Richard’s Dispatches March 2021 | The Quest continues…

“Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Travel, and leave the fear behind. Seek out the adventures. Shout out the unordinary places. The grave will provide plenty of time for isolation and silence.”
 

What better place to nourish the hungry light of travel than a passage to Africa, into a land rich with wildness and wonder, yet little visited. Join me on this pioneering adventure to The Last Eden: Angola. 


A Disquisitive First: Angola, The Last Eden


MT Sobek is a company of wanderers, currents of free water that know no boundaries; seekers of the unsurveyed and unfathomed. For half a century we have been venturing into anonymous lands and turning the incog corners and stones. And I am proud to have been a part of many of these explorations.

The quest continues, and once more we have put together an expedition that is pioneering in its scope, purpose and destination: The first MT Sobek passage into The Last Eden, Angola.

This overlooked purlieu, closed off to most of the world during its long civil war from 1975-2002, swirls with mysteries and little-seen wonders. It harbors Africa’s second largest waterfall, national parks with no tourists, unprobed Portuguese forts and castles, beaches as unspoiled as if before Man, and the sizzling source stream for the world’s largest inland delta, the Okavango in downstream Botswana.

Join me and National Geographic scientists at the life-giving source of the UNESCO-listed Okavango Delta in the first-ever departure safari to Angola. Explore the rich biodiversity of Africa’s iconic wetlands and its critical waterways by boat, with over 1,000 plant species, 480 bird species and 130 mammal species, including the world’s largest elephant population. Take to the sky, winging to remote source lakes and floodplains, and bush walk the blank spots on the map with local tribesmen.

We have been piecing this puzzle of an adventure together for years, and it has finally crystallized to this singular and spectacular journey. I hope you can join me!

For trip inquiries and booking details contact Julie McCormack:

Email:  JulieMcCormack@mtsobek.com
Call: +1 510 594 6034 or  +1 888 831 7526 x 6034

See the Itinerary


The Last Real Safari


Today most African parks exist as islands, pressed by a rising sea of human activity, and the fauna that require large tracks to roam and migrate are increasingly out of luck. Without natural habitat connectivity, and a healthy environment capable of supporting a diversity of biota, wildlife cannot sustain. But there remains one unspoiled wilderness large enough, remote enough, diverse enough to support an extraordinary array of wildlife, the Kafue National Park in Zambia. It is, by some measures, the largest in Africa. This video celebrates Kafue and three eco-lodges that when connected in a journey make up The Last Real Safari.

After you watch the video:

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An Invitation to the Ancient Valleys of the Tigris River


In October 2021, I’m leading an exclusive exploration of Iraqi Kurdistan. We’ll visit some of the earliest citadels, sacred monasteries, and holy villages including Erbil, capital of Kurdistan Region; the Yazidi village of Lalish; and the 4th-century St Matthew’s Monastery. We’ll journey through untouristed regions and scratch the inscrutabilities – and bathe in the warmth – of the local people. While hiking, kayaking, and caving, we’ll immerse in Kurdistan’s implausible landscapes and unspooled beauty.

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Explore the Hidden Treasures of Sudan


In March 2022, I am heading to Sudan on a stout journey from Khartoum and the Nile Valley to the black pyramids of Meroe. Safari across moving deserts, explore animated markets, turn the soil at the archeological treasures of the Nile Valley, meet the once masters of the Nile, the Nubians, and sleep in a traditional home amidst golden sand dunes and Hyphaene thebaica, the gingerbread doum palm trees. See the royal necropolis at Napata, the tombs at El Kurru, and the age-old quarries at Tombos – plus the UNESCO-listed holy mountain of Jebel Barkal. 

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