Trip to Bali & Gashaka-Gumti National Park

Yakubu and I had been invited to go to Bali to attend the dedication of the Galadima Church Building. We left Friday at Noon after getting the oil changed and buying diesel fuel for the Hilux. We stopped for lunch at Twin Sister's Restaurant in Mayo Belwa. The next stretch of road to the Taraba State Border is pitted with pot holes. The Federal Road Maintenance Agency is working slowly on this section of road. In some areas they are removing the whole pavement and installing a new section. Mostly they are digging out the potholes and filling in the area. The digging is a few days ahead of the filling. You do not want to drive this section at night.

Historically, the worst road is the Jalingo to Bali Road. Most people have not taken that road and take a much longer but faster way. This road is almost completely reconstructed with the a wide two lanes, wide shoulders and new bridges. In total what took me 6 1/2 hours in 2010 only took 5 hours. Back in the 1990's that was all day drive. When the Mayo Belwa to the Taraba State border is fixed the trip will be under 5 hours.

We arrived at Bali in time to take a few pictures of the reconstructed Mount Calvary Church and visit with Pastor Bunduku the coordinator for the Bali Project. The Bali Project is a companion church project of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church of Excelsior, Minnesota and the Jimeta Cathedral. Mount Calvary provides about 2/3 of the project funding while Cathedral provides the management and the remaining funding. These two churches have been working together for almost 20 years. The Bali Project provides missionaries called Aikakke or the plural Aikakku. These missionaries have bible college diploma as evangelist or catechist. The Catechist have one more year of training. While in Bible school their wives also attend training and will work with the women of the village. The Aikakku are assigned to remote villages in the region around the town of Bali in Taraba State. Currently, there are 23 Aikakku and Pastor Bunduku. Pastor Bunduku reached retirement age in December of 2011. He agreed to continue working for one more year while the Cathedral Bali Committee worked on his replacement. I will now retire at the end of the month. The decision of how to replace him is not  yet complete.

I have always wanted to see if Gashaka-Gumti National Park and Game Reserve would be an alternate to going to Yankari National Park for the people making companion trips. We asked Pastor Bunduku if he had plans for us to visit any Aikakku on Saturday. He did not so we suggested that we go investigate Gashaka-Gumti. The road to the park proved to be worst road of the trip. The 90 kilometer drive took 2 hours (28 miles per hour average).

Along the road Yakubu noticed that the thatch roofs round houses were different than he had ever seen. The sticks that support the thatch was sticking out at the peak like a teepee. When saw a man working on his roof we stopped and photographed him and his wife.


When we arrived in Serti we first saw a sign for the park and turned in. It turned out to be the Staff Quarters for the park. We stopped and asked one man where we should go to find out information about he park and he directed us down the road another kilometer. It turns out he was the director of the park. About two kilometers down the road we found the Camper Lodge. This is where some people will stay outside the park and drive in each day. They had a reception, restaurant, four different types of cabins (most with 1 double bed and a few for drivers with a single bed). The most expensive was only $3,450 ($22). We did not see the rooms. We sat in the restaurant with the manager (David) and discussed the features of the park. We ordered lunch of rice and vegetables with chicken. Then we found out the chicken would take time so we changed to just rice and vegetables. As we were discussing the options for touring the park David suggested that we could take a short hour and 1/2 trip into the park to see some views, some places where anglers come to fish and maybe some animals. This time of day most of the animals have gone back into the shadier bush to get out of the sun. The best time is early morning when the animals come to the river for water. He asked one of the workers to work up a price for a short tour. The price worked out to 3,700 Naira ($24). We thought this was quite reasonable and told the kitchen to add the chicken back into our meals and we would have lunch after we returned. This sign was on the side of the registration building. The tour does not include transportation and giving your guide a little money for his efforts. David put on a Safari vest and become out guide for the afternoon.

The park entrance was a few more kilometers down the road just outside of Serti. The park is actually very large with 6,731 square kilometer. The northern edge starts in Adamawa State with savannah, woodlands and swamps. The Adamawa area has the lions and other savannah species. The center section where we are is higher up and is more open woodlands and savannah woodlands with more primates. About 45 kilometers in is Gashaka Village where there is camping buildings. This is a true camp. You bring in your own food and cook. It is mostly used by researchers, students from all over Nigeria and Europe. Also sports fisherman will base out of the camp and go to various rivers and streams. We will only be going into the park as far as the first Hippo Pool on the Mayo Kam River. As you go further into the park you get into mountains where only there are only jeep paths for the rangers on their anti poaching patrols and foot paths.

 Our first stop after going down a steep valley and having to use 4 wheel drive to get back up the other side was an overlook of the park to the north. From here you can see to the rolling hills of the Gumti sector of the park in Adamawa State.




 Next we stopped at the Mayo Kam River bridge crossing. This wooden bridge is removed before the rainy season and replaced each December. The rains have already begun here but they are few and far between. They will get going in earnest in by late April and early May and continue into November. You can see the remains of the old steel bridge.

A little further up the road we stopped at the first fishing area on the Mayo Kam. The pools are cut through granite. Schools of fish about a foot or more in length can be seen cruising through the shallow waters with larger fish breaking the surface in deeper areas. We spent close to a half hour climbing the granite boulders and moving up stream to more pools. These are the breeding grounds for much of the fish of the rivers feeding the Benue River.

Pastor Buduku found a pothole made by a grinding stone spinning around on the granite. I found the remains of a larger one a few meter further upstream.









We continued upstream to the Hippo pool area. As we drove in we saw a waterbuck but I was too slow with the camera from the wrong side of the truck. At the Hippo pond area of the Mayo Kam River we saw one Hippo we seemed most disinterested in us.

On our way out of the park we had a babbon run across the road in front of us and then a mother with a baby on her back drop out of a tree next to the truck and run away. I caught a picture of the male babbon on the ridge not far from our truck.




Back at the Serti Camp we had lunch and were surprised that it started with a rice and vegetable cream soup, followed by rice with vegetable soup and they had fried up three chickens. There was way too much food. We shared the chicken with David and after they brought out a fruit salad. All of this in addition to the minerals we had earlier and 20 sachets of water we had taken on the tour with us came to only $3710 Naria ($24) for the three of us and we took chicken back to Bali with us.

The Governor and now the Acting Governor have both said that the rebuilding of the road to the park is a priority for Taraba State. If this road is finished this will be a nice destination for visitors to Taraba State. I mentioned earlier that Taraba State the rainy season starts earlier and ends later than in Adamawa. The Parks "Closed Season" is May to mid December. We also found that is true for the Bali Project. By late May and  until early December you cannot visit most of the locations where the Aikakku are posted.

As we entered Bali just as it was getting dark a man on a motorcycle yelled to Yakubu that his tire was flat. The back right tire had hit one too many potholes and the inner tube and given up. We happened to be just in the area where vulcanizers (tire repairmen) were set up. We pulled over and the vulcanizer said put on the spare and he will have our tire ready in the morning. Yakubu looked for the tool to unlock the spare tire from under the truck and remembered that one of the drivers had borrowed it for another truck that was going into the bush and had not returned it. The vulcanizer said he would repair it while we waited.  He pressed a patch onto the tube and then lit a fire a cup on the press and protected the rest of the tire with sand. It took about 20 minutes for the fire to burn out and the press to cool down enough to remove.

I am posting this without reading it a second time. I am on the Church generator power and it will not last much longer tonight. My little generator is about out of fuel. I have three days left.