There is a perfectly new road that runs 800 kms north starting from Brazza, but we still took 13h to get to the directorate of the Odzala-Koukua National Park. All this 13h we spent either speeding through the national highways in the park's brand new Toyota 4WD or waiting in different spots for the park's accountant to either get money from an atm or to get the park's new mobile phones connect to the internet. Otherwise the road was quite ok, I've tried to sleep, but I was also tempted to stay awake and see the paysage on the way. Celine said that before it took her 2 days to get to the park, but the last 5 years a new road was built and there are fragments added every year. I would say that there's what to learn from them, i.e. how to build 800 kms of fine road in just 5 years if it wasn't for the fact that they were built either by chineese logging companies or brazilian palm oil plantation developers. We could see big trails cutting deep into the forest on both sides of the road by which the Chineese are emptying off the world's last big timber reserves. Actually there was not so much of the forest to see one the way, but the road was rather surrounded by vast bushy savanna. We were all wondering whether this is the way it was originally, and although we did not find an answer to this question, we were told that you can easily find antelopes, wildboars and hienas there, suggesting a natural ecosystem. I hope there are still some lions living there too.
After 11h of civilisation we arrived to Etoumbi where we took a hand operated barque (filmed it so hopefully will be able to show you) which was like 9 metal containers connected to each other with metal bars and two ropes that you had to pull alternativly to get further from one side and closer to the other.
And here we arrived to the jungle. The other side of the river had no road but the huge forest on both side of a vaguely visible and most of the time underwater path which was leading to the National Park. During our shopping in Brazza Celine told us that we can find quite a lot of stuff in the market of Mbomo, but I was nowhere to imagine that somwhere at the end of this road there is anyrhing to sell exept maybe bushmeat. Speaking of which, once we got to the other side of the river we bumped into a poacher right away. I was very impressed (and the list only begins) by our driver, who stopped the car and called the local chief commandor and hurried him to come and search the guy. I am not sure I could expect to see the same in Cameroon. But yes I have to get used to a different reality, where blacks are treated as normal workforce (although sometimes subhuman but more on that later), and they have responsible jobs and they are their own master in their own country. However the park is still run by white people but there are few positions like accountant and assistants filled by locals.
So the last few kms took us about 2 hours and that's where I got completely under the spell of our driver 'cause even though somtimes I couldn't see the road he maintained a solid at least 50 km/h speed slowing down only when the piste completely disappeard under the water. This was the same forest I know from Cameroon, and it felt home. However and surely because of my expiance I was still unable to imagine that there is a whole city waiting for us ahead of the road.
But here it is, after two hours cutting through one of the last remaining rain forests of Africa we got to Mbomo, the gate of the national park. It was already dark when we got here but still got an impression that it is like the Cameroonian village Bikol spread through several hills and little "cartiers" stick together, not much of a city, rather a few villages grown into each other. Next day I have learned that there is 4000 ppl leaving here in the middle of literally nowhere. You've got one road leading here and nowhere out, because it ends at the gate of the park. You are sourrunded by a jungle where you have forest elephants, buffalos, gorillas and pantheras and the only way to get out of here is a road that you won't necessary find...
We are staying in one of the many brick houses that were built for those park employees that are moving here with their families. There are 2 rooms 3 beds and a kitchen outside the house. We have a common bathroom with our neighbors and there is electricity every day in the morning and in the evening. There is a big water container a few meters from the house taht we have to go to collect water. The main building of the park is about 20 m away, here we even have wifi! (Anyways that's how I can post this, there will be a new post when Daniel, the cartoonist comes back from the bush in the begining of March - get ready!). The working hours are from 6:45 to 14:45 and the day starts with a drill where they pull up the congolese flag! It was quite funny this mornng being surrounded by all those so called ecoguards dressed up in camouflage with their guns next to their shoulders and getting all serious and official, and us in the middle of this seemingly pacifists and not finding our place in all this. But well, I have to admit, that I wouldn't be very pacifist when facing a poacher with gorilla carcasses.
We spent the whole Staurday and part of the Sunday meeting ppl in the village Celine worked with eralier. It was a really great experiance and partly unknown, because I never made such close friends in Cameroon neither have I spent much time in their homes. In Cameroon we rather kept a distance between local workers and the volunteers, and since the villages were further away, we rarely had time to go there. Here we went to Gode's house, who was the camp helper in Celine's last mission, and although we went there just to say hi, we ended up having lunch together and going to his nephew's wake in an other cartier. It is amazing how thoughtfull and sharing are these ppl, even if obviously we went shopping for the food, they prepared everything for us and wouldn't let us go...
Saturday we also went out for a drink with one of the most disgusting persons I have ever met, it is a retired American ranger pilot, who came here to do the same job for the park. He is apparently waiting for his plane to arrive and meanwhile he is reconstructing the park's airport to fit the needs of the tourists who pay 11000 dollars for a week to come here and see gorillas. At the same time he is getting also pretty drunk and touching shamelessly the local women and explaining his view on the black population as subhumans just becasue they have less education. I asked him what education did he have and told him that I probably have more than him but don't treat him subhuman (although now I think I should) and he agreed that I have a point, but it still didn't convince him. At this point I was already crying in the inside so gave up the discussion with him.
Yesterday we spent preparing the material for the forest: we take solar panels, tents, fuel, kerosine lamps, kitchen stuff, truck batteries, radio phones and all the research equipment with us, along with our stuff and food. Thursday is the big day, when we get all our stuff in the pinasse and leave the civilization for 3 and a half months... Actually can't wait for it to happen. It's a 3 h boat trip from here to get to the camp, and then another hour to get to the second one.
In the evening yesterday we got ourselves invited to the new director's place. He is actually quite new here, got here 2 months ago with his wife, but they had a quite impressive experiance in wildelife management and have worked around soutestern Asia and Africa in different national parks. It was interesting to see them and see their vision on wildlife conservation, locals, chinese and palmoil ("funny thing", not far away there will be a new palm oil plantation, almost as big as the park set up by malasians - they've destroyed everything in Malaysia and now they're coming to do the same great job here in Africa). They told us stories how the extermination of forests in Sierra Leone led to general famine in the country and how you go to the forests in Vietnam and see no birds and hear no sounds in the nature because they literarly eliminated everything that moves there. Humans make me scared sometimes.
So they've came to fight poaching here and continue the apparently good job the previous director did. In a way I envy them for their great life and meaningfull work, but cannot really imagine another job where your hands are more tight than fighting corruption in Africa.
I am attaching a pic of an ecoguard, basically forest ranger, that I took while training myself to make photos of gorillas (humans served as models here).
