The beach Friday afternoon I had a chance to go out to the beach at Iguela for the first time since I’ve been here. It was so nice to get out and walk, after riding around in a boat so much! It’s a beautiful wide beach with lots of pretty shells, big ghost crabs but no animal tracks (too close to humans- there’s a village […]
Akaka is African heaven! Tim and I and our 2 Ecoguides spent 3 nights at Akaka, which is a camp at the junction of 2 rivers south of the lagoon. Akaka is one of the most pristine and stunningly gorgeous places I have ever seen. As we traveled down the river from the lagoon we passed through different habitats- first dominated by palm and papyrus,
Lagoon map To give an idea of some of the places I’ve been talking about, I thought it would be helpful to post a map of Iguela and the lagoon. This area is located on the central coast of Gabon. The red stars are my manatee sightings (some overlap in the northeast at Manatee Corner), the pink stars are former sightings made by staff here,
All is not well in the forest… or the lagoonI find the forests here absolutely mesmerizing. As we motor along the lagoons and rivers I am amazed at the size of the trees, with trunks that can easily reach 10 feet thick. In Evaro (inland) the roots of the trees are gnarled and look like something out of a Tolkien story; the forest seems enchanted.
Animal IDs Brian from Nat Geo looked at the snake pictures I previously posted, and thinks the first one is a forest cobra. The second one I saw last Wednesday is a Rhinoceros Viper (not Gabon viper). Tim says the monkey is a red-capped mangabey. I saw quite a few more in the past few days, as well as more forest buffalo and elephants. Here’s
Great animal sightings Wednesday! Yesterday morning we went out to a different part of the lagoon in the drizzle and didn’t find any manatees, but I did see my first forest elephant! Infact, my first wild elephant ever! It was wonderful, he didn’t seem too disturbed by our presence. After he came out of the bushes I realized he was wearing a radio collar. The
A night on the lagoonAs we boated out to our campsite Tuesday afternoon, we surprised a group of at least 3 manatees in an open channel. The water literally erupted around the boat, and even though I had a camera in my hand, I was so stunned (and was also trying to count any noses or tails) that I didn’t get a picture. Unfortunately there
Communication GapYesterday afternoon I headed out on the lagoon with my 2 EcoGuides, Pierre and Brice. They knew I had done an interview in the morning, describing my manatee research here and showing / describing the parts of a West African manatee skull (Tim recovered a skull from a carcass here in July, it is in pristine condition). So as we’re heading out from the
For new bloggers…If you want to go back to the beginning and see earlier posts, click on Septmber 2006 on the right side of this webpage. Posts are archived each month. This morning I was interviewed by National Geographic for a documentary they’re doing on Gabon’s national parks. They hope to come out to the field with me later in the week. This was my