Africa was simply one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I had never been to Africa, so jumping south from Europe was something I was heavily looking forward to. Technically Morocco was my first stop in Africa, but this part of the trip entailed me officially leaving Europe. I met up with two great friends who we’ve had our share of adventures together in the past. They flew from the States and we met in Paris as we ventured off into The Jungle. As I’ve wrote about before, this trip continues to instill on me the important of relationships. It’s tough to beat meeting up with two of your best friends that you haven’t seen in six months to tackle a once-in-a-lifetime adventure in the Congo and Central Africa Republic. This trip was going to be interesting considering where we were going in Central Africa only 100 visitors went in 2018.
I’ll write a quick side-note that this also taught me some resilience. This part of the Africa trip came up last minute within 3 weeks of leaving and I had just assumed I had a yellow fever vaccination from previous adventures. I was down in Morocco while the trip was being planned and assumed once I got back to Valencia, I could get any vaccinations I needed as we were going to some off-the-path places. I get my vaccination record back and it turns out I didn’t have the yellow fever vaccine. I bike around the city to the 5 hospitals that offer yellow fever as soon as I return. All 5 places can book me an appointment…... 3 weeks from now! And I was leaving in 2 weeks! I checked Madrid/Barcelona with no luck and socialized healthcare has its repercussions was a good lesson I learned. I thought I would have to cancel my trip after a hefty down deposit, but finally figured out a solution. It required flying to Paris for one day as they had a vaccination clinic inside the airport. I hopped on a plane the next day, got my shots, and brought back some macaroons for my friends that night. I was freaking out the day I couldn’t get my shots and it taught me to calm down, assess the situation, and look for solutions. Hopefully can apply that to the stock market!
Off to the good stuff. I’ll admit- I got a TON of pushback from family and friends that I shouldn’t do this trip. Central African Republic or “CAR” was a Level 4 advisory that had been undergoing a significant civil war and had only recently opened to visitors. My favorite was a friend reached out and offered the contact of a “security detail” that could escort you around Republic of Congo. Another favorite quote was after hearing what we were doing in Africa my mom said, “why don’t you just go to a zoo?” Although my parents would hate to hear this, the way we picked this trip was calling up several outfitters and asking, “what’s the craziest trip we could do in Africa?” Only one came back with CAR (several said Congo) so that’s how we picked it. The good news is I’m writing this, and I can say we were 100% safe and never had any issues. In fact, the people were wonderful, and I continue to be thankful for the experience. Don’t worry too much, my friends are great travelers and researchers and we were confident nothing would go wrong. We were essentially sneaking into the southern-most point by river that was 100s of miles away from any conflict. We also went with highly respected outfitters we vetted considerably. I was a little nervous on the planes, but the plane we used ended up using was very nice with some great pilots.
I don’t have any pictures of the villages since it’s offensive to take pictures, but I can attest it makes you appreciate where we are in life. The luck of being born somewhere with opportunity and optionality should not be taken for granted. When we were on our way to CAR, we stopped along 5 different checkpoints with customs along the river and I’ll just say there “ain’t much.” A dollar goes a long way there. I will attest that the people seem happy and even buying a bracelet for a dollar had people hugging us and thanking us. When your culture has undergone civil war for years, I think seeing foreigners finally getting to enjoy your country brings some pride.
I was intrigued with a lot of the culture, but it was fascinating how archaic some of the customs were. The Baka Tribe or Ba’Aka, formerly known as Pygmies (and no longer considered respectful), were in most of our areas and we got significant interaction with the people. This is an ancient tribe of hunter-gatherers that have continually been driven back deeper into the forest after considerable war and conquest throughout Africa with the first mention of the people dating back to 2276 B.C. The average height is 5 ft. and they live semi-nomadic lives where they will go into the jungle to hunt/gather for months at a time. The main village near our camp in CAR was segregated with Ba’Akas on one side of the road and the other main tribe, the Bantus, lived on the other side. Diving a little bit more into the history Ba’Akas were once considered slaves to the others and this was recently outlawed around 12 years ago! The Ba’Akas were essentially indentured servants to the other tribe. Talking to the owner of our camp, it was interesting hearing more about the dynamic. If management at the camp would ask a Bantu worker to do something he will often simply turn around and make the Ba’Aka perform the task. And since the one tribe is so used to it, this is commonplace with no pushback from the Ba’Akas. We were out with the locals and the Ba’Akas essentially weren’t allowed on the dancefloor. Fascinating culture, but it teaches you that it’s hard to break out of customs that have been engrained for that long.
