La Dent de Man | Tourist Attraction

After arrival in Zogoualé, we were stopped by a group of village people, who told us the boss of the village had decided everyone had to pay 2.000 and had to hire a guide. We were ready to pay the 2.000 but they would not let us pass without a guide for 15.000. At some point we had enough and left, since they implicitly threatened us (“guide is there to protect you from aggressions”).

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Stay strong and friendly and they will let you through without paying.
Yes, you know the way, no, you don’t need a guide, yes, you know about the waterfall,…
Annoying, but possible to get through the village without paying anything.

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Very Nice Experience!!
When arriving to the village to start the trekking for Le Dent Du Man (either with your own car or with a taxi) you get intercepted by the locals. They will ask you what is your plan for hiking and they will inform you on how it works:
You hike up to Le Dent Du Man (fee is 2000 CFA pp)
You can visit the waterfalls (fee is 100 CFA pp)
or you can do both (in the same path, it's a circular way) (fee is 3000 CFA pp)
For any of the paths you choose you will need a local guide. This is to show you the way, to make sure you're safe and can ask for help if anything happens to you, and also to support the local community) They ask for 20k for the guide, we negotiated down to 14k, but you can try to get a better fee depending on how many you are, etc etc.
The hiking starts from the village (we were able to leave our backpacks at the house of our guide, you can also park your car in the village and negotiate a fee) The first part of the hiking is pretty flat, by a nice forest with lots of beautiful trees, and local agriculture. After that you can either climb to Le Dent Du Man (it's a pretty tough hike up, but doable and the view from the top is amazing! it takes around 1 hour to go and half an hour to come back to this same point) or you can continue straight to the waterfalls, where the Parth is still pretty flat and it takes another hour. The waterfalls are beautiful and totally worth it! you can swim and take plenty pictures. After that it's only half an hour to go back to the village. Locals produce their own wine from Palm (delicious) and they also sell water and cold drinks. They were very nice to us, showed us their place, their activities, it was nice to share with them!
Totally recommend the whole experience!

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They asked for 5000cfa and before starting négociation they said you can’t ho without guide 15k, and now there’s some French people that formatting guide there so rule are changing, havinglot of people around looking just for many make me wanna just leave the place, went for a walk in the village around and another man came and said I’m in the territoire of the village and I have to pay 5000 cfa because they made the road and this is how it’s work here ! I finished by going back to man to not have problem with those people !

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Aa described below. Around 20 men demanded entrance of 2.000 CFA pp and a guide. We told them we don’t need a guide and that was not okay. In the end they left us alone, but when we arrived back a man shouted that we also had to pay for the waterfalls as well and was quite intimidating. The hike was super beautiful though.

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Yes it was a nice hike we payed 1.000 cfa per person locals are a bit stressy but later it was nice use maps.me than you finde the way :D

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As is mentioned before, at the moment you set a foot outside of the taxi (500 cfa per person from the other side of the man, I think was fair) the whole village surround you and ask for money.
I was ready for that. We were 2 person. They wanted us to pay 2k for the village and 10k for guide. We said we were doctors at a local hospital and we wanted to see the hill. We showed them we had gps and a map on our phones. At the end we just paid the village fee, 2k per person. No more harresement.

Bring enough water, really, a lot. At least 1.5 L.
Maps.me works perfect here, it's really detailed, every single step.
After the tooth we went to the waterfall, perfect place to cool down.
On the way out (we did the circular citcuit) some people asked us to pay for the waterfall but we just ignored them.

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We arrived without organising a guide in advance. We were approached on the way in by someone who wanted to guide us. We spoke with him and he said there was a community tax of 2000cfa pp and compulsory guide fee of 15000pp. We were happy to pay the community tax but wanted a cheaper guide price (given we didn’t really want/need a guide at all!) The price was reduced to 11000 for the guide, but he would not reduce it further. We decided not to do the hike given the reports below and we had already done some hiking. We didn’t try to walk anyway without a guide because of what has been said below. Would recommend the view point at Tonkpi instead! And beautiful footpaths around there!

