SAFARI Time!

07 Apr 2010 2 Comments

by Rebe in Cameroon

I have never been to a Zoo. I don’t know why but its just something I haven’t managed to accomplish in my 25 years. I have of course seen a few animals in cages here and there (Harrison park comes to mind), and certainly aquariums  but never the African Lion Safari or Mexico city Zoo. Nada.

Africa may feel at times like a zoo but really its just chaotic and they keep their zoo’s au naturel conveniently stuffed way up in the extreme north of Cameroon!

(There may be other places on the continent with animals but I haven’t been to them yet so I can’t be sure).

After a lengthy celebration of my 1/4 of a century existence I decided to put an end to my limited zoo-like animal experience and get myself up to the Waza Nation Park aka SAFARI TIME! Some friends and I rented a great 4×4 with no shocks, a leak in the gas tank and a weak tire to carry us on our African Adventure tour extraordinaire!

We planned to arrive at dusk to see the animals before bedtime but like most things in Cameroon we arrived about two hours too late and it was already dark. So we shacked up in some funky bukaroos (round huts with a straw hat finish) that cost about $5/person (amenities not included…except at the other huts where we had to sneak over to). Luckily we were all tired beyond belief after two nights of birthday festivities so we happily feasted on our resource cooking recipe which included baguette, vache qui rit (cheese like substance), mushy avocado, tuna a la onion and most importantly Piment (spicy salsa that makes food tolerable). To wash it down we had elegant metal cups filled with Vin Chaud (Mulled wine…its that hot here).

We got up bright and early and realized we had stayed at the foot of a beautiful rock face with an incredible view of the landscape. As we sat eating mangoes and more vache qui rit we spotted a family of wart hogs walking along the cliff near us. This sparked us into action and we forgot about the fact there was no coffee to be had.

We hired a driver in Maroua, a familiar face to the volunteers and he should have been our guide but we hired a guide anyways as is the protocol. He was in fact just an old man who smelled terrible but knew the park really well. I started asking him some questions and discovered that he had very little information to give me; apparently his job was to sit up straight and shift his gaze quickly from side to side in order to spot animals for us. Ceri another volunteer spotted them before him almost every time.

One thing the guide could tell me was that the park is 170 000 hectares (I don’t really know what a hectare compares to but it sounds big) We spent about 5 hours in the park driving around looking for animals and we were not disappointed. Within the first minute of entering the park we spotted Giraffes! They are truly amazing, larger than life and so elegant

We saw loads of other animals but none nearly as impressive as the Giraffes! Often there are elephants to be seen but since they like to stomp around they had stomped off towards Chad…We got to see many different birds (all impressive but I can hardly remember their names since they were all told to me in French or Fulfulde), Antelope and their brothers (Damalisse maybe). A mongoose, warthogs and loads of monkeys!

At around 11 the hot African sun reached the middle of the sky and our guide did well to inform us that this would cause loads of animals to seek water. Surprisingly in the very desert like climate there were a few watering holes and so we came to one in order to wait for the animals to come to us. Our guide kindly let us know that we were being rather stupid to sit at water’s edge because we were scaring off any animals that maybe wanted to come. So we took refuge under the shade of a tree a ways up the bank and waited. It was a spectacular scene that unfolded slowly slowly. It felt like watching the discovery channel where a huge herd of antelope approached and took every precaution to watch for lions. They would slowly go down to the water and drink a few at a time while the others looked out. All of a sudden two crazy monkeys ran flailing and jumping into the crowd and basically started to stir shit up. The antelopes were all spooked thinking it was a lion but soon realized it was only monkey business and they started to push and shove a bit. It was great because the monkeys did get bullied out of the way but soon came back with their big brother and they once again scared the shit out of the antelopes!

The pictures do not do the place justice and unfortunately my camera battery died so there is no photographic evidence of the trip back to Maroua which left us with a flat tire that all 7 of us couldn’t fix without the help of 2 huge muscle men biker dudes who stopped to help us (they were coming from London en route to CapeTown)! Once that was fixed we carried on toward Maroua and eventually ran out of gas (which I hate to say I told them all so it would happen)! Although I admit that it was the best running out of gas scenario imaginable since it happened on a long downhill stretch, everyone just went silent and we rode for a good 5km right to a little gas stop.

Amazing!