Ok! So how was the adventure? I’ll admit staying in Brazzaville (capital of Republic of Congo) was…...an experience. I thought I was going to get eaten alive in our hotel room from mosquitoes and wasn’t fully caught-up on my malaria pills, so I slept in full clothes with a net over my head. After our night in Brazzaville we took our plane over to the north of Congo and the airplane ride was incredible. Honestly, everyone was worried about us getting kidnapped, but we knew we were going to good places that were remote. The thing that scared us the most was going on the little airplanes. Fortunately, we had a great pilot that put us at ease. He even let me sit in the captain’s pit!
Our first lodge was fun to get to with a 2-hour ride in a jungle Land Rover. The food was spectacular and not exactly “roughing it.” Our first real adventure was tracking some gorillas. We came down here to find some silverbacks and ventured off into the jungle just outside of the camp. Our tracker was incredible to watch as he used a machete to go down into the jungle and went off scent. He would investigate the footprints and see where the trail led. We also went off sound during our 1.5-hour hike. We finally encountered the gorillas and it was quite the sight. The gorillas were a little far away from us, but my friend’s camera caught some great shots. We never felt threatened and were surprised how comfortable the gorillas were around us. Apparently, they are pretty good at judging whether onlookers are tourists or poachers, one give away is our medical masks. Humans can pass along deadly diseases so once we encountered the gorillas we put on masks. Majestic creatures and we found a silverback!
The next thing we did was a kayak adventure. One of the more surprising angles I hadn’t expected out of the trip was how much sheer beauty was in the jungle. The tranquil waters with constant insect noises was an incredible feeling I’ll never forget. The sunset on the water was one for the books. I had expected constant rain since we were in the rainy season, but we barely got any for most of the trip. Ended up being great weather and we had a great time kayaking. Only one day did we get down poured, but I’ll take just one day considering we DID go to the rainforest during rainy season. This whole trip taught me to investigate and learn things for myself, with the locals considering the rainy season the better part of the year.
We then decided to get off the kayaks, only because our guide made us (who was fantastic). We then went on a jungle track through the river. It was something else. Wading through mud and going up a river to encounter some buffalo as we made our trek back home was an experience I’ll never forget. I assumed there were dozens of things that were out to kill us waiting in the waters in the Congo, but there is surprisingly little to be afraid of. Bugs were our most common enemy, but all things considering it wasn’t too bad (my friends might disagree with this as I think they got more bug bites, guess some people can't handle Africa ha ha).
Off to CAR! We took our plane to the very northern tip of Republic of Congo where we landed on a mud airstrip. And then we were on our way to CAR by taking a boat. The boat ride was incredible and one of the more surreal experiences I’ve had throughout my life. The twists and turns through the tranquil waters were electric. In true Africa fashion we stopped at 5 different customs points at random villages that had 3 shacks and often delivered what seemed to be bags of booze to appease the customs officials. One of my favorite random encounters was our driver asking if picking up a hitchhiker to take upriver was ok with us, and we said sure. My guess is he hadn’t seen many white people before, and he took dozens of pictures with us on the boat and he seemed so grateful we allowed him on to hitchhike. We finally made it to our destination and the lodge was a trip. We were there with a couple of researchers and construction workers with dinners more resembling “family dinners.” The owner of the camp was something else and looks like a guy who has been in CAR for 30 years (the bearded fellow Rob below). Rob managed the camp, his wife managed an animal research clinic there, and his son worked as our guide. They were amazing hosts and really made the experience. Hearing his stories on when the civil war broke out a couple years was enthralling culminating with him chasing off several teenagers with machine guns off his property!
We were in search to see another Silverback, so we ventured off to see some more gorillas. This track was much more different than the last one. We were able to get much closer, so the pictures and experience were better. But essentially researchers just radioed to our guide where the gorillas were, so the “tracking” part left a little to be desired. Although seeing a silverback this close is a sight to behold! Again, the gorillas were very comfortable with seeing us and we got to spend an hour with them after we first encountered the band of gorillas.
