This past weekend (4/3-6/2009) Andrew, Debb, Ashley (all from ORR), Laura, a MSF doctor, and myself went to Sapo National Park. Before we went we tried to learn as much as we could about the park and what to expect. We found most web resources out dated, and none of them had any solid technical data, the kind you use to know how to get there and where to camp. So I’m gona try to provide tons of technical details. I brought along my Garmin Etrex Venture HC GPS, so I was able to get a fair bit of data. I’m sure there’s a better way to get maps and coordinates to display on a wordpress blog, but I don’t know what they are. If someone out there can recommend some cool plugins that’d be great. Anyway…
Before we left we registered with the FDA and were told that there’d be a $20 per person park fee. We opted to pay this when we arrived at Sapo. Be sure you do this before you head out.
We left Monrovia around 4:30pm on Friday and headed towards Buchanan. Vehicle security was one of my main concerns. I didn’t want to camp where the car would be out of sight. So we drove to the first beach we could drive on and camped there. We ended up here (N5.83736, W10.02473). We spent the night without a problem. We didn’t even see anyone else, which is rare in Liberia. We did see someone with a flashlight 200 or 300 yards from our camp, but they never came up to us. The road from Monrovia to Buchanan is pretty bad. It’s paved, but has so many pot holes that you have to drive painfully slowly most of the way. From Monrovia to Cotton Tree you can easily do 40mph-50mph, after cotton tree until you reach Buchanan you’ll be lucky to do 30mph.
We woke up at 5:30am, broke camp and headed out at 6:26am. The road from Buchanan to River Cess County is great. The road has been rehabilitated by LCIP (Thanks USAID, and US tax payers), so it is a wide and fairly smooth dirt road. Our average speed on this stretch of road was 29mph. Not half bad. When leaving Buchanan, drive all the way through town, turn left at the T in the road, then cross over the rail road tracks, then when you see a decent looking dirt road on your left turn there. You’ll pass a Buchanan Renewables depot, after that take the right when the road forks. Then you pretty much just follow the main road. There will be a fork for Cesto City, just keep left. There’s another fork where you have to stay right. There’ll be a sign for malaria awareness or something and in the corner you’ll see someone has written “Greenville ->.” So follow that and go right.
We arrived at the turn off for Sapo from the main road at 12:15pm. We had traveled 113 miles in 5 hours 24 minutes for an average of 21mph. The turn off for Sapo is at (N5.26641, W9.02344). You’ll know you’re at the turn off when you see a big sign that Says “Sapo” and encourages you not to log, mine, or hunt in the forest. We also had to stop there because of a Bureau of Immigration check point. We all had to give them copies of our passport and wait for them to enter our info into their ledgers. I would go off here about how corrupt and annoying this is, but that’s not the point of this post.
So then we headed up a smaller road toward the Sapo office. We pasted several signs that said Sapo, but none of them gave any indication as to when we should turn. We just kept asking people as we drove through. Finally we came to Jolly Town(N5.38854, W8.80732), where we turned right to head toward the town where the Sapo HQ is located. From the turn off to Jolly Town we drove 19.2 miles in 1 hour 8 minutes at an average speed of 17mph. Needless to say the road was worse.
From Jolly Town we drove 2.8 miles to Sapo HQ in 15 minutes at a speed of 11mph. Sapo HQ is located at (N5.35391, W8.81452). The roads to Sapo were all pretty good, mostly dusty with a little mud here and there. We only used 4wd a few times, and only as a precaution. At HQ we met the warden, Mr. Blamah S. Goll (blamahg@yahoo.com, +231-6-581-397). He was a really nice guy and seemed to understand our mission of adventure and exploration. He had been working with the park for some time and had even traveled to other parks in of the world, including America, so he seemed to understand how to cater to tourist and run a park. We chatted for a while then met the town chief and elders. That part was actually kinda cool. It was a fun opportunity to bust out my Liberian English. And everyone is impressed when you tell them you’ve been here more than a year. They just call you a Liberian, makes you feel good.
We had been hoping to conquer Sapo on our own, but Blamah told us we needed guides and that they weren’t optional. Part of the reason is that you have to cross Sinoe rive to get to the park and you need someone to bring the canoe for you. So we headed out for the park with our guides, Junior and Alfonzo.
