Tarzan's Bewitching Jungle Home - BBC Travel

Cameroon’s lush rainforests, secluded beaches and ape sanctuaries are a perfect setting for one of the world’s most famous stories.

The legend of Tarzan is so entwined with West Africa that it’s hard to know where to begin. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel, first published 100 years ago as Tarzan of the Apes, tells the story of John Clayton, a child born to a pair of shipwrecked aristocrats and raised by apes in the coastal jungles of equatorial Africa, eventually living out his days as the king of the jungle. Burroughs penned 27 Tarzan books, taking Clayton from boy to breast-beating ape man, and more than 90 screen versions have followed, making him one of the most familiar characters ever created. But central to this famous story is the bewitching African jungle.

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While Burroughs never said exactly where Tarzan was set, Cameroon’s sandy beaches, imposing jungle and ape sanctuaries seem like a good bet – so much so that the West African country was chosen as the setting for the 1984 filmGreystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.

Today, the country is filled with telling references to the Lord of the Apes legend. Here’s how find your own Tarzan adventure.

Palm-fringed beaches

From the frenetic, pulsating Atlantic port city of Douala, Cameroon’s coast curves up past thickets of rubber trees and banana plantations to the laidback beach town of Limbe, 70km north. Here, a series of black, sandy beaches run toward the border with Nigeria, and it’s the kind of place where a marooned survivor like Tarzan’s co-star Jane could have washed up. Nowadays Limbe’s main strip is home to colourful wooden fishing boats and rows of corrugated iron barbeque shacks offering the very best of Cameroonian cuisine: you-buy-they-grill fish, served with hot sauce and barbequed corn.

Ape sanctuaries

On the lower flanks of Mt Cameroon – West Africa’s most volatile volcano – Limbe Wildlife Centre rehabilitates and protects Tarzan’s compatriots from both deforestation and West Africa’s lucrative and illegal bush-meat trade. One of Africa’s most celebrated centres for ape, chimpanzee and gorilla rescue and research, the centre has dozens of enclosures, allowing visitors to have chest-beating encounters with up to 16 different types of primates – including the world’s largest colony of drill monkeys, which are endangered and exceptionally rare. So many primates need help that the centre has outgrown its base, so plans are now afoot to open a second visitor centre in Mt Cameroon’s foothills; the outdoor monkey playground concept is based around a series of rainforest canopy platforms.