Pô

Pô is in the Volta Delta region of Burkina Faso. Pô is mostly of interest as a starting point for excursions in Gurunsi country. You can go to the Kaboré Tambi national park, to the Nazinga game ranch, and visit many villages with original architecture, such as Tiébélé, Tiakané, Tangassoko, Kaya, and Guelwongo.

Understand

Pô, capital of the province of Nahouri, is a small town of 17,100 inhabitants. It is a border post with Ghana.

Get in

Pô is 176 km south of Ouagadougou on the asphalted N5 highway south to Ghana. You can get in by car or bus.

See

• 1 Place Public Nemaro. Town square. (updated Aug 2024)

Tiébélé

The small town of 1 Tiébélé (13,300 inhabitants) is 29 km east of Pô. Follow the track lined with kapok trees for about 2 km from the first concessions to reach the market square. This town occupies a surprisingly large area, with the houses being very far from each other.

The Royal Court of Tiébélé

• 2 Royal Court of Tiébélé (Tiébélé town, east of Pô). A UNESCO World Heritage Site, this set of buildings is a former royal court from the 16th century. The hut of the chief of Tiébélé, built in the pure kassena tradition and remaining intact, has become a sort of "living museum" that can be visited by paying an entrance fee to the Association that was created to manage this place, maintain it and perpetuate the traditional paintings. (updated Jul 2024)

Tiakané

The village of 2 Tiakané is 8 km west of Pô, on the road to the Ranch de Nazinga (a very good dirt track). The village chief's concession also has architectural and historical interest. It includes the "Binger hut" named after the French explorer who stopped there in 1887 during his journey from Niger to the Gulf of Guinea. This concession, characteristic of West Kasséna architecture, is a group of semi-buried houses, made of mud, some with flat roofs and others, round huts, with thatched roofs.

Tangassoko

If you have an all-terrain vehicles, take a detour to the village of 3 Tangassoko. In this village, large decorative frescoes and painted walls, specialties of married "gurunsi" women, are well preserved. Instead of red and black wall decorations, commonly used in Tiébélé, they have played here on a range of dark brown, black and white.

Do

• 1 Kabore Tambi National Park (Parc national Kaboré-Tambi). Formerly the Pô National Park, it wad renamed the "Kaboré Tambi" Park in tribute to a Water and Forests agent who was murdered in 1981 by a poacher. This park was long known for its large herds of elephants. Because of heavy poaching, the Kaboré-Tambi Park has few large mammals left. The park covers 15,000 hectares. You can see a wide variety of monkeys, warthogs and antelopes. (updated Aug 2024)
• 2 Nazinga Ranch (from Pô, take the Léo road (D 7) which heads west and passes Tiakané), ☏ +226 50 41 36 17, ranch-nazinga@cenatrin.bf. December to June. This ranch, with an area of more than 100,000 hectares, is now a nature reserve. By travelling its 600 km of tracks, you will encounter many elephants, a wide variety of antelopes (sable antelopes, hartebeests, cobs, oribis, bushbucks and duikers), monkeys (cynocephali, patas, grivets), warthogs and more rarely buffaloes, wild animals (lions, panthers, hyenas) and crocodiles. This protected forest is dominated by large species such as baobabs, caïcédrats and immense fromagers. (updated Aug 2024)