From the Sapo HQ we walked 1.9 miles to the Sinoe river crossing(N5.33684, W8.79965). There we took a canoe across the river and hiked another 1.0 mile to Michael’s Camp(N5.33460, W8.78933) where we pitched our tents. The camp was created by the guides when they go on patrol and as a base for making new trails. Contrary to some of what we read online, there are lots of trails in Sapo. They aren’t marked and are a little iffy at times, but are easy enough to follow. You cross over lots of creeks and streams and sometimes the bridges are nothing more than fallen trees with no hand rails. Our guides would cut tree limbs for us to use to as walking poles to steady ourselves as we went. So not exactly like hiking the AT, but better than cutting your own trail.
Our first night we just stayed at Michael’s Camp. We arrived there pretty late in the day, so we just made dinner and slept. At night Laura and I went with Alfonzo for a night patrol. That was awesome. I had miscalculated the humidity and how much I sweat, so I had sweated through my shirt, and had taken it off before we went on the patrol. So it felt pretty awesome to be going through a jungle at night with no shirt. I kinda felt like Leo in the movie The Beach when he’s running around towards the end, but without being crazy, it felt very primal. Alfonzo showed us a dyger(spelling?) call. A dyger is some sort of dear thing? Anyway that was cool, but we didn’t see any animals. Finally after going for an hour I asked if we were walking in a circle. Alfonzo said no, “The road we took will carry us back.” So we headed back. The poor guy was just gonna keep walking till we said otherwise. It was also really impressive to watch Alfonzo walk. His head lamp would dart down at the ground then sweep left to right. Laura and my head lamps just looked down.
The next morning we left our tents and packs at camp and just took some water and food in smaller bags and did a loop. Junior and Alfonzo assured us it’d be safe, and they were right. I had some trouble getting a satellite lock through all the foliage at first so I didn’t get the first part of our hike, but in all it was just over 8.5 miles. As we were hiking Alfonzo spotted boot tracks from the night before. It had rained at around 3:00pm the day before, so he knew the tracks were fresh. Then later he saw the same boot with a dog foot print. Alfonzo and Junior said they knew who it was because only one guy had a dog in town, and that they could go arrest him for being in the park illegally. A few minutes later Alfonzo picked a spent shot gun shell off the ground, 12 gauge, bird shot. I asked what he would hunt with bird shot. They said Dyger’s or other small mammals. Then Junior told me that sometimes they’d take out the bird shot melt it into a slug and put it back into the shell to hunt elephants.
On our hike we went straight from Michael’s camp to a junction they called Transit #8(N5.34027, W8.74425) there we turned left and came to the Transit #8 camp(N5.35270, W8.74543) a few feet from there was the Sinoe river so we took a mid day dip and ate lunch. Then we followed the trail back to another camp called Camp 1(N5.34513, W8.78700). Finally we ended up back at our camp.
The next day we woke up at 6:00am, headed out at 7:00am, and were back at the HQ around 8:30am. All told we had hiked 14.3 miles. My only regret was not realizing that I’d sweat through everything I owned. I should have brought some clothes in a plastic bag to wear at night after rinsing off in the stream by our camp site. Instead I wore my rain pants and no shirt. And I also realized how silly rain gear is here. You sweat so much without rain gear on that if it did rain, you’d be just as wet if you wore rain gear, even if it GORE-TEX. You might as well take advantage of the fresh water and let it rinse you off.
We were supposed to pay our guides $5 a day, per guide, but we thought they did a great job, and apart from taking tourist around, they don’t get paid, they just volunteer at the park. Se we gave them $10. I felt kinda bad about this because I could tell that the park warden was really trying to establish rates and stick to them, and I hate encouraging “tipping” for people that have just done their job, but our guys were great and deserved more. It was the best customer serviced I have yet to experience in Liberia. So, if you hike after us and have to pay $10 and fill ripped off I’m sorry, and you’re a cheap skate.
At 9:24am we took off from park HQ and headed to Monrovia. We got back to Monrovia around 9:00pm, which wasn’t half bad. From Sapo HQ to my apartment in Mamba Point was 226 miles. We took a lunch break and stopped for dinner in Buchana so we could have easily shaved 3 hours off our time. I could tell my off road driving had gotten better as we were consistently getting speeds in the upper 30s on our way back, until Buchanan. I perfected pumping the break just as the car goes over the large bumps in the road. This causes the front to lower and follow the curve of the bump down, and lifts the back of the vehicle up so it can clear the bump. I could shoot over a bump causes by a 4’ culvert at 20mph+. I was proud of myself. One time we came up on a pretty ugly dip at over 30mph, I pumped the break and we just sailed over it like it wasn’t there, it was nice.
And that’s the trip. It was good stuff, and I hope to do it again with more time. I’m told in rainy season you have a better chance of seeing wildlife and the roads are still passable, so maybe later this summer?