How I was captured by Wagner mercenaries: The tale of a tourist in the Central African Republic — Part 1
Per la versione in italiano clicca qua
Introduction
The following is the story of my adventure in the Central African Republic, from the happy, touristic part, to the not-so-happy part where I was taken into custody by Wagner soldiers and ended up arrested by the Central African authorities.
This is what happens when an experienced traveler gets a little bit too arrogant, traveling in war zones is not a joke.
In this part, I will also describe my logistics in the “peaceful area” of the country and the tourist activities I managed to do. Be aware that the situation in the country is always changing, so always do your research and try to get updated information if you are actually planning to travel there.
If you want to contact me or see the stories of all of my adventures around the world follow me on Instagram: @nico.cpp
This article is a bit long, but if you wish, you can click here to skip directly to the dramatic part of the story. However, I recommend against doing so. This nation isn’t just about war and troubles; reading this part will offer you additional context about the country and the reasons behind my travels there
What is the Central African Republic?
The Central African Republic (in short CAR) is a landlocked country situated right in the middle of the African continent. It has a long history of crazy dictators, coups, and civil wars, and nowadays it is probably the most impoverished nation on earth, still struggling with a civil war that has been going on for a decade, and continually ranking at the bottom of every economic and social indicator. There is only one paved road in the entire country, and basic infrastructures are to be found only in the capital. For instance, there are no fuel stations, banks, or any basic service outside of Bangui, the capital. I call this country the Africa of Africa.
I’ve traveled quite a lot all over the continent and I can tell you that I’ve never seen a place even remotely similar to CAR. I have spent plenty of time in Mali, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Liberia — which are also very poor — but they seem developed nations when compared to CAR.
Getting into the country
I got my visa quite easily at the consulate in Douala, Cameroon. They knew I was going there by land, and that my reason for traveling was just tourism. They had no objections.
I paid 90.000 CFA (around $130) and got the visa in two days.
To get to the border between Cameroon and CAR I took a train to Yaounde, then I changed train to Belabo, took a minibus to Bertoua, another minibus to Yokodaouma, and finally a shared taxi to the border city of Libongo.
Getting there was pretty straightforward, just super dusty. The last proper city on the way to the border is Bertoua, where I withdraw plenty of CFA at the Ecobank ATM, as it doesn’t charge any extra fees. It’s very hard to get cash in CAR, and when you find a way to get it they usually charge a lot of fees. Since both countries have the same currency it was better to get the money in Cameroon.
Libongo is a nice, tiny village on the border. There is no 3G internet coverage there but there are WiFi spots where you can get connected for a few euros per day. For such a remote village, Libongo is quite developed due to its thriving timber industry. I spent the night in a decent motel for around 7.000 CFA.
At the last checkpoint before the village, I was told to get my passport stamped the same day, even if I was going to cross the next day. However, the immigration office in Libongo was already closed. Luckily, a policeman who was passing by the office took me to the house of the immigration officer, who stamped my passport on the spot.
The way to Bayanga
My first destination in CAR was the city of Bayanga. Many local bike drivers in Libongo offered to drive me there for 25.000 CFA, but I knew it didn’t make any sense because we would have had to transport their motorbikes on the pirogue across the Sangha river to get to the other side of the border. So, the next morning, I walked to the river and took a pirogue for 2.000 CFA to get to the other side.
Once on the other side, immigration was pretty straightforward. I had to pay 4.000 CFA of “immigration and police fees” and I was in and out in 15 minutes. I quickly found a moto-taxi willing to bring me to Bayanga for 15.000 CFA. Weirdly, I got my passport stamped not at the immigration but at a police station where we stopped during our ride.
On the way to Bayanga, we crossed many checkpoints and they were always demanding 2/4.000 CFA as a “passage fee” but I managed to play dumb and I avoided paying.
They say it’s easy to spot gorillas on that road but I wasn’t that lucky, but the road was nice and the driver was pretty good.
Once in Bayanga, something strange happened: we went to a local police station where they stamped me in again! They also asked when I was planning to leave the city and stamped me out also, I’ve never got my passport stamped when already inside a country in any of the more than 80 nations I’ve visited so far.
Reaching Bayanga
My reason for crossing such a remote border was that in Bayanga I wanted to visit the Dzangha Sangha National Park, one of the UNESCO heritages of the Central African Republic, and considered to be the least visited national park on the planet.
Visiting the park is extremely expensive, so to save some money on accommodation I avoided going to the expensive Doli Lodge, the official lodge of the Park, and instead chose to go to the Elephant Motel, which had a very friendly owner but no food options. The food options in the village were also very limited, I later discovered that a better option for the same price is Bongo Motel, which has an onsite restaurant.
There are 2 phone operators in CAR, Telecel and Orange. In Bayanga Telecel 3G works much better, and is also the cheaper option — although still very expensive at around 2 euros per GB — but be aware that in some areas only Orange works, so it’s better to have both if you are traveling there extensively, which as you are going to discover, you probably shouldn’t for the time being.
