Central Africa's rainforest wilderness is the back-to-nature safari destination we're dreaming of

"Beating long cylindrical drums, a group of male musicians huddled in a circle, pummelled by unrelenting equatorial sun. Smoke billowed from mupetu torches, burning resin from the sacred Okoumé tree, as entranced dancers daubed their skin with white ash. For hours, the Mikumu village had been preparing to summon the Marumba spirit, an animistic figure with the power to terrify and protect."

"Swaddled in thick ruffles of raffia topped with a crown of feathers and a wooden mask in red, white and black, the garish character crawled into view across a corrugated iron roof. Running at me, I would later learn, was the spirit's perverse form of benediction. Dancers brandishing palm leaves backflipped and cartwheeled, pushing the mobile haystack into various corners until he gave one final frenzied shimmy and disappeared in a cloud of ash and smoke."

Gabon is a Central African country of about 2.5 million people, roughly the size of Colorado, with about 88 percent covered by tropical rainforest. Traditional spiritual practices such as Bwiti remain alive in rural communes like Mikumu near Libreville, where an education centre, healing clinic and social services support cultural preservation. Ritual masquerades summon spirits like Marumba through drumming, smoke from mupetu torches using resin from the sacred Okoumé tree, raffia costumes, masks and energetic dancing. These ceremonies mark deaths, celebrations and unpredictable appearances, reinforcing community bonds and a close relationship between culture and the natural environment.

Read at CN Traveller