|
The story about AOATD and Fouta Trekking Adventure
|
|
AOATD - (Agence Ouest Africaine du Tourisme Durable)
was created with the aim of attracting tourists to Guinea and offering them a holiday experience beyond the
regular tourist vacation:
So a lot of what you pay for is dedicated to the efforts of the local population to ensure your care and your comfort. Transportation, entertainment, guides, accommodation and food, we pay, as far as possible, directly to the local population who makes this trip possible. |
|
|
This is our way of helping to improve the standard of living of the local population. All food products and
other things used to make this circuit interesting are purchased from local artisans and farmers who
do not use poisons or fertilizers. This is how we can help increase their incomes slightly, improve their
standard of living and increase their turnover and, hopefully, boost economic activity in these countries.
How do we spend the money you pay. We do not organize philanthropic trips. We organize trips to make money. And we have to make a living from that too. But it is fundamental for us that the local population also benefits from your visit, as well as you should have an experience beyond the ordinary vacation trip. The benefits we hope get from organizing your vacations will also serve exclusively to reinvest and invest in new activities in West Africa, so that these benefits in particular will benefit the local people. West African. AOATD - (Agence Ouest Africaine du Tourisme Durable) was created in Guinéa in 2011 on the initiative of Fode Lahaye Keita (Guinea) and Kim Petersen (Denmark). We have chosen to work closely with Fouta Trekking Adventure, a local tour operator in Guinea, who has more than 20 years of experience in organizing circuits on the local territory and who shares the same values as us. Fouta Trekking Adventure organizes authentic and unforgettable tours around in Guinea. |
|
|
Created in 1998 by Saifoulaye Diallo and Bah Mamadou Cellou, the agency Fouta Trekking Adventure organizes
tours in Guinea, on the shores and forgotten mountains of West Africa, and offers tailor-made tours according
to your travel wishes. |
|
With a staff of enthusiasts, Fouta Trekking Adventure is managed mainly by trained guides at Niokolo Badiar Park.
(Senegal) and AFRAT in Autrans (France).
The team of Fouta Trekking Aventure wants to be versatile, dynamic and inventive in order to put at your disposal their expertise, knowledge and love of the local field in the design of your travel project and so make you discover the real Guinea, its inhabitants, its customs, its lifestyles, its fauna and flora. Choosing Fouta Trekking Adventure is the assurance of being advised by a team on the ground knowing the country on their fingertips and who can give you real answers to all the questions you may ask, while accompanying you in realizing your project so that your tour will be unforgettable. Sharing and authenticity are part of our core values. Our team works with the same common goal: to share with you and share our passion for this beautiful country - Guinea! |
|
Fouta Trekking Adventure offers you tours in Guinea that will take you to the most remarkable sites of the
country (Conakry, the islands of Lôos, Kindia, Upper Guinea, Forest Guinea, etc.) but more particularly to the
discovery of a forgotten massif of West Africa: Fouta Djalon. Ideal for hiking, it's the realm of primary
forests, untamed rivers, canyons and waterfalls. The Fouta Djalon occupies about 80 000 km2 and culminates at Mount Loura at 1 532 m altitude. Incredibly rich natural and cultural, it consists mainly of tiered plateaus, cut by valleys dominating plains and savannas, forests crisscrossed by many rivers, large cliffs from which flow many and beautiful waterfalls. Discovering a peaceful, green and humid Africa, cradle of the great African rivers and territory of sites breathtaking natural wonders, Fouta Trekking Adventure takes you on the ancestral tracks, from villages to villages, between traditional huts and green landscapes, between colorful markets and natural pools, to meet the warm Guinean people and the welcoming Fulani people whose hospitality invites them to share and discover their traditions. Actor of solidarity and responsible tourism The Association Fouta Trekking Adventure puts together, thanks to the funds released by the travel agency, village development-projects in partnership with the villages crossed on the tourist circuits. The purpose being to build strong links and partnerships with the "passed" villages in which tourists spend the night. The Fouta Trekking Adventure Association assures the support to the realization of community camps, the training of villagers in the reception and management of tourists and the profession of guide. The association also supports villages in setting up agricultural projects, nurseries, drinking water points, etc. The goal being, through this economic activity, to create employment in remote areas and thus limit rural exodus. This also allows to create an activity ancillary to the agriculture for the villagers and thus to participate to increase the level of hygiene, health and life of these localities. Also, as a development actor of this country still little visited and little known to the general public, we try as much as we can, wherever we let us join in a sustainable local development, a fair tourism that benefits the people first and which also minimizes our impact on the environment. The adventure Fouta Trekking Adventure began with the study of possible hiking routes not marked on old state maps. After sketching out different routes, routes, villages and accessibility have been validated. That is the basis on which the desire to create a participative process was born to include the trails for hikers off the beaten track, create the conditions for a real meeting between the hikers and the villagers and to finance projects of collective interest for the villages crossed. Passage camps have been built with the inhabitants in Ainguel, Leyfita, Debeya and within a radius of 60 km from Labé. Camp managers have been appointed, cooks, guides and trained porters. Fouta Trekking Adventure's activity currently generates 5 jobs in these villages, which number around 150 inhabitants. This results in a warm welcome where the hiker is neither perceived as an intruder nor as a distributor of tickets. The balance created by this approach seduces the first hikers and the association attracts attention from the Cooperation and Cultural Action Department of the French Embassy, the National Tourist Office and the French tour operator La Balaguère who supports and promotes the project of ecotourism solidarity. Fouta Trekking Adventure today organizes tailored tours according to the desire of hikers with the same concern for the overall goal and respect in the meeting between hiker and the local villagers. Currently, Fouta Trekking Adventure is working on new solidarity-oriented circuits in Ditim, Kambadaga, Lélouma and "the lady of Mali". The proposals and network of Fouta Trekking Adventure is always created with one goal: to make you discover in the most beautiful parts of Guinea and Fouta Djalon.
|
|
|
Agence Ouest Africaine du Tourisme Durable S.A.R.L. N°1726/S/15/09/11 |
|
