Yesterday we visited Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire – the Ivory Coast. Until fairly recently it was involved in a violent civil war so was not visited by many tourists. As such, its tourist infrastructure is still being developed.

I opted for the “short” Nature Walk in the Banco National Forest. This forest is on the outskirts of Abidjan so the drive there (with the aid of our ever-present police motorcycle escort) did not take very long. We stopped at the entrance to pick up a local guide. We started down a dirt road but the rains the day before created some big puddles that the bus drivers would not go through. So, we backed up to the entrance station and started walking from there. We saw this Lowe’s monkey eating a mango.

We walked along the road for about two hours. It was hot and extremely humid. Of course, I was at the back end of the group but one of the expedition staff stayed with the small group of slow walkers pointing out various things to be found – butterflies and millipedes.

Disappointingly – no birds to be found until we got to the end, and we saw a couple of African Jacana across a small pond – very far away.

At the evening briefing I found out we never even got to the nature walk. The people on the longer, faster walk apparently did see some birds, not sure what kind.

We now have two days at sea heading towards Sierra Leone – Country #86!

Here’s a little history about the Ivory Coast from Wikipedia:

Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the center of the country, while its largest city and economic center is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf of Guinea to the south. With 30.9 million inhabitants in 2023, Ivory Coast is the third-most populous country in West Africa. Its official language is French. It is a little bigger than New Mexico.

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The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the Scramble for Africa. By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, with its capital in Grand-Bassam, and Captain Binger was appointed governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons. It got its name from the large export of ivory from the region.

France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of European settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, Europeans who emigrated to the colonies were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations and adopted the local forced-labor system. With the production of coffee and cocoa, it was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. In 2020, Ivory Coast was the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans and had high levels of income for its region. The economy still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production predominating.

In 1905, the French officially abolished slavery in most of French West Africa. From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of French West Africa. It was a colony and an overseas territory under the Third Republic. In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917 to 1919. Until the period following World War II, governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris. France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects" but without rights to representation in Africa or France.

During World War II, the Vichy regime remained in control until 1943, when members of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government assumed control of all French West Africa. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946. French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished. It achieved independence in 1960. Its stability was diminished by a coup d'état in 1999 and two civil wars—first between 2002 and 2007 and again during 2010–2011.