Dindéfello is where the Sahel finally gives up and the Fouta Djallon begins. The village sits in southeastern Senegal, tucked against the border with Guinea, and the plateau behind it drops away in a red cliff that feeds a waterfall of about a hundred metres. After the rains the fall is a proper white rope hanging off the rock. In the dry season it thins to a veil, but the pool beneath is still deep enough for a cool plunge and the walk through the gorge in the shade is worth the heat.
The village itself is Peul, the Fulani herders and farmers who run cattle across this whole belt of West Africa, and you will meet them in the lanes with long staves and slow greetings. Behind them live chimpanzees, a small community of the savannah type that has adapted to open woodland, and the local community runs a reserve and guiding programme around them. You are very unlikely to see them from a motorcycle, and nobody should promise otherwise. What you will see are baboons on the rocks, hornbills, and a lot of light, the late-afternoon kind that turns the laterite orange.
Getting here is the real trip. The closest proper town is Kédougou, about twenty-seven kilometres away, with a market, fuel and a handful of places to eat and sleep. From there the road runs south and up onto the escarpment, with a mix of tarmac and stretches of red dirt, depending on the season and recent grading. In the rains the surface can turn greasy and rutted, and river crossings can be a problem. In the dry months it is dusty, corrugated, and lovely. Carry water, carry spare fuel from Kédougou because the village will not have a pump, and allow double the time that the map suggests.
Dindéfello makes a good base for a day on foot, with the waterfall in the morning and the plateau edge for sunset. The Bassari and the Niokolo-Koba park lie in the same corner of the country, so this stop works as both an ending and a beginning. Ask locally before you swim, keep to the guide on the cliff paths, and leave early enough to be back on a good road before dark, since cattle and goats sleep on the warm tarmac at night.