Dream trips It’s a jungle out there – count me in
Have woodland walks got you dreaming of something bigger? Here are some of the best rainforest adventures on earth… CAMEROON’S TARZAN TERRITORY
Set off on a well-beyond-the beatentrack adventure into the Cameroon, king of the jungles, and the soul of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s West Africa.
WHY IT’S SPECIAL
For any number of reasons, Cameroon is the ultimate West African destination. Beyond the overwhelming colour, velocity and energy of the port city of Douala, the equatorial coast curves into the very definition of Tarzan territory. Past rubber trees and banana plantations, the rainforest meets the shipwreck beach of Limbe, where lumbering silverbacks and chimps fool around in the canopies below Mount Cameroon, West Africa’s most volatile volcano. North of here, amid the creepers and vines of the Nkongsamba jungle, is thundering Ekom-Nkam Falls, a dual cascade that plummets from a jawdropping 270ft-high escarpment, down into a utopian, misted ravine.
Used as a location in the film
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, this is where Hollywood camped out in the mid-1980s during production – and the waterfalls really couldn’t be bettered as the ultimate hideout. Here, framed by volcanoes letting off steam and soundtracked by monkey hoots and hollers, the story of Viscount Greystoke makes sense at last.
YOU’LL NEVER FORGET…
The first time you look into the eyes of a silverback in the wild. Heat bounces off the rainforest floor, hanging in the trees in a thick humid mist. The huge male gorilla pauses to return a momentary stare and before vanishing back into the jungle there is a sense of mutual appreciation.
INSIDER TIP
The monsoon season from June to October floods Cameroon’s rainforests, making many jungle roads impassable. Plan trips in the cooler, drier months of November to February.
HOW TO DO IT
The best approach is to fly to Douala with Brussels Airlines (brussels airlines.com) or Air France (airfrance. co.uk). Pick up a hire car for the roundtrip circuit north with Avis (avis.com), which has a rental location at Douala International Airport. Steppes Travel (01285 601784; steppestravel.com) offers 12-night trips from £5,395, excluding flights. A budget option can be found with Dutch-based Zwinkels Tours (00 31 348 419291; zwinkels tourscameroon.org), which offers five-night safaris from £880.