was studying Bachelor, fifth in the Institute Colonial High School in Santa Isabel, which depended on the Maeztu Ramiro de Madrid and the vacation my uncles Cloti Fernando and I was invited to spend a few months at his home in Micomeseng where my uncle Fernando was employed in a factory. Go to the African continent to the jungle seemed great, so in 1947, my fifteen years I dreamed of my avatars between gorillas, leopards and even crocodiles.
Micomeseng known in the world, so a few days after my cousin's boyfriend Paquita, who later became her husband, Goyo Alvarez Touchard nephew of a lieutenant who was in Bata, introduced me to a legend in the game especially elephant, Otto Krohnert, a strong-looking man seemed to me a closet or rather a steel safe invulnerable, had a kind of zoo near Micomeseng where he kept animals captured alive para enviar a diferentes zoológicos del Mundo. Junto con los hermanos Lasaleta se les consideraba los proveedores mejor preparados para esa labor.
Me contaron muchas historias de Otto, con el tiempo incluso conocí en una competición de natación organizada por Marrero en el Casino de Santa Isabel, a una hija suya de gran belleza que vivía en Canarias donde era campeona en alguna especialidad de natación.
En los últimos tiempos por mediación de Facebook he tenido contacto con alguno de sus nietos y he tenido la suerte de que Fernando Casas nacido en Basakato del Este ( Bioko) me facilitara una traducción del capítulo dedicado a Otto Krohnert en el libro Elephant Hunters del famoso cazador Tony Sánchez Ariño, whose book I could get more interesting data from this summary of his biography that I have always had the dream to tell, given the admiration that I feel ..
Everyone thought that Otto was the thousands of Germans in World War I German Kamerun fled when attacked by the Anglo-French troops and entered the English Continental Guinea, where most subsequently moved to Fernando Poo and good for Germany were repatriated or returned to Cameroon by France dministrado now, there is talk of some 2,000 Germans Fullah accompanied by some 70,000 ethnic group, who supported the war to the Germans. So How great was my surprise to see who was born in 1888 in the Kalahari desert, in the then current Bechuanaland Botswana, one of those castrated bullock carts home to his father, a professional hunter, who lived and trade provide meat and skins, meat for the workers probably working in the Pharaonic railway was built to link South Africa with Egypt. So surely this child a bottle replaced it with a shotgun with which he followed his father and emulated.
At that time there were no roads for motor vehicles. The game was sold as beef jerky, smoked guess, what the Boers called "Bitonga" as fresh meat was hard to keep.
At the age of 18 decided he was ready to face life alone, apart from having the illusion of specializing in the hunting of elephants, so with a bullock carts Suboccidental Africa went to Germany, the Namibia today. At the 1906, oddly enough, the bureaucracy was very complicated so I decided to go to Angola, and had to abandon their carts and the huge oxen could not fight a so-called tse-tse fly, fly in many tropical countries has prevented the development of conventional farming, sheep, calves etc. In Angola caught his first elephant with a small caliber rifle Mauser 7 x 57 mm. Had to organize expeditions based on carriers with large caravans. Crossed from south to North Angola, impressive feat for a young man of 18 years, a land full of dangerous wildlife and, where geographical force you to change the ford rivers route and sometimes very mighty and dangerous flow. After a long march arrived at the Congo Free State, where the popular area of \u200b\u200bLower Congo elephant population was very large. In the town of Boma got all permissions and it seemed an ideal place to set your base. There consguir ivory sold to various commercial enterprises had calls factories located in the population. His restless nature and the news that the French Congo was easier to get hunting licenses, he had crossed the Congo River arriving in the capital Brazzaville. But important city in the early twentieth century was a rather unhealthy where malaria was endemic but it was a dynamic center of commerce, where trading with clothes, salt, gunpowder, metal items such as machetes, buckets of zinc etc. in exchange for rubber and ivory, basically, of which there was a global demand. The white population were classic colonial officials, Colonial Army officers, medical staff, nuns, missionaries and traders, but they all represent a tiny minority to the indigenous population. The white population came with the idea of \u200b\u200bgetting rich after all the years were just as poor and a lot less health. In the French Congo
initially did very well to Otto, hunted many elephants sold at a good price for ivory and could change your old Mauser by a powerful 450 Nitro Express, which was infinitely superior effectiveness, since in that shooting area had to be explosive by detecting the piece much more closely by the dense vegetation. Over time, the game slowed down and then decided to go into the neighboring Gabon where he had been assured that the game was very plentiful, although the country was pure jungle. After passing through a dense jungle where they may not see the Heaven for the plant cover that covers it, reached the river Ogooué spanning half the country and is suitable for canoes sail hundreds of miles. Essas The problem is that land was inhabited by tribes of cannibals and a warlike and aggressive spirit, but we must remember that a woman in those years Mary Kingsley traveled the river Ogooué collecting fauna and flora for the British Museum, despite rower than it ate him as a debt
.. They say that in Roman times there were elephants to North Africa but were viciously persecuted forced to take refuge in the jungle. Indiscriminate hunting reached the point of capture or kill elephants, making a circle of fire to it, which burned wood or sheet extensions important to achieve their ends killing all fauna and flora of this area. As I mentioned a black "if we had fangs, there would be no live." Anibal Remember that landed in Spain with an army full of elephants that crossed the Pyrenees and Alps to attack the Roman Empire. In
the Belgian Congo they killed so many elephants on the twenties in the Antwerp market, sold more than fifty thousand a year tusks, weighing fifty kilos over par. If we estimate that up to twenty years is not an adult elephant and we always go in packs, mean that undeveloped specimens were killed and left without extract the fangs of its low value in terms of time, transport and market . Indeed in 1890 he had established in the Belgian Congo Alpi school where cornacs brought from India, to train the elephants at work and helps the forest clearing, but ultimately failed because more African Elephant the Asian wild.
in Gabon was about three years, placing his main camp along the Ogooué River at its junction with the river Ivindo. Chased by the so-called region of Bees by the current National Park Okanda, when he accumulated enough ivory Lambarene will visit the banks of the Ogooué, thus their displacement was more comfortable. Was supplied with food and ammunition and returned to their camp. In that region abounded, giant antelope bongo, whose skulls retained much time at his home near Micomeseng Akom.
In 1913, twenty-five years and being a veteran hunter crossed international fame the border of Gabon and English Guinea and Akurenam continued northward between Ntoro and Navia rivers where abudanban large pachyderms. In Guinea had not been set hunting regulations, even much later the author of the Elephant Hunters Mr. Sánchez Ariño unlimited hunting of elephants for a license that will cost 1,000 pts. per animal down. .
Fernando Africanus
Algete March 5, 2011
continue ........
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Enter the fantasy world of Africa, where Nature is your umbrella and where the heart expands. 
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