This was our last weekend at Calabar. By the same time next week most of us will be already on our way back to our home countries. The past 3 weeks have been really enjoyful. Our hosts did a great job in keeping us busy throughout the weekends and it was good fun. During this time we got to see a lot in and around Calabar.
Saturday 20th March, 2010
The plan for Saturday was to go to another Monkey Conservation Project (CERCOPAN), Calabar Museum and a trip to Watt Market to pickup gifts.
A MONKEY SAGA
I felt I had already seen enough monkey on the 1st and 3rd Weekend and was not keen on going to CERCOPAN. However as this is the last weekend with the team I thought I will accompany them. CERCOPAN (Conservation, Education, Research) offers sanctuary to orphaned monkeys that have been victims of habitat loss and the bush meat trade. They work towards rehabilitating the monkeys in an environment that mimics their natural home. Our guide who is working here for more than 4 years presented an absolutely captivating saga for each group of monkey. It was the story of union, separation, trauma, growing up, overthrowing other for power and their social life among others. Every group has a clear leader who is generally referred to as alpha male or female and there is constant power tussle among them to be the alpha male. It was not much different from we humans. He also told that although hunters tries to sell them the monkeys but they never buy any or give anything in cash or kind because that may encourage them to hunt more monkeys.
The above photo shows a female monkey carrying a 3 day old baby.
The monkey saga was followed by a tour of Calabar Museum. The guide at Museum was completely opposite to the one at CERCOPAN. To complement that the aircon at the museum was not working and the lights were very dim. We wanted to get out of the museum as soon as possible.
The day ended with a trip to Watt market where I picked up some artifacts for back home.
Sunday 21st March, 2010
After seeing almost all of Calabar the only item left on our list was a boat ride on Calabar river. A boat ride was arranged for us on the 2nd weekend but got cancelled because some tourists were captured on boat in a nearby state and since than we did not get Security Clearance. However, this time after our (especially Greg's) continuous pestering Ann managed to convince the Police Marine and a boat trip was arranged for us to Creek Town.
Creek Town is known for Scottish missionary Mary Slesslor who lived here among Efik people between 1876 to 1915. She successfully fought against the killing of twins (which were then seen as evil and were generally abandoned).
The boat ride was really good and we got an opportunity to see the rapidly vanishing mangroves really close. Mangroves are vital to the ecosystem here and protects coastal areas from erosion and storm surge. They are being constantly cut for easy firewoods.
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