We also did a unique local experience of “Net Hunting.” We had a good joke amongst me and my friends where I had no idea what it was, and eventually I just wanted to be surprised. My friends mostly planned the trip and I think I missed it on the itinerary and even Google didn’t have any search results for it. So they made up stories about how fast I need to outrun the animals and telling our guides not to explain what we were doing the next day. Well Net Hunting was a unique experience. We pulled up to the local village and our guide essentially had a “draft” where he picked the 20 best local Ba’Aka hunters each with their own nets and they piled into a pickup truck. The entire time they danced and sang, which I later learned was to ward off elephants so not to get trampled. The people were very friendly and grateful to be chosen to hunt but fights almost broke out when the draft was underway. Net hunting was not exactly what I imagined, but the entire tribe puts up nets creating a large circle deep in the jungle. The tribe then slowly brings the nets in closer and closer, while also scaring the animals with singing, stomping, and dancing to get them to run into the nets. We helped a little bit and we were able to catch a Duiker, which looks like a baby deer/antelope. I can’t tell you how happy the villagers were. We were told by the guides that was the first time they’ve caught something in the past 13 times, so I guess we were good luck. They also look for porcupines or any other small animals. I won’t share any pictures of the animal as it was a bit gruesome, but they performed a song ritual and later split up the small animal where every tribal member got a piece of the animal based on their contribution to the hunt. I have no idea how they gauge the contribution, but they routinely had bitter arguments over what area to lay the nets, so I imagine there is always controversy. We learned one group paid the tribe to let the animal go as they were sad to see it killed (guess they thought it was too cute to eat), but honestly if there’s anyone who deserves do eat an animal they hunted it’s the Ba’aka tribe in the middle of nowhere Central Africa in my opinion. Was a wild experience and I’m not sure I’ll ever live something like that again.
Another great adventure in CAR was off to the “Bai.” The Bai is a place where the rivers come together and ends up in essentially a mud pit or a marshy depression. The interesting part is the water bubbles up into the mud pit and ends up creating salt crystals. Elephants love the salt and they stick their trunks into the mud and lick the salts. This ends up having an area where there can be over a hundred elephants at one time! When we were there, I counted 58 elephants along with other various animals. Hearing the elephants trumpet, walking their babies, and the occasional fight was a site to behold. We had a 1.5-hour hike back to the car and we got down-poured on, which was probably one of our most dangerous situations. When the rain is loud it’s difficult to hear the elephants that could potentially trample you along with trees falling from lightning. Pictures won’t do it justice, but we made it out just fine with a good guide. The picture on the top left below is not from the Bai, but outside of our camp at night using my friend's night vision camera. Amazing to see the jungle alive at night and seeing what was out there as we could only hear them and not see them in the dark. We thought there was one or two elephants splashing in the river and ended up being a dozen just outside our camp.
Our last adventure in CAR was off to the “Land of Giants” where giant trees grow everywhere. One of my favorite quotes was “you are one of only a handful of white people to ever venture onto that island.” Made me feel like I was doing something so unique and considering how hard it was to get to CAR I can officially say yes to that. Great pics with some great friends and had another excellent kayaking adventure.
Ramifications of poaching. At our outfit there was a Pangolin research camp. I found it interesting that the Pangolin, a creature I had never heard of, was close to becoming extinct. The creature is unique in what looks like a miniature aardvark with scales. Apparently, the Chinese think the scales, when they are melted down, have magical healing powers. Pangolins also exist in Asia but have almost become extinct due to Asian demand. Now Asian traffickers have begun to look at the African Pangolin and it’s a widely poached animal on the brink of extinction. Talking with researchers around the camp it was a great learning experience on how deep poachers go to find these animals. I also discussed several new techniques to deal with poachers such as using police data techniques to triangulate where the likely poacher is based. Also, several GPS tracking tools have started to become more mainstream and learning how technology is being used to combat this travesty was interesting to learn. The Pangolins unfortunately are easy fodder with their natural defense mechanism of rolling up into a ball where the poacher easily grabs them. We also talked in depth with the researchers and learned how they continually try and slow the demand side of the poaching equation. The supply side will unfortunately always be there with new poachers taking the place of any caught/jailed poachers considering how poor the areas are. Demand side is the real way to combat poaching but can be difficult to thwart demand at the source. I learned China has done a lot of campaigns with celebrities such as Yao Ming to help, but it continues to be a big problem. We hung out with a couple of Pangolins, but don't have pictures. Below are the scales that poachers get after essentially boiling/maiming them.
That was a ton of adventure for a few weeks. It taught me a lot. How to assess situations, how to stay calm, and how to accept adversity just to name a few. I also learned how lucky I was to be in the situation I am. It helped having a few familiar faces and we were able to conquer one of the more difficult adventures we could come across. All in all, a fantastic trip and as crazy as it sounds had some more coming in the next few weeks.
I then went from what Google described as “The Deep Dark Jungle” to Seychelles, which is halfway between Africa and India. I made it soundly but had to laugh at my voyage over there. I went from Northern Congo, to Brazzaville, to Rwanda, to Tanzania, to Ethiopia, and finally Seychelles. But all I can say is the trip was worth it 100x. One of the more beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and it constantly amazed me. I won’t say I was challenged much on this short side trip, but I did some fantastic scuba diving, paddle boarding, and relaxing! I can’t say much more about it outside the fact this was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to and highly recommend it for any beach lovers.
After an already epic couple weeks in Africa, I ventured down to Cape Town on my way over to South America. I’ll save that for my next post. Cheers!
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