07 | March | 2018 | Adventures with Julia

March 7, 2018

Inspite of some trepidation when we first booked this adventure a few months ago, Mark and I are excited to be going and have read enough to feel safe in the capable hands of our GeoEx staff and guides. We will be in Central Africa visiting Chad, Cameroon, SW of Chad, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, south of the Central African Republic, and commonly referred to as DRCongo. Here is an area map to get you oriented.

Map of Central Africa including Chad, Cameroon, DRC and Uganda

It all started when an advertising email from GeoEx appeared in my email. I took one look and immediately forwarded the brochure to Mark. Almost instantly he yelled up to my office, “Yes, let’s go.” We immediately picked up the phone and called GeoEx. Even though we had wasted no time, we still got the last 2 places on the trip, which included a total of 8 guests and 2 guides. Then we learned that a couple of extensions were being offered and we jumped on both of them, which is how the trip came to include Cameroon and DRCongo. All together the 3 legs add up to 21 days, with 11 days in Chad, 6 in Cameroon and 4 in DRCongo.

Once the plan was set, we added a couple of days in London at the beginning and a week at the end in Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Paris. These stops should reduce the jet lag affects and make the trip more relaxed, if traveling in Central Africa can be called relaxing.

The good news, is that there should be enough electricity to keep the camera and computer batteries charged. The bad news is that there will be very little, if any, WiFi in most places in the African countries and not enough power to down load photos even if there is WiFi. So it will not be as pictorial as our last trips. Hopefully, I will get to catch up when we are back in Europe. If you do not hear from us for many days, don’t worry. We will be back in touch as soon as possible.

So to get a head start on the adventure I am sending maps and some info before we depart. Here is a Map of Chad, which is more than twice the size of Texas. It is land locked and vast with the north mostly hot, dry, sandy desert and rugged mountains. We will be in the more populated southern part of the country, visiting the capital city of N’Djamena in the South West and Zakouma National Park in the South East.

Map of Chad

Cameroon is on Chad’s southwestern border, which is delineated by the Chari River. N’Djamena, Chads capital, sits on the eastern banks of the river. For reasons I don’t quite understand yet, we will drive south along the Chad side of the river to the town of Bongor before crossing into Cameroon. We will learn more about all that when we get there. Once in Cameroon we zig zag the length of the country until we get to the capital, Yaounde, and finally the port city of Douala. After 6 days in Cameroon we will fly east from Douala across the DRCongo to Entebbe, Uganda for a night before heading into the DRCongo.

Map of Cameroon

Uganda is the African country Mark and I have visited more than any other. We have enjoyed many of its sights, made friends with a few people who live there and spent time at the Kellermann Foundation facilities near the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the SW corner of the country. This trip, however, we will be in Entebbe only one night and then travel on to the DRCongo for a 4 day adventure in the mountainous regions of eastern DRCongo. We land first in Goma, a border town near Rwanda, then fly north into the mountains of Nord Kivu. Among other activities, we will be visiting gorillas and chimpanzees and climbing a volcano. More on all that later.

For the moment I would like to talk a bit about the Republic of Chad and what I learned about this very poor, landlocked country that is the fifth largest in Africa. The population is approximately 11.8M with both French and English being spoken as well as many dialects. The French took control of Chad in 1900 and converted the country into a colony. It finally gained independence in 1960 just as many other African countries did. Unfortunately, Chad’s post independence history has been marked by instability and violence, stemming mostly from tensions between the mainly Arab-Muslim north and the predominately Christian and animist south. The country’s leaders since that time have also been self-serving, power hungry and corrupt. The current president, Idriss Deby has been in power since 1990 and gained a fifth term in April 2016. He is credited with delivering on a promise to create a multi-party “democracy” in the mid 90’s, which has enabled him to stay in power through the electoral system he set up. In September 2017 Amnesty International accused the government of a brutal and growing crackdown on its critics.

The strife I read about did not inspire confidence. However, between trusting our tour company, GeoEx, with whom we have traveled before, reading about our 2 highly experienced guides and knowing the tight program that is planned, I feel confident we will have an exciting, extraordinary AND safe adventure. We will keep a low profile and avoid public conversation about the goverment. We also plan to spend nearly all of our Chadian time in Zakouma National Park enjoying animals and birds instead of people. We hope you will join us for the ride. And say a prayer for our safe and healthy return.