and trials in the kingdom of Zinder, his harem of 400 wives, dungeons where multiple levels of offenses would get you thrown in rooms with no light, with no company, or in the company of thousands of crawling stinging scorpion! Examine doors with every metal plate forged in a different tribute area, a pedestal where an infamous Sultan killed his mother to usurp power, and the sultan’s enormous car collection. The best view of the city is from atop the palace, overlooking the
Alternative Radio Station, Citizen Space, which gives voice to the poor people of Niger, attention to positive and salient development issues, and injects the airwaves with the true beats of Niger’s local innovative and infectious music scene. Visit
Visit village/chiefdom with a regional chief near Zinder, learn the daily lives and issues of the people, how they build their houses, obtain water and food, and visit the mosques in the far landlocked Sahel, whose lives have remained largely unchanged for centuries, and in some ways millennia. This is the oldest remnant of ancient Africa, a great deal simpler and great deal behind modern life, in one of the planet’s harshest realms of habitation. You’ll find here humanity nevertheless thriving and vibrant.
(Overnight in a local homestay, with ethnic cooking and outdoor toilets and shower or Zinder, Gamzi Hotel)

Day 7, 8. Fly to Agadez – one hour flight on Niger Airways. See Agadez
AGADEZ (pop 110,497 2012)
In the Sahara desert, the 5th largest city in Niger, the capital of both the Agadez Region and Aïr, one of the traditional Tuareg–Berber federations. The historic centre of the town has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. A trade hub along trans-Saharan trade routes for over five centuries, home to a magnificent palace and several mosques and a gateway to the nearby Air Mountains.
Agadez has a hot desert climate.
History. Agadez was founded before the 14th century, and, by growing around trans-Saharan trade, gradually became the most important city of the Tuareg people, supplanting Assodé. (language Hausa, the lingua franca between different ethnic groups in the city)
Songhai Empire until 1591 – population 30,000 people. On route for caravans trading between the West African cities of Kano and Timbuktu, and the North African oases of Ghat, Ghadames, and Tripoli, on the Mediterranean shore. Internal fighting led to the gradual decline and by the mid 19th century the town was a shadow of its former self.
The city still sees the arrival of caravans, bringing salt from Bilma.
Some contend that Agadez was the furthermost extent of the Ottoman Empire on the African continent until the 19th century, before being occupied by the French from 1906. After 1916, French, unable to effectively administer this remote region, ruled semi-indirectly via a restored sultan. Later, Agadez became an important location in the Tuareg Rebellion of the 1990s in central and northern Niger.
2007 violence. As a result of the Second Tuareg Rebellion, sporadic violence and the displacement of thousands of people affected the Agadez area from late 2007 into 2009. All of northern Niger was placed on the United States State Department list of areas which are unsafe for travel. Tourist flights to Agadez were suspended by European airlines for the 2007–2008 tourist season (September – March). The burgeoning tourist industry, which prior to 2007 had surpassed that of Niamey and the rest of the nation, essentially came to an end. Roads to and from Agadez were reported to have been mined, and the government closed the area to international journalists and aid organizations. An unknown number (reported as several thousands) of internally displaced people converged on the city as a result of the unrest.
In the 2010s Agadez became a major transit town for West African migrants heading to Libya and then on to Europe. Crackdowns in 2016 slowed the flow of migrants, but recent Displacement Tracking Matrix data showed a daily average of 1,212 individuals crossing at six monitored points in Niger, many of whom would have been coming through Agadez.
See
Today, Agadez flourishes as a market town and as a centre for the transportation of the uranium mined in the surrounding area. Notable buildings in the city include the Agadez Grand Mosque (originally dating from 1515 but rebuilt in the same style in 1844), the Kaocen Palace (now a hotel), and the Agadez Sultan’s Palace. The city is also known for its camel market and its silver and leatherwork.
Some well-known musicians from the town include Tuareg guitar player Bombino and his band Group Bombino, and Group Inerane. Mdou Moctar’s film, Akounak Teggdalit Taha Tazoughai, is set and filmed on location in Agadez.
The United States is building Nigerien Air Base 201, a dedicated drone airbase in Agadez from which it can more easily monitor terrorist activities in West and North Africa, in addition to extremists coming from the Sahel.
The Historic Centre of Agadez is a World Heritage Sites:
Tentative WHS: L’ensemble des forêts protégées de la région d’Agadez (26/05/2006)
This city in the midst of the desert is safe. No tourists, but with better infrastructure than Timbuktu or even Mopti. The old town is justifiably classified as World Heritage and a lot of the mud dwellings have been done up in recent years with European funds. Locals are very friendly and surprised to see tourists. The local sellers in the market almost camping outside the Auberge d’Azel waiting for someone to go out.
Hotel. Auberge d’Azel, right in the middle of town. The owners, Akli (a local Touareg) and Celine (from France) very welcoming, well-built place with 9 comfortable rooms at reasonable prices, and the wifi works surprisingly well.
Surrounding Agadez. Going out of Agadez into the desert is still a different story. There is very real risk involved, and this would be extremely expensive as well as time-consuming due to the lack of good roads. The Air and Tenere area is a full day’s drive away, until the first oasis is reached, but it requires a full security outfit arranged in advance. The desert used to be quite popular with tourists until about 2007 when the troubles started. Now, only government officials and the rare brave journalist seem to venture that far, and many do so in helicopters.

