So why CAR?

Central African Republic (CAR), a nation smack in the middle of the continent was one that got away the last time I was in Africa. I still remember…it was late 2013 and I was a still single with a feeling my adventures were not going to last much longer. I was planning on going to Cameroon for my last home leave that year so thought it’d be best to include a week in CAR. My plan was to fly into Douala, backpack a couple weeks in Cameroon and then embarking on an overland border crossing into CAR.

Map of CAR
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2963930

The reason for going to CAR was to visit a seldom visited but highly rated national park in the south west region of this very unstable country. The Dzanga Sanga National park was were I had dreamt of seeing forest elephants in a bai, and close encounters with the western lowland gorillas.

There was however a small problem, a full-blown sectarian war had broken out between the Muslim Selekka and the Christian Anti-Balaka forces so my return flight was cancelled a month or so after I had booked them. The border between Cameroon and CAR was also sealed so my plan of land crossing was pretty much toast as well. As an alternate I decided to go to the Lobéké National Park (Blog on Lobéké NP) which is part of the Tri-national Protected area encompassing the Dzanga Sangha Special Reserve in the Central African Republic, and Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo.

Back then, three days of trekking in the bush proved fruitless with zero sightings of gorillas and just one fleeting glimpse of a forest elephant reluctant to show anything more than its backside. Redemption came on the last day as we left the camp when a silverback and his mate crossed the road. The silverback even stared us down for a good 30 odd seconds before returning to the bush. As exciting as that was, there is no denying that Lobéké NP was a poor cousin to the Dzanga Sanga.

I might sound like the person with the glass half-empty but after backpacking and spending a lot of time in the jungles of Gabon and Cameroon I still felt like I hadn’t got those close encounters with forest elephants and the western lowland gorillas. This is if I exclude a scary encounter of being charged by a forest elephant in the Loango NP however. Although not regret but more a feeling of a desire being unfulfilled lingered on.

Map of the Tri-National Protected Area
Allard Blom, Yolande Munzimi, Jeffry Oonk
and Marlene Azink of CARPE/US AID. [
Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

When I left Liberia in 2015 it felt as if I was never going to come back but destiny bought me back here a few months ago and I was determined to make it to CAR this time to finally get a crack at the forest elephants and the Western Lowland Gorillas.

Visiting CAR has its unique set of problem though. Citizens of most countries need a visa and there aren’t very many consulates of this nation around the world. There was one in the US but I didn’t have sufficient time to apply for one with my relocation happening in a compressed timeframe.

Going to Cameroon was an option but it was not logistically convenient as I also wanted to travel to India for a few days after CAR. It would also take more days off my total leave time and the flight costs were simply too high. Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is the seat of the African Union and almost all African countries have representatives there so I decided to go there instead. If I want to spend time in any country just applying for visa then Ethiopia is my favorite because it is cheap, convenient and the weather is refreshingly crisp.

CAR visa

I contacted the ambassador via email and to my surprise I got a warm welcoming response back which is quite unusual for most embassy/consulate officials. My flight itinerary was complicated to say the least so I had to book 3 different tickets…from Liberia to Addis Ababa via Nairobi, then from Addis to Bangui via Nairobi and finally from Addis to Mumbai via Nairobi again. All flights where on Kenya Airways but I have no clue why I couldn’t get a single ticket for the entire journey that was comparable to the cost of the 3 tickets. Its mind boggling that the ticket was cheaper with me taking two absolutely useless round-trip tickets between Nairobi and Addis Ababa. Perhaps someone who works in the aviation business can shed some light how the segment travel business works. I was just glad I had a plan had my tickets booked!

Before flying out to Addis I tried calling the ambassador to get the address of the consulate (yes…there are significant places that are not yet on Google) and scribbled it down on a piece of paper with some milestones he suggested wondering if this was going to be an adventure in itself.

The directions turned out to be pretty darn good. To be sure, I took a taxi the first time but once I got re-acquainted to Addis it was not that difficult to get there with local transport. It required two days to process the visa so I had to stay in Addis for 2 nights. The ambassador (Mr. Poukre) was one of the nicest consulate official I have met -he was kind and helpful and even had time to chat a bit about his country before I took his leave. Visa in my hand and I was finally all set for CAR. I just had to burn that evening before setting out to Bangui the following day.