At the conclusion of his 290-mile transect on foot through the Central African Republic, National Geographic Explorer J. Michael Fay shares his big-picture observation of what he’s seen, heard and understood: The regression from colonial occupation and post-colonial nation states is making way for the ancient fault lines in the region’s geography and population dynamics. If…

Sudan Border Walk Day 20 (March 30, 2017) I heard Yaya stirring and looked at my watch: 02h20.  I said, Yaya it is two AM.  He said: “I am ready”. Then I heard Herve and Felix. No use, time to get up. Yaya said he heard the cattle come down to the river and he…

Day 18 — We decided to walk on the north side of the river to avoid some mountains, but also to check out this big flooded plain I can see in the satellite imagery. We took off at 04h40; the boys are motivated because we are close and food is running very low, so packs…

We decided to take a big loop out of the river today and to go around a mountain, but it was going to take about 20km in a straight line, so we were up at 03h00. We were out of camp by 04h30, and good we were, because we camped under a hive in a…

First day, maybe since the beginning, that somebody isn’t sick. That’s refreshing. Out of camp by five, and another 15-km leg to accomplish. We had our normal greeting of baboons, guinea fowl and warthogs in the morning. We picked up more presumed-giant-eland dung in about the same spot as last night, a bit further south….

  Last night there was a leopard vocalizing not too far from camp; first of the trip. The herders poison them for the skins, so their numbers are low. My turn for the squirts today. Yaya gave me a piece of two-day-old, half-cooked catfish which I almost stopped eating when I spied fly eggs on…

Just as I thought, this morning at 04h00 there wasn’t a peep. I was sleeping outside the river valley to stay out of the cold air coming back down the creek at night. I woke the troops and prepared my bag, packed my tent, brushed my teeth, and went down the hill. Yaya was ready;…

I heard rustling in the leaves around 01h30. Thought maybe it was red river hogs, so got my headlamp ready to spot them. Then I heard the clang of a pot. Somebody is up? Then I heard murmurs, and by 02h00 the campfire was alive with chatter. It was like Christmas morning; the boys were…

Félix and I got out of camp at 05h00 and started the walk as far as we could get to the border before the water ran out. There is a major tributary of the Douyou that was our best bet. We headed east then northeast. For the first hours, going was pretty easy. We saw…

Got a real 05h00 start this morning. That, plus it being overcast from the halting storm we had last night, made it a good walking day. They call these March rains Mango Rains here. They are a very short wet season before the real wet season starting in May. Mango Rains are lots of wind, dust, thunder…

Every day I would say we are losing a bit of condition; walking in the hot sun and eating one meager meal a day adds up to below zero. Despite fatigue, we managed not only to get out of camp just after five, but Yaya caught a 2.5 lb catfish that will help the larder….