Millions of animals mull at the banks of the Mara River until they just have to cross the crocodile-infested water, with its swift-flowing brown river and its high, muddy, slippery banks. Many of the early crossers do not make it, taken by the crocs. But once the crocs are full, the rest have only the swirling waters to contend with.
In September 2002, President El Hadj Omar Bongo announced that Gabon would set aside more than 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) of land to form a national park system protecting 13 separate parks. These parks represent some of the last pockets of true wilderness in Africa ... I should know, I traipsed through them for 2 years from 1981 to 1983. The parks will protect pristine rain forests, mangroves, savannas, ancient forests, lagoons, marshes, rivers, and canyons.
Why is Gabon such a fresh and exciting safari destination? Because Gabon is home to some of the wildest, most unspoiled wildlife habitat in all of Africa. Though threatened by logging and mining, there are still large tracts of land that are untouched by modern man. That’s why many a traveler there comes back entranced, saying parts of Gabon are what Africa must have looked like before the first white man got there. I agree with that estimation, and I say that from experience, having lived two years in the remote reaches of northeastern Gabon, some 300 miles from the country’s capital.
Twice a year, around January and August, the migration crosses into the Masai Mara, which is the northern extension of the Serengeti Plains in Kenya. Here they cross the Mara River en masse, in one or two well-defined crossings.
The present day safari owes its origins to European military and exploratory expeditions of the 1800s across Africa. From Speke and Burton's quest for the source of the Nile, and Stanley's search across central Africa for Livingstone, safaris morphed into hunting trips for rich European and American aristocrats. Including, notably, Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt.
Whereas the classic Serengeti safari is a magnificent experience, my favorite African safari is to the Okavango Delta of Botswana.
The classic African safari is a photo safari to the Serengeti Plains. The Serengeti are the vast rolling grasslands of Northern Tanzania. Here, in the lee of Mt. Kilimanjaro, travelers come to see the "Great Migration," a vast migration of 3 million wildebeest and zebra in search of fresh grass across these vast plains.
That is why I encourage you to go on safari today. If it’s your first safari, I recommend you go to the Masai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania. If you’ve done that classic safari, then you should consider a gorilla safari to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, or what I consider to be the best safari in the world, a safari to Botswana’s Okavango Delta, in the Moremi Reserve and Chilwero National Park.
And these new parks represent the frontier of African safaris because of the vital habitat and animal life they will eventually make available to travelers, offering everything from sea turtles and whales to forest elephants, rhinos, gorillas, buffalo, and numerous plant and bird species found only in Gabon. And up near Mvadi, and in other reaches of northeastern Gabon, there is the chance to develop gorilla safaris.
And if you can’t go on safari to Africa, you might consider a wildlife safari to America’s incomparable wildlife reserve, Yellowstone National park. Here you can see wolf and bison, elk, moose and so many other North American wildlife in their natural habitats.