wildlife watching in the CAR

We have a new trainee guide here, and he needed to be shown the two main sites which clients visit – Bai Hoku and Dzanga Bai – and I was allowed to accompany him, as a perk of being a volunteer at the lodge.  I felt I should give this blog the same title that I used back in 2012, when I wrote then about my visits to these amazing two sites http://louiseinsenegal.blogspot.com/2012/07/wildlife-watching-in-car.html 

Firstly on Friday we went to Bai Hoku to see the gorillas, the only habituated group that can be visited here now that the silverbacks of two other groups have died.  Exactly as I described previously, they are more difficult to watch than mountain gorillas as they move frequently – and they are difficult to photograph as the interior of the forest is quite dark.  However, it is still a wonderful experience to be close to such amazing creatures.

We watched the group of seven gorillas, especially the silverback guarding the group – sometimes climbing trees which really didn’t look as though they’d support his weight – and a female with a three-week-old baby.  She kept it close to her, usually with her back turned to us, but we did catch a glimpse as she lay on the ground to breast-feed it.

Then on Saturday we went to the Bai, me desparately wanting the bongos to be there (or just one bongo, even), as it was the wrong time of year to see them when I visited in 2012.  As we arrived, the guide at the front turned and grinned at me. ”Bongo!” he said, and sure enough there were some in the bai - however they started to leave as soon as they heard us arrive.  I took a quick couple of photos and was relieved that I had got to see them, albeit briefly.  An hour or so later, however, and they were back – 34 of them!!


I watched these beautiful creatures, as well as the forest elephants (some of them very bad-tempered!) and the forest buffalos lazing in the water, and a few birds (particularly Hartlaub's ducks, hamerkops, and white-throated bee-eaters)  It was a relaxing day, sitting up in the wooden observation tower, getting up from time to time to read the information panels on the elephants and the research taking place, or to get some more food out of the picnic hamper we'd brought with us. 

At one point, however, I heard a strange noise coming from beneath the tower, at the back, and got up to lean out and take a look.  It was an elephant, with her trunk stretched up to the corrugated iron roof of the stairs, where she must have been looking for food of some kind.

Such a magical place...

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