As soon as I reached the motel I began to feel very sick. I’m pretty sure I got malaria for the second time in a couple of months, the first being in Burkina Faso. I started the therapy with Malarone straight away and the next day I was already ok. Shoutout to the owner of Shanga Lodge who offered to take care of me for free, but I had all of the required meds and already knew how to treat malaria, plus the idea of taking a moto-taxi to reach his place in that condition of sickness was just killing me.
The activities in Dzanga Sangha
I was already in contact with Monsieur Lambert, who is in charge of tourism at the park, and through him I organized a full-day trip to the park. The price was €150 to rent an off-road vehicle with a driver and fuel included, plus €300 for the gorilla permit and other fees to enter the park and see the elephants, coming to a total cost of more or less €500.
This place is probably as niche as tourism can get, and is usually only visited by very wealthy tourists who come there by private flights and stay at the park’s expensive lodge, which is so exclusive that I was not allowed to dine there because I was not a guest, despite the amount of money I was pouring into the place.
Gorillas
The gorilla trekking was amazing. At the moment there is only one gorilla family “educated” to stay with humans, and the staff of the park knows where to find them. They allow you to get surprisingly close to them for one hour while they study their behavior and take notes. The WWF manages the park and there is a very large number of international researchers conducting their studies there.
The elephants
After the experience with the gorillas we went on to an observation deck where you can see more than a hundred elephants at the same time. They kept trumpeting and rumbling, and it was a surreal experience. I felt like I was inside Jurassic Park.
At the observation deck I met a very friendly German researcher who was working for an American university. She had been living in the park for almost 3 years and spends most of her days on the deck studying the elephants. It was extremely interesting to meet these people doing such a peculiar job in such a remote place.
The Bayaka Pygmies of Central Africa
The next day I organized with Lambert a half-day excursion to see the Pygmies. There are many activities you can do with them, such as hunting with nets and building a traditional hut together, and I chose to see the traditional dancing. I paid €75 for the off-road rental, and €30 for the dance performance. I was told that 80% of what you pay for the activities with the Pygmies goes directly to them.
I was feeling weird being the only white person there, but then a huge crowd gathered to see the dancing so at least it was not a “private exhibition”. I was afraid that it was something for tourists, made just for me, but it wasn’t the case — it was part of their traditions, and they obviously enjoyed dancing all together.
The spectacle lasted for one hour, and I enjoyed seeing how much fun they were having together.
After the dancing they gave me a tour around their village. There was also a local school and I believe that they weren’t doing that bad compared to the average of the villages in CAR, thanks in part to the tourist activities of their park. They told me that most of the people don’t have money at all there, and that they usually trade fish and the animals they hunt for vegetables from Cameroon. It’s very hard to grow vegetables there because the elephants destroy their fields.
Road to Bangui
After visiting Dzanga Sangha my mission was to reach the capital, Bangui, a journey that has only been completed by a handful of travelers since the beginning of the war 10 years ago. The plan was to stay close to the border with Cameroon until the country’s second city, Berberati, and then proceed to Bangui. In each city I enquired about the safety and condition of the road to reach the next stop, and, as a backup plan, always made sure to have the possibility of returning to Cameroon .
Monsieur Lambert helped me to find a good moto taxi, and I reached the city of Nola for 15.000 CFA
The journey went smoothly, I crossed a few checkpoints on the way, they were always checking my documents and everything was always alright.
We also crossed through many villages, and everyone was so happy to see a white person driving around. They were always cheering me, especially when I was waving to them.
Nola is a desolate city. For some reason, I found a big Mauritanian community working in the local shops there. I’ve been to Mauritania and even if it is poor it is still much better off than CAR, and I wondered why they moved there.
This area of the country is full of diamond mines, and business people go there to trade them. Because of this, there is always a decent motel in every town, costing around 10.000 CFA.
I hoped to find a Car from Nola to Berberati as riding the motorbike was very tough. We were often driving on slippery sand and I had to actively help to keep the balance of the bike while riding. So I asked around the town and at my hotel with no success. Eventually my motel arranged a motorbike for me from Nola to Berberati, costing 20.00CFA.
Road to Berberati
This drive was awful, the motorbike kept breaking down, and we had to change a tire and repair the brakes. I was often left waiting in some village for my driver to go to the next city to repair the bike and come back to collect me. The villagers were, as always, very welcoming, and would give me a chair or a mat to sit on.
During the journey we had one accident caused by the broken brakes and the slippery sand. I had minor injuries.
At one checkpoint the policeman wanted to call his superior in Nola to check about my visa and we briefly talked on the phone. She could speak English and was very friendly, saying that she was sorry that she didn’t have the opportunity to meet me in Nola. In the end my visa was good, and we were allowed to go.