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We paid 3000 CFA for the taxi from Man. Arriving in Zogoulé, some men already talked to us when we were still sitting in the taxi, no patience. After 1 minute we were surrounded by 10-15 men and boys. First they told we had to pay 10000 CFA just for using the paths. After a while it was 2000 CFA per person. Then they told us we needed a guide for 10000 CFA. this apparently has changed to make it safer for the tourists...We refused and told them about iOverlander and all the negative comments and that it is just not correct to muck around with white people like this. Ee discussed 20 min with them. In the end they seemed a little embarrassed. We paid 2000 CFA pp and 5000 CFA for the guide. another 1000 pp for visiting the waterfalls.
we don't know what they would have done if we just had left towards the Dent de Man. It was a calm discussion though. I don't think you really need a guide. They make the rules themselves...Anyways, be prepared for some discussion then you will find a solution somehow.
the walk Was very nice with an exhausting part going up the Dent. but it is worth it! have fun! :)

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After reading all of the comments, we were super apprehensive about visiting here. However, we met some other travelers who wanted to go through with a guide, and we decided to join them.
I am pleased to report that we had absolutely no problems. The locals were nothing but friendly towards us. The hike was nice. From where we got out of our taxi, to the ´dent’ and back was 11 km and took us a total of 3 hours, including a nice sit on the top of the rock. We did the hike up with our group and guide, but returned on our own because the rest of them were doing the whole circuit with the waterfall. We encountered 0 problems.
We caught a taxi with our group on the way there for 500 per head. On our way back, we didn’t see any taxis so we walked part of the way back to town and then a local gave us a ride on his bike for free for the rest of the way.
I would absolutely say that if you want to do this hike you need to hire a guide. Why take the risk of having a bad time and also allowing people to treat you poorly? I wouldn’t want to encourage the kind of behaviour I have been reading about here.
Our guide charged 20,000 per 2 people for a full day and 10,000 per 2 people for half of a day- so we paid 5,000 each plus the 2,000 community fee. A bit steep for a hike but it was lovely, and there were so many different footpaths, it was nice having a guide lead us through.

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Arrived to complete the circular hike including the dent de Man. We were 'greeted' at the village near the bottom and told it was 2000cfa per person for the paths/village fee and 1000cfa parking. Having read the posts online we expected this but still spent sometime explaining that we disagreed with the charges as they are public footpaths. The man (Modeste) who seemed to be incharge was not aggressive and took our 'feedback' with a smile. However we paid up in the end as we wanted to go.

However we were followed out of the village by 4 boys (about 12 years old?) who wanted us to pay them a further 2000 as guides. As normal we politely explained that we had a map and didn't need a guide and we weren't going too give them any money. After the best part of an hour one of the very persistent would-be-guides shouted "give us money and we will leave you alone", again we explained we weren't going to give them money. At this stage one of the boys picked up 2 rocks and gestured that he would throw them at us and demanded money. We stood our ground, said NO and carried on but it was not pleasant and had he thrown them they would have really hurt regardless of his young age.

We got to the top and enjoyed beautiful views but the boys had 'blocked' the final path (which was steep but clear on the way up) with piles of sticks and branches all the way down.

We eventually lost the boys on the return leg. We only glanced at the waterfall on the way back as we didn't want to pay for this and it was getting late (no one at the fall tried to charge us). When we arrived back at the road a group of men (from a different village) 'greeted' us and demanded 2000cfa for the village/path/waterfall. We told them we had already paid the fee and named Modeste (showing them the piece of card he had written his name and phone number on when we insisted). The men became quite aggressive saying we still needed to pay their fee, we walked off but they followed the final 1km back to the start.

