I saw pygmies and turtles

South province – the name itself suggests hot, and hot it is, and humid to boot. First days were spent in Kribi, Cameroon’s biggest beach resort, although by Western – even Kenyan and Indian standards – it’s pretty laid back, much more Florida Keys than Miami Beach.

A bit of beer, a bit of grilled fish, and then a stuffed share car to Campo on the border (or in French, frontier, which sounds way cooler) of Equatorial Guinea, which vies with Cameroon for the title of Most Corrupt Country in the World.

Just what does corruption entail? For one, the favoritism that plunks a petroleum refinery just off the coast of Francophone Kribi, despite the fact Limbe, in the Anglophone Northwest province, is much better positioned to extract oil.  Thus, the considerable money that accompanies said refinery is diverted into Kribi, as opposed to the base of opposition to president Paul Biya in the Northwest.

The refinery is oddly beautiful at night, its permanent spout of flame giving the ocean a lake of fire cast. And the road to Campo is beautiful, period: a laterite dirt track through some of the thickest jungle I’ve ever encountered, a forest that could have easily been a JurassicPark set piece. Along the way, glimpsed briefly and a bit disappointingly: pygmies. Who were, in contrast to the cliché about meeting celebrities in person, taller than I expected.

What did meet expectations? The terrible conditions of the road and the weak engine of our share car. Twice, we passengers had to get out and push the vehicle uphill – remember what I said about heat and humidity? – then run back inside as the engine coughed into submission. By the time we reached Campo, there was a sort of team camaraderie evident between the car’s six passengers (four in back, two shotgun); everyone chirped a cheerful ‘au revoir’ or ‘a bien tot’ as we parted ways.

I’m about to indulge in a gross generalization, but I think it is true that one of the main differences between the West and the rest is the former’s emphasis on individuality. But it’s worth stressing that it’s easy to be an individual when everything works and you don’t have to rely on your neighbor or the passenger next to you in the car to get something done. This isn’t a judgment on either way of life; I’d prefer if folks back home were less self-obsessed, but the poor infrastructure and everyday frustrations that make village values more necessity than choice in this part of the world are nothing to romanticize.

Adamoua and I did the work we had to do in Campo, then turned around and took a motorbike to the tiny villageof Ebodje. Here, the French fund an eco-tourism project that protects local sea turtles who use the nearby beach as one of their main nesting grounds. The turtles, essentially helpless when landbound, are prized eating (along with their eggs) in this area, so locals are given 10,000 francs (about $22) to report their presence to a small hatchery and museum when they find them.

The beach in question was uncluttered and undeveloped, so I did what I always do when I reach some nice coast after a day of hot, hard travel: stripped to my skivvies and swam until I felt clean. Adamoua watched me bemusedly and chased sand crabs along the shore. When I went out after dark to dip my toes in the water, my companion warned me, “Be careful. They don’t enter the ocean at night here because of traditional spirits!” – advice which was duly noted and ignored.

I’ve had a few nights in rural Africa, and am always struck by the silences and the darkness. You’ve probably seen those nighttime satellite images of the world where America, Europe, China and India all glow with lights and Africa becomes her old nickname: the Dark Continent. When you sleep in rural Africa, you’re in the thick of all that dark. Adamoua and I shared a bowl of chicken and rice and a bed in a village guest hut, and I read by the light of a paraffin lamp.

Around – well, who knows what time, but it was late – the head of the ecotourism project knocked on our door. It was time to find turtles. We walked for miles down the beach in pitch black; if we shined a flashlight it illuminated hundreds of scuttling ghost crabs and coconut husks. After 40 minutes, I became convinced we wouldn’t see any sea turtles, a feeling hit home when we reached a line of fallen trees the guide said marked the end of the nesting grounds. Resigned but unsurprised, we started heading back to the village.

Well of course there’s a happy ending. We had covered almost half the ground back home when our lights picked up a deep furrow in the sand running up to the beach ridge, the entire track encased in parallel swishy prints. At the end of the trail, half buried in the sand and grunting in what I guess you could call labor: a 75-year old Olive Ridley sea turtle.

You’ve all seen this on television, and you’ll all be unsurprised to hear me say that seeing a sea turtle lay her eggs is way cooler in person than it is on TV, and I’m sorry to add that what makes it cooler is the same thing that separates TV from personal encounter and, unfortunately, written description. It’s the feeling of elation after walking several miles for naught at some godawful hour in the middle of the night; the smell of the salt and the whisper-y sound of the palms; the way a sea turtle really does cry and how touching that actually looks (even though she’s just moistening her face); the odd chicken-like head movements she makes and the grunting, gasping noises that escape her beak; the weird rocking motion at the end as the mother pats down her eggs, the slaps of her undershell on sand sounding like a combination of wet meat on a counter and a steel pipe on stone.

We tape-measured big momma, clamped an ID tag on her right front flipper and watched her trundle back into the ocean. She moved surprisingly fast on land, but when the waves washed over her real grace emerged, and in less then a minute she had paddled safely into the black waters. We walked back to the nest and dug out 126 eggs (I’m sorry to say only five will likely survive to adulthood) which we packed in wet sand, wrapped in an ad-hoc t-shirt bundle and brought back to a nursery pen in the village. The next morning Adamoua and I had to wake up at 5am to catch another shared car back to Kribi (which of course broke down), but all in all I can say: it’s been a good few days in the office.