At yet another checkpoint they asked me to follow them to the local police station. Again they called their boss to check about my visa and then they let me go, telling me “Your papers are very good”.
Berberati
Berberati has been one of the most interesting places I’ve visited in CAR. It is not the second most populous city after the capital, but the second city for economic importance, and it was a good opportunity to see some real local life.
Thanks to the research I’d done online I found an Italian association that is helping the local Catholic school there, and they quickly arranged an interesting tour of the school. If you want to donate money to them I can assure you that it will be in good hands, and will go towards helping people who are among the most needy on the planet.
I was very fascinated by how the teachers were doing their best to capture the attention of the students, dancing and singing together. Also, their drawings on the blackboards were like real works of art. They told me that’s not the case for most of the schools in the country where children are regularly beaten up.
I had a brief conversation with a teacher who could speak Italian, and I asked about the safety of the road to Bangui. She said that they usually put a Muslim driver with Christian passengers, to avoid being attacked by rebels from both sides. Reassuring.
Hanging out in Berberati
When I arrived in Berberati I had a lucky encounter: a young guy on the street randomly asked me if I could speak English, and we quickly became friends. He helped me to take care of my wounds from the accident. We had to visit 4 pharmacies to find one with disinfectant.
We spent that day and the next going around the city, meeting his friends. The girls he introduced to me were always dancing in their free time. In Africa music and dancing is often very important, but I found it to be even more important in CAR.
He also introduced me to another friend who was pretty fluent in English. It was very interesting to talk with them. These guys were aware that they live in one of the worst places on the planet, and they were doing their best to study and have some hope to improve their lives. I have spent enough time in Africa to be able to understand when someone is friendly just because they want to take advantage of the “rich white guy”. With these people this was not the case, they were just genuinely happy to have a foreign guest.
I asked the guys if there was a decent place to have dinner in the city. In those desolated cities I usually rely only on omelets, bread, and emergency energy bars. Of course, the only real restaurant in the city was the one frequented by diamond traders and UN personnel (there is a MINUSCA base in Berberati). We had a tasty dinner there, but it was pretty pricy, I paid around 50 euros for the 3 of us, almost the entire average monthly salary of a normal person in CAR. People often don’t realize that those countries are poor not only because of the low salaries but also because of the high prices. CAR is a landlocked country with almost no industries, horrible roads, and an ongoing civil war; they have to rely a lot on very expensive imports from abroad.
At the end of the dinner, some extremely poor people came and asked if they could take our leftovers. They almost fought to grab our dishes. Christofer looked at me and said “People are hungry here”. I will never forget that scene.
Road to Bangui
The same friendly Italian charity NGO gave me the contact of a local priest who had studied in Italy for many years. He managed to put me on a great Toyota off-road with an escort from 2 local soldiers — a great ride after the messy motorbike adventure I had just had.
The driver was indeed Muslim! Average people here don’t care about religious differences, I saw many Muslims praying in public and Christofer told me that Muslim teachers are teaching at his Christian high school. I know that also many Muslims took shelter at the local Church during the various massacres they had suffered.
We took the RN6 to Carnot and then, to my surprise, we left the RN6 to take the RR5 to Baoro, which was like 60 km longer compared to just keeping the RN6. The road to Baoro was absolute desolation, with not a single village. They later told me that that road was extremely dangerous — since it is so empty it is a fertile land for bandits and rebels. I am glad we had an armed escort onboard.
Later I discovered why we chose to take that road: after Baoro the road was paved! It was the first paved road I had seen in almost a week, and actually the RN3 from Cameroon to Bangui is the only paved road in the country.
We arrived right before the sunset and a friendly lady I met in the car offered to accompany me to check in at the Christian guesthouse in Bangui, located in the San Charles school. Local people are on average extremely nice and willing to help.
Bangui
Bangui is not the worst African capital I’ve seen. Less chaotic than Conakry or Lagos and probably less dangerous than Monrovia, even if I wouldn’t consider it a safe place, especially if you leave the center, and you have to be very careful at night. I believe one out of 3 cars on the streets are UN vehicles. I’ve never seen so much presence of the UN and NGOs in general in any city, and for that reason there are also a good amount of decent bars and cafes. I have also never seen any other city where soldiers go around carrying RPGs.
I had a few interesting encounters at the Catholic guesthouse in Bangui. I met a young German priest there who was living in the east of the country. I knew it was the most dangerous area and I asked him about the security of going there. He replied that — besides praying — usually the soldiers at the checkpoints are aware of the security situation on the road ahead, and they block you if the presence of bandits or rebels has been reported.
I also met the Italian priest, who helped me with the transport from Berberati to Bangui. Both of the priests agreed that the UN MINUSCA mission was not doing that much to bring safety to the country, and that the Russian Wagner, even if they don’t have a lot of respect for human rights, are doing much more than MINUSCA to fight the rebels.
Click here for the second part of the story
And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram: @nico.cpp
