The elephants
At the pools.
JosepMGracia — CC BY-SA 4.0 · JosepMGracia — CC BY-SA 4.0 · JosepMGracia — CC BY-SA 4.0 · JosepMGracia — CC BY-SA 4.0 · JosepMGracia — CC BY-SA 4.0
Dzanga Bai is a wide sandy clearing in the rainforest of the Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve, in the south-west of the Central African Republic. It is one of the best-known clearings in Central Africa for watching forest elephants, which come out of the forest to drink its mineral-rich water, and dozens may gather here at once. The reserve was set up in 1990 together with the neighbouring Dzanga-Ndoki National Park, through cooperation between the government and WWF. In 2012 UNESCO inscribed the Sangha Trinational, which links the reserve with parks in Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo, as a World Heritage Site for its vast forests and rich wildlife. From a raised wooden platform at the edge of the clearing you see grey sand broken by shallow pools, and grey elephants with thin, straight tusks digging in the mud with their trunks. Red forest buffalo and forest antelope sometimes appear, a wall of tall trees surrounds the clearing, and mist covers it early in the morning. It is about 13 km from Bayanga in a straight line, and visitors finish the way on foot through the forest with reserve guides. They pay a daily reserve fee and a fee for the clearing. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to this area, so read the current advice before any planning.
At the pools.
Above the clearing.
In the morning.
Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve, near Bayanga, Central African Republic
To drink the mineral-rich water in the clearing's soil.
Yes, the UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to the Central African Republic outside Bangui.