Day 9. Return Naimey. Flight Niger Airways. Uncertain if can stop at Tahoua, about half way.
TAHOUA
Tentative WHS: Les mosquées en terre de la région de Tahoua (26/05/2006)

TOURS
Tudor Clee Nomad Mania member with knowledge of Niger
1. cisseabdelaziz32@gmail.com
Phone +22797354998
A generally silent, but extremely reliable, guy in Niger who can help you with transport and logistics in the country. Highly recommended.
2. ‘Junior’ (real name Abdoulaziz) who could arrange transport and the fact that Niger Airways has flights linking the capital Niamey to Agadez as well as Zinder. the total estimate cost of 4 days in Niger, including 2 domestic flights, a drive of 900 kilometres and decent accommodation, was far less than $1,000
2. Agadez Expeditions/Auberge d’Azel
E-mail: agadezexpeditions@gmail.com
Phone: +22720440170
Website: http://www.agadez-tourisme.com/en/auberge_en.html
Akli and Celine are the owners and run this Auberge in Agadez, a true gem. They are not fixers as such, but do know the area well and can certainly help with the whole Agadez region.

Learn Patience. If you haven’t learned it before you went to Niger, you probably will.
Stay Safe. Niger is politically unstable and lawlessness is widespread. Follow independent news closely and stay in contact with your embassy. Vicious and sadistic Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram members are present in Niger and have kidnapped and killed many, so it is essential to know the off-limit regions and avoid them: the region north of Agadez, avoid driving late at night in a private vehicle (armed robbers). During the day, police checkpoints on the main highways limit criminal activities.
The main annoyances are young boys shouting “Anasara” – ‘foreigner’. You will be asked for a ‘cadeau’ – ‘gift,’ pretty much every time you see a person outside your hotel.
In Niamey the safety level is better. Stay away from markets (pickpockets or handbag straps being cut) and after dark and use taxis and are EXTRA careful to avoid where the streets cross ravines, you shouldn’t run into any problems.
Carrying a backpack and camera, looking like a tourist, and especially being white, will definitely draw some unwanted attention. Most of the attention is from people who try to get your money legally, either by selling you a toothbrush or by begging, but there are always a few less honest people.
Health. Drink lots of water. Wear loose conservative clothes, big hats, and lots of sunscreen. If in doubt, wear what the locals wear.
Malaria, including encephalitic malaria, is a problem, and is chloroquine resistant in Niger. Take your prophylaxes, use heavy-duty insect repellent (DEET is best, though nasty), and consider carrying a mosquito net to sleep under.
Giardia and amoebic dysentery are common. Be wary of any roadside food, unless you buy it hot off the grill. Even items fried in oil could make you sick if the oil has been heavily used and is old. Best to avoid salads and uncooked veggies. Also, never drink unfiltered water (including ice).
Schistosomiasis is present in most water bodies in Niger, so travellers should avoid going in the water everywhere — except chlorinated swimming pools.
In case you were unable to stay healthy, the Clinique Pasteur (situated in front of the Lycée Fontaine) has clean facilities, sterile needles, and competent, sympathetic doctors. The Clinique Gamkalley and many other clinics are around, however, you may need to watch out for dirty needles, over-prescription and aggressive staff.