Mawu Expeditions

15/04/2023

Gracias a Alberto Pereiras y al Diario Publico por la entrañable conversación.
Aquí la primera parte. Una charla sobre la familia, las selvas, navegaciones oceánicas y la búsqueda eterna de la libertad.

Thanks Alberto Pereiras and Diario Público for the warm interview. Conversations on family, rainforests, sailing and the eternal search of Freedom.

Aunque nació en los 70, la vida de este intrépido gallego parece más propia de

19/02/2020

Forest days. We crossed this sector of primary rainforest on foot through 15 days. Sometimes we stop to build nice camps and recover. Here a three stove kitchen and an oven for bread. In the pot, antilope stew. Happy dayz.

Nothing, nothing beats those hamoc nights in the wildest place on earth.
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Días de selva. Cruzamos este sector en quince días. A veces paramos para recuperar y montar campamentos. Aquí una cocina de tres fuegos y un horno para el pan. Espera un guiso de antílope en la olla.

No hay nada, nada, mejor que esas noches de hamaca en el lugar más salvaje del planeta.
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22/01/2020

Back to the office.

We begin another fabulous rainforest megatransect, from Bangui to Kinshasa, on foot and canoes, all the way to the mighty Congo River.

The mission: Find wild Bonobos.

12/12/2019

Honoured to be invited by the University of Madrid to talk about our expeditions through the forests of the Congos and Gabon.

An account of a journey towards the last border and the psychedelic experience with Iboga.

Friday 13th. 17h at UCM.
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Un placer ser invitado por la Universidad de la Complutense para charlar sobre nuestras travesías por las selvas de los Congos y de Gabón.

El relato de un viaje hacia la última frontera y la experiencia psicodélica con la Iboga.

Viernes 13, a las 17h en la UCM
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19/09/2019

In the Republic of Tchad.

Ndjamena actually means "the place to rest". That's exactly how it feels after our last extreme rainforest expedition through the Congo and Gabon. Recovering while we study the paths of the ancient caravan routes and explorers.
Soon heading into the Sahel to meet the most beautiful people of the world, the Wodaabe, and their mindblowing Guerewol tribal gathering.

Stoked again.

31/07/2019

Down, down, down the rabbit hole.
Between March 2018 and April 2019 we crossed on foot over 1000km of virgin rainforest in the Congo Basin.
Now, after a needed rest and recovery from several malarias, we are back where we belong.
Into the deepness of the very last forest.

06/02/2019

Sunset fishing at Lac Tele.
After another 30 day forest crossing we found an open sky again in the midst of the remotest and most unreal jungle of the planet.
That was a gruelling journey through a lost and forbidden swamp forest where dinosaurs are still heard.
We were allowed to get out. And we are just going back.
Oh, that lake.

22/12/2018

After this last megatransect we had to pose ourselves the question: and what the hell do we do now?

So we rummaged through our old pirate chest to search for our next
challenge and recover an old dream. There it was staring at us:The Mokele-Mbembe and Lac Tele!

Very few teams have ever reached the deepness of those swamps -the biggest swamp region of the planet!-. Stories about a lost dinosaur, sorcerers, spirits and witchcraft protect one of the remotest jungles on earth.

For the next two months our team will be exploring the darkness of the Lac Tele rainforest. Will we find an evidence of the Mokele-Mbembe? Will the supernatural open its doors, once again? Will we come out to speak about it? There is only one way to know.

18/12/2018

We were strangers in a lost and forbidden world. At times we felt like heroes, stretching our minds and bodies, pushing through those swamps into the unknown.

I might admit now. We loved and hated that forest in equal measures. I asked for mercy. We were also sinners, the destroyers of worlds.

Mostly we were nothing, mere particles, impulses of a monstrous living beast. It swallowed us until there was nothing but the organic womb. Infinity.

28/11/2018

With the amazing Petruzzo brothers. Two extreme athletes and friends whom I had the honour to meet during some skydive sessions in back in 2013.

We have been during the past weeks embarked in an extreme mission -and documentary- that has already crossed the rainforests of the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.

After a needed day of rest we continue today with the crossing of the Ivindo forest sector in Gabon. Literally a "first ascent" since we will traverse patches of rainforest unknown to modern humans.

Heavily inspired by Dibs ('In search of self' Virginia Axline, 1964): "Unlock the door of ignorance, of prejudice, of meanness". Thank you Dibs!

31/10/2018

What an epic journey it has been. From the Oubangui shores of Zaire to the deep forests of Gabon.
Brutal, monstrous and gruelling. We crossed over 300km on foot through swamp unexplored primary rainforest.
In constant awe and lost in the purity of the wild, we have seen again with the eyes of the primitive man.

06/10/2018

Motorbiking the Congos in the company of . It just does not get more fun than that!
Ahead of us lies now a swamp monstruous primary forest on our way to Gabon. For the next couple weeks we will be inside the magnificent beast in a foot crossing unheard off.

06/10/2018

Where the mythical Mutaba meets the Ubangui, between northern Congo and Zaire. From here we paddled, walked and motorbiked through some of the last unexplored patches of the Congo Basin rainforest.
In awe. Otherworldly beauty.

01/10/2018

I dreamt with the Congo river since the early days. Never expected that it would become our favourite Sunday beach plan!
Unwinding before heading back into the forest. Now in search of Iboga. The sacred root, the visionary plant, the gift of the gods.

