Equatorial Guinea: Bata Market
Bata is known for a colorful market, which in actuality is quite disturbing. Equatorial Guinea has a long and undying tradition of eating bushmeat and the market has a whole section with dead wildlife – antelopes, rats, porcupines, monkeys, small wild cats, and pangolins – many critically endangered. Here at the market, there is a whole section with bushmeat, most of it already dead but some still alive. Up to this day I have never seen a live pangolin (saw dead ones in the Equatorial Guinea on Bioko in 2017). So we were on a mission to find live ones here – and there were three alive! We bought all three of them – $20 for two larger ones and $17 for one smaller one. The seller thought we were buying them for food and almost tried killing them to our extreme shock. We bought three live pangolins, put them in a sack and set out for the jungle.
