Wildlife Photography Hides in Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea is one of Africa's least-visited countries yet contains some of the continent's most extraordinary wildlife photography opportunities. Bioko Island is effectively a biological island within an island — its isolation from the African mainland since the Pleistocene has produced unique endemic fauna found nowhere else on Earth: the Bioko Drill (a Critically Endangered subspecies of drill monkey), the Bioko Black Colobus, the Pennant's Red Colobus, and the Bioko Speirops (a bird endemic to the island). Ureca Beach on Bioko's remote southern tip, accessible only by boat or multi-day trek through one of the world's wettest environments (10,000+ mm annual rainfall), is one of West Africa's largest leatherback sea turtle rookeries — local communities have protected the beach for over 20 years and guided night visits are arranged by Rumbo Malabo. The Moka Wildlife Centre in Bioko's cloud forest highlands offers the most accessible encounter with the habituated Bioko Drill troop in natural forest, while Pico Basilé (3,011 m, a national park and IBA) is the only site for the Bioko Speirops. On the mainland, Monte Alén National Park (2,000 km²) contains an estimated 3,800 western lowland gorillas and 1,600 chimpanzees in intact Central African rainforest. Drill Films operates the most immersive expedition to the Gran Caldera de Luba — a UNESCO Scientific Reserve requiring primitive camping and pre-dawn primate tracking.