Even setting the giraffes aside, the landscape around Kouré is worth paying attention to. The Sahel zone — the transitional band between the Sahara to the north and the savannah to the south — has a particular austere beauty: low acacias scattered across pale laterite soil, termite mounds the height of a person, the occasional dry streambed.
Birdlife is rich even in the dry season. Look for fork-tailed drongos, bee-eaters, and various raptors riding the thermals. The drive out from Niamey, once you leave the city's outskirts, passes through villages of mud-walled compounds and fields of millet stubble that give a clear picture of rural life in the Sahel.
Early mornings, before the heat builds, the light on this landscape is extraordinary — flat and golden, with long shadows from the acacia trees.