Adventure in the Bissagos Islands

Located at Africa’s westernmost point, Senegal’s capital extends across the narrow Cape Verde Peninsula. You navigate a large, energetic city shaped by distinct neighborhoods, active arts venues, and coastal landscapes. You move through Dakar’s historic center, stopping at Kermel Market to sample local foods and observe daily trade. Offshore, you visit Gorée Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site recognized for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. Nearby, the Madeleine Islands form a protected national park, offering a sharp contrast through undeveloped terrain and marine habitats.

You spend time at sea using onboard facilities designed for comfort and activity. You relax in the spa, maintain routines in the fitness center, or enjoy the pool and open decks when conditions allow. You attend expert talks, watch scheduled performances, browse the boutique, or speak with PONANT photographers. You step onto the upper decks to scan the ocean and watch for marine life. This uninterrupted sailing period focuses on rest, learning, and life aboard an expedition ship.

In the midst of a rich natural environment, you will enjoy a fascinating encounter with the Bijagos, who have been successful at taming their environment and preserving their ancestral way of life. Five villages provide a home for the island’s few thousand inhabitants, who rely on a subsistence economy: they take from nature only what they need, they cultivate rice, breed chickens and pigs, fish on a small scale and use all the parts of the oil palm. Cob huts with thatched roofs are the traditional dwellings. Among other things, you will be able to enjoy a wonderful show of authentic traditional dancing.

The private island of Kere is an unspoiled Eden, a one-hectare (two-acre) stretch of tropical forest in the heart of the Bissagos Islands. One original feature of this island is that a small, sustainable and fair-trade ecotourism business was developed upon it. On the island’s magnificent beach, a Frenchman has set up a business to show people around this exceptional natural environment or to take them out for some game fishing, particularly in search of tarpon, a fish weighing over a hundred kilos (220 pounds). The bungalows made from earth and straw blend into the idyllic setting and reflect the mindset of the islet’s owner: authentic and respectful of nature and people.

Some 20 kilometers off the coast of west Africa, the Bissau-Guinean archipelago of Bissagos is famous for its abundant biodiversity. The richness of its marine animal and plant life afforded it the status of Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO: dolphins, green tortoises, monkeys, striped antelopes and hundreds of thousands of migrating birds find refuge here. Composed of five islands and several islets, Orango is the largest and most mysterious island in the archipelago. Its national park and marine protected area lie in the heart of the Biosphere Reserve. During your zodiac outings, you will set off to discover this preserved environment, home to the Bijogo people, the true custodians of this sanctuary.

Covered in beautiful savannah, paddy fields and lush forests, the island of Uno, or Ilha de Uno, is one of the most populated in the Bissagos archipelago. In its many villages, life follows the pace of the everyday scenes and traditions of the Bissago people. The lifestyle of these island people remains relatively untouched by colonial domination and external influences, and still honors animist beliefs and rites, such as the fanados, which are coming-of-age initiations for young men and women that involve them spending four months in the forest with the village elders. By sanctifying the natural environment, the islanders are protecting the archipelago’s unique biodiversity.

Some 20 kilometers off the coast of west Africa, the Bissau-Guinean archipelago of Bissagos is famous for its abundant biodiversity. The richness of its marine animal and plant life afforded it the status of Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO: dolphins, green tortoises, monkeys, striped antelopes and hundreds of thousands of migrating birds find refuge here. Composed of five islands and several islets, Orango is the largest and most mysterious island in the archipelago. Its national park and marine protected area lie in the heart of the Biosphere Reserve. During your zodiac outings, you will set off to discover this preserved environment, home to the Bijogo people, the true custodians of this sanctuary.

A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the island of Cavalos is the second-largest nesting site in West Africa. Here you will be able to observe many bird species, including terns, in particular near the freshwater lake. Take a stroll on the beach full of shells, stretching all the way around the island’s 6-km (3.8-mile) circumference. Some rocks have mango trees growing on them, which just rise above the surface during high tide. The interior of the island, blanketed in palm trees and high grasses, is inhabited by a colony of wild pigs.

In the far south-east of the Bissagos Islands, João Vieira is a small unspoiled island in the João Vieira and Poilão Marine National Park. This park, where a number of sacred sites can be found, is home to a wonderful biodiversity. On the practically uninhabited island of João Vieira, the Bijagos have set up temporary camps for fishing or for collecting the fruit of oil palms. Like everywhere else in the archipelago, the local population displays ingenuity to adapt to this incredible environment.

Bolama, the capital of Portuguese Guinea from the late 19th century to the end of the 1930s, is shrouded in the surreal and poetic atmosphere of a ghost town forgotten by time. Along the streets covered in ochre earth, the vestiges of neoclassical colonial buildings hint at what was once the sumptuous government palace or the governor’s residence. Now neglected, this hard-to-reach natural harbor surrounded by mangrove swamps once served as an outpost for keeping a close eye on the Guinean population that had come to seek refuge on these remote islands of the Bissagos archipelago to escape their colonizers.

Dotted with authentic and wild landscapes, the Bissagos archipelago is a constellation of islands covered in savannah, forests of palm trees, mangrove trees, silk-cotton trees, baobabs and, in large part, mangrove swamps. From the island of Caravela, you will be able to set out in a Zodiac® dinghy to explore the mangrove and observe the African grey hornbill, the palm-nut vulture, the kingfisher, the weaverbird and some of the many species that fly to this region each year. It is the second most important site for migratory birds in West Africa, after Banc d’Arguin in Mauritania: herons, curlews, red-chested swallows. In full immersion, far from the beaten track, your discovery of the archipelago will take on an air of adventure.

On the tip of the African continent, the buzzing capital of Senegal stretches along the narrow peninsula of Cape Verde. You may be overwhelmed by its sheer size, but Dakar will win you over with its richly diverse districts, appealing cultural scene and rich natural surroundings. In the historic center, you'll enjoy the pell-mell of colors and tasty delights in Kermel market. Far from the effervescence of the city, Goree Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is known as a place of remembrance, having once been a slave trade outpost. On the other side of the plateau, the wild Madeleine islands are protected by a national park.