Abidjan, Ivory Coast was again a new experience. We had expected a modern city as they call it the shimmering “Manhattan of Africa”. True there are some modern buildings, and they are building the tallest building in Africa, but it was not shimmering at all.
Our disappointment began when we saw all the trash floating in the harbour. This is extremely upsetting for us to see. When we walked off the ship the space between the ship and dock was crammed with plastic bottles and other rubbish. Terrible.
We drove through the downtown area which is showing a lot of development with several buildings under development. We had a police escort which helped us navigate through the heavy traffic. There were a lot of semi-trucks on the road confirming that this is important shipping harbour.
We drove through a few settlements along the side of the road where there were thousands of goats penned in. They were there in anticipation of the Islamic holiday of Eid.
The roads were terrible and there were a lot of people sitting around idly.
We then drove to the Banco Forest. First we were escorted through the 12 hectare Arboretum. This is a demonstration area where trees were planted 100 years plus ago to provide information about the different trees in the near-by forest.
The Arboretum is part of Banco National Park. It is one of the only dense, primary forests located in heart of an urban area, other than the Tijuca National Park in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (this is the second largest with Rio being the largest). It has an area of 34.74 square kilometres (13.41 sq mi).
The park has a hydraulic reservoir and a primary forest of 600 hectares, with rare types of tree (like mahogany and avodire). The hydraulic reservoir it essential for the city of Abidjan, and feeds 29 boreholes from its water table. The reservoir captures 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year and provides 40% of the drinking water distributed in Abidjan.
They bring a lot of schools here to teach them about ecology. However, we found a lot of trash within the park, particularly plastic bottle tops.
We made a 3 kilometer walk through the forest. It was a rainy day so we enjoyed the quiet and the simple water drops falling upon us. We did see a couple of chimps flying through the trees and saw huge catfish within the Banco River.
This was a pleasant few hours and a very different experience after the mostly urban tours.
We made a quick stop at Cava, an open-air market, in the pouring rain. Here we observed the exact same arts and crafts as we have seen throughout this part of the world.
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially as the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire has its capital city of Yamoussoukro, located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is the port city of Abidjan. With 31.5 million inhabitants in 2024, Ivory Coast is the third-most populous country in West Africa. It covers an area of 322,463 km2 (124,500 mi2).
Its official language is French, and indigenous languages are also widely used, including Bété, Baoulé, Dyula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has a religiously diverse population, including numerous followers of Islam, Christianity and traditional faiths often entailing animism. (Though we saw many more Muslims here than elsewhere in West Africa.)
In 2023, Ivory Coast had the second-highest GDP per capita in West Africa, behind Cape Verde. Despite this, as of the most recent survey in 2016, 46.1% of the population continues to be affected by multidimensional poverty. As of 2023, Ivory Coast is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans and has high levels of income for its region. The economy still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production predominating.
In the 1880s France assumed control over the coastal regions, and in 1893 it became a French colony. The country became independent in 1960. While the country had been very financially successful during this period and post, civil wars in the early 2000s caused the country to stagnate. Since then the country has been more stable and growing.