Back at the start we located Modeste and explained the problems and reminded him we had paid for the "security of the route". We showed Modeste a picture we had taken which had caught one of the boys in the background and explained we wanted to speak with the boy's father to discuss the unacceptable behaviour. He couldn't be located but and we were invited (by a very polite Modeste) to sit on a bench whilst what felt like the entire village had a very loud debate over us (they were shouting at each other but not us) at some point during this the men from the other village who had followed us left and eventually Modeste "resolved" the issue by refunding us and promising to speak to the boy's father.

It was a beautiful hike and you definitely don't need a guide (just maps.me), whilst we agree we shouldn't have paid in the first place it seems so many have that the only way of being able to do the hike is paying the fees. We have (and suggest others do the same) fired off an email to the embassy explaining the issue - probably won't accomplish anything but it's at least something.

Be aware of the potential second charge of the second village, this issue disappeared in the end for us but we could imagine this being an issue for others.

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We did the hike with Cherif, very nice guy. Came the day before to discuss the details with us. You go with your own vehicle and take him with you.

We did the hike and the waterfalls slowly, took us 6 hours. The view is amazing and the hike very nice! It is sometimes a bit climbing but very duable.

You can call Cherif on +225 68 01 13 61. The cost is 2,000 village fee pp, 2,000 to visit waterfall. For the guide we paid 25,000 for the four of us. He only speaks French.

After the hike we went to the monkey park for another 1,000.

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After reading all these comments we decided to take a guide - and he happens to be the same Augustine, who was really friendly and told us a lot of interesting facts. He was not cheap, 20 000 for the group of 8 and we had to pay contribution to the village for keeping the pathways clean: 2000 per person for the La Dent and 1000 for the cascade.

All together it's a really nice hike (about 17 km in 5 -6 hours) ending at the waterfall where you can cool down. The locals were friendly to us - probably thanks to Augustine.

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As previously said, the first impact is with people from the neighbouring village. And it's not pleasant. They were quite aggressive in demanding money. I tried to discuss the price but when i saw the situation i've just paid and continued on the trail by myself. From there, the trekking it s really nice. Only last part below the summit requires some attention if rocks are wet. I suggest to you the round trip from the village, up to the summit, to the waterfalls and back Zogualè. You can find the path both on mapy.cz and maps.me. 12 km and 4 hours, more or less. Enjoy it!

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There are 2 turns to take which are not that obvious, there were locals whom I’ve asked for direction as we had no guide

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We had serious problems here, as two above average sized, fit men, it was not a safe situation. We were violently threatened with weapons after being surrounded by 15 male villagers demanding money. Tried to reason for an hour and a half, as we dont pay bribes the villagers were too violent and the crowd physically forced us back to our vehicle. DO NOT ATTEMPT.

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The 'prices' are currently 2000/person as a village fee to climb the peak, 1000/person to see the cascade, and 1000 for secured parking at the start of the trail. They were unpleasantly aggressive about all this at the beginning although they were very friendly at the end as we drove away. Guides were asking 10,000 and we took one for 6000. The trail is marked accurately on maps.me so most people will be fine on there own. It's a beautiful hike. The cascade is not so impressive and the swimming hole is made from concrete and no more than 1m deep when we visited.

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We decided to walk here on our own. The road to the cascade goes through some small villages, but at the last one (Zogoualé) we were stopped by 10 men with machetes and a rifle who were demanding money. When we told them we were only going for a walk they told us if we walked any further they would beat us. We discussed for over an hour why we should pay, but in the end they got too agressive for our taste so we decide to return to town and not see the cascade.

We ended up going to the other cascade (Naturelles de Man), payed 2000 CFA for 2 persons at an official post. Swam at the cascade and felt very safe.

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Update. on getting back to the town. the price has shot up. The guides name is Augustine. Use him at your risk. Or better yet. walk yourself. there are only two turns to take. its pretty easy

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Nice 4 hour or so hike. Guides can be picked up at the cascades. I paid 4000 for guide (he rode his bike. included fuel). Then 1000 for the village

i probably paid too much. but seemed cheap after liberia

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