We get up early this morning so that we can get to the entrance of Korup National Park early enough to arrange for some hiking into the park. We prepare breakfast this morning and serve it by 6:30 AM. After packing up, we are on our way, continuing through the palm oil plantations, by 7:30 AM.
After driving along quite bad dirt roads, we arrive at Mundemba at 11 AM. The headquarters for the national park is located here. We first arrange for our visit to the park, and then go off and have lunch at one of the local restaurants. We get an egg omelet which has spaghetti in it - quite interesting and good. We return to the truck to head off to the park entrance, which is about 9 km away.
Korup National Park is Cameroon's only rainforest park, and it covers a total of 1,259 km². There are no roads in the park - instead there are over 115 km of hiking trails, with three tourist camps. You have guides and porters that take you through the park.
We got to the entrance to the park shortly before 3 PM - you need to cross the Mana River here. You would normally do that by a huge suspension bridge they have here, but it is currently awaiting repair. Instead, we will cross through the river, which is quite low as it is the dry season. We get our stuff sorted out - sleeping gear and food for two nights in the park.
We cross over the river, which is now really a number of smaller steams - it must be quite a river in the wet season. We wander through the jungle for about 1.5 km before coming to Iriba Camp, where we will stay the night. The walk through the forest is very nice - they have a great trail and the guide does a good job of explaining everything to us. He points out various types of plants and tells us all about them. Once in camp, we set up our tent and get our sleeping gear sorted out, and then head down to the nearby stream for a swim and a bath.
It is a great spot - the water is very refreshing and we have a good time hanging out in the water. At some points it gets too deep to stand. After a while, we were joined by the guides and porters, who also jumped in for a bath. They also seemed to be having a great time.
The evening was spent in the camp site taking it easy. We helped out the cook group prepare dinner - fried rice, and then sat around under the stars hearing stories being told us by one of the guides. He had some great local stories about why some animals do various things and so on. We went to bed early and fell asleep while watching the moonlit night sky and listening to all the sounds coming from the rainforest that surrounds us.