04/09/2018

No time to rest. Heading into the deepness of the forest again. Going back home, to our origins, where everything is alive, real, monstrous, unique, uncertain. There, the voice of the ancestors rustles like a clear stream. Oh, the song of the forest. If only I could tell.

02/09/2018

Sunrise at the Dzanga Bai, the Cathedral of the forest elephant, an unparalleled monument of Nature. We had been there many times but sleeping at the bai was a mesmerizing experience. The darkness, the beasts, the unknown and the primeval fear that puts us again in contact with reality, with what we truly are.
And nostalgia of the empty space left by a magnificent woman to whom we owe all we know about this gentle beasts. Profound admiration for the great Andrea Turkalo.

27/08/2018

Western Lowland Gorilla. As cool, intelligent, sensitive and fragile as the Mountain Gorilla. Just not as lucky since the media doesnt care as much. Their forest in the Congo Basin is being ravaged with absolute impunity. We will miss them. This family was spotted during our last expedition through the Central African Republic.

pic by expedition member

26/08/2018

In the Sangha river magic belongs to the realm of the ordinary.

pic by

21/08/2018

Another day at the office. Travelling by road through the Central African Republic. Just dont forget your chainsaw.

06/08/2018

Views of the Oubangui river and the capital of the Central African Republic, where photography is strictly forbidden. This is the size of the only city of the country. CAR is as wild as it gets. With the Congos surely my favourite place on earth.
We are about to depart in another epic journey into the deepness of the forest.
From Bangui to Brazzaville by land and water.
'Origin's. The Directors Cut'

03/08/2018

Those were days following upriver the endless network of streams that meander the Congo Basin. As we got deeper we reached a dark and monstruos forest that grows over the water and swamps. Something magnificent that hides secret and otherwordly creatures.
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Fueron días remontando la inacabable red de ríos que serpentean hacia la cuenca del Congo. Al final alcanzamos un bosque negro monstruoso que se levanta sobre las aguas y la ciénaga. Algo brutal que esconde secretos profundos y criaturas de otra era.

29/07/2018

My last camp as I came out of the deepness of the Congo Rainforest. For days I explored upstream the small tributaries of the mighty river until I reached extraordinary patches of a primitive and pristine black forest. We are coming up with something absolutely out of the ordinary.

19/07/2018

Scientists call for a Paris-style agreement to save life on Earth

Well, there is hope. This is the biggest challenge we have ever faced as a species. The one that will determine what we really are. What we are really worth. Good luck.
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No queda mucho tiempo pero hay cierta esperanza. Este es el reto más grande que nunca hemos tenido como especie. El que termine por definirnos. El que nos mida.

Conservation scientists believe our current mass extinction crisis requires a far more ambitious agreement, in the style of the Paris Climate Accord. And they argue that the bill shouldn’t be handed just to nation states, but corporations too.

25/04/2018

During our last expedition in a rainforest camp, in the company of some of the last hunter-gatherers, the Aka people of the Congo basin.
Life in the forest is very different to those fables produced by the psychotic minds of a few explorers and missionaries, often biased by preconception, stereotypes, delusions of grandeur, fevers and opiates.
That forest has been home for the Aka for as long as we can trace human history. There was never a war neither the subjugation of a gender by the other or the slavery of the many by the few.
Instead, magic and laughter and play were kings. Today they struggle for survival while we slaughter our (their) forest with absolute impunity.

23/03/2018

Desde los glaciares de las Rwenzori hacia el corazón de las tinieblas. Nuestro equipo está listo para guiar una nueva expedición hacia la profundidad de la selva centroafricana. Nos quedaremos sin superlativos para esta aventura épica. De manera inédita descenderemos desde la República Centroafricana (CAR) hasta las orillas del mítico río Congo en Brazzaville.

‘Orígenes’ CAR - Congo. 27 de marzo de 2018.

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From the Rwenzori Glaciers into the heart of the darkness. Our team is ready to lead another expedition to the very depths of the Central African Republic rainforest. There will not be enough words to sum up this epic expedition. In an unprecedent journey we will descend from CAR all the way to the Congo river shores in Brazzaville.

‘Origins’ From CAR to the Congo. Beginning March 27th, 2018.

21/03/2018

The path towards Stanley Glacier, in a very sketchy day.

20/03/2018

Ya está en las librerías la última novela de Hernán Zin. Más de dos décadas como corresponsal de guerra, dando voz a los que no la tienen y haciendo del dolor poesía. Escritor y director de cine, ahora consigue lo más difícil todavía: nos hace reír.

spoiler: desternillantes pasajes entre los túneles de Gaza y el Kivu Sur en Congo.
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Zin’s last novel is out, between Gaza and Congo, this time in hilarious manner. Only for Spanish readers at the moment though. We are waiting for an English translation!
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20/03/2018

Climbing up, slowly and hit by altitude, via the moraine. We can finally see the glaciers ahead of us.

15/03/2018

Our path to the glaciers is not easy, what makes it a lot more fun! Here some steep climbing at over 4500 meters altitude.
Nobody imagines that Congo hides a mountain range of this magnitude.

01/03/2018

Views from 4,400m altitude. At that hut we acclimatize for 3 days, getting ready for the summit attempt. Beyond everything but pure air and crystal clear thoughts.