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...
Sorry for the delayed posting. I was out of battery power and walking too much for my solar panel to charge stuff. Here is my post for March 29, 2017: There were colobus monkeys calling before dawn again along the river this morning. In the early 1980s, when I did surveys in the north of...
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...
Up at 04h00 as usual, and we still didn’t break camp until 05h10. The putrid water Félix drank gave him dysentery. It is cold at night, perhaps 16 deg C, and we brought only the thinnest of sheets. You get cold in these damp river beds, so we both had bad sleep. On the trail walking,...
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....
Last night, before we bedded down, there were driver ants [also know as army ants] down near the river. I had Felix burn leaves to chase them from our camp. All good…until 01h00, when I was driven from my sleep, halfway, when I half-dreamt half-felt things biting my head. Then two seconds later, I knew what...
Day started at 05h30. Program changed again. I decided the midday stop was too disruptive, so we are going back to a continuous day. I figure from 05h00 to noon we can wear ourselves out sufficiently and make between 15 and 20 km in a straight line. Pretty much right out the gates today we were either following...