Gabon – March 1 – 4, 2017
WHY GO?
Unlike many of its neighbours, this part of equatorial Africa enjoys both peace and stability, while its superb wildlife makes it an increasingly popular place to safari away from the crowds of East Africa. With its seemingly endless rain forest now safeguarded by the 2003 decision to turn 10% of the country into protected national parkland, Gabon is Central Africa’s most progressive and traveller-friendly destination, although the competition is admittedly not too fierce.
Despite being far ahead of its unstable, war-torn neighbours, tourism in Gabon remains DIY – you either put yourself in the hands of a travel agency, or negotiate the poor roads, infrequent transport and almost total lack of reliable infrastructure yourself. Outside cosmopolitan Libreville, the country’s only real city, Gabon is an undiscovered wonderland of thick jungle, white-sand beaches, rushing rivers and ethereal landscapes. Bring either plenty of money or plenty of patience, but don’t miss out on this travel experience.
Official Name. Gabonese Republic
Capital and largest city Libreville 0°23′N 9°27′E
Languages. Official: French. Vernacular languages: Fang Myene Punu Nzebi
Ethnic groups. 28.6% Fang, 10.2% Punu, 8.9% Nzebi, 6.7% French, 4.1% Mpongwe, 154,000 othera
Demonym. Gabonese, Gabonaise
Government. Dominant-party presidential republic. President Ali Bongo Ondimba
Independence from France August 17, 1960
Area. Total 267,667 km2 (76th) Water 3.76%
Population. 2009 estimate 1,475,000[1] (150th). Density 5.5/km2 (216th)
GDP (PPP). 2016 estimate Total $36.537 billion Per capita $22,400
GDP (nominal). 2016 estimate Total $14.240 billion Per capita $8,730
When to Go. May–Sep: The dry season makes overland transport faster and wildlife easier to see. Jul–Sep: Have a close encounter with a whale swimming off Gabon’s coastline. Nov–Jan: Spot turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs on the beaches.
MONEY. Central African CFA franc (XAF). US dollars are the preferred currency for exchange, but euros are also easy to change. It’s not generally possible to change other currencies at a decent rate in Gabon.
Costs. A word of warning – money seems to fall out of your pockets in Gabon, and to get anywhere or do pretty much anything you’ll be spending it like nobody’s business. Cash is king here, so bring plenty with you, and certainly take more than you need everywhere you go outside of Libreville, as you won’t be able to get more cash outside the capital.
ATMs in Libreville will only work with Visa cards, and credit cards are only accepted at top-end hotels. There is a national change shortage so ask for small notes wherever possible.
VISAS. Visas are required by all travellers and must be obtained before arrival; they are not available at the airport or at border crossings. Getting a visa for Gabon can be both difficult and expensive. From countries outside Africa it can cost more than US$100. Unless you’re flying straight to Libreville from Europe, it may be best to apply for one at the Gabonese embassy in a nearby African country, where it only takes a couple of days and costs around US$50. Most Gabonese embassies in Europe require certified proof of accommodation for the first few nights of your trip, as well as a return or onward plane ticket.
Extensions. Directeur Genérale de la Documentation.
Visas for Onward Travel. It’s possible to get the following visas for nearby African countries in Libreville:
Cameroon: Same-day processing; CFA51,000.
Congo: Takes 24 hours; 15-day visa. A hotel reservation is required.
DRC: Takes 24 hours; only issued to residents of Gabon.
Equatorial Guinea: Takes 72 hours; only issued to residents of Gabon or people with no EG embassy in their home country.
São Tomé & Príncipe: Takes 48 hours
Gabon is a sovereign state on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, Gabon is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south, and the Gulf of Guinea to the west.
Since its independence from France in 1960, Gabon has had three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions.
Low population density, abundant petroleum, and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the 4th highest HDI and the third highest GDP per capita (PPP) (after Equatorial Guinea and Botswana) in the region. GDP grew by more than 6% per year from 2010 to 2012. However, because of inequality in income distribution, a significant proportion of the population remains poor.
Etymology. Gabon’s name originates from gabão, Portuguese for “cloak”, which is roughly the shape of the estuary of the Komo River by Libreville.
Cameroon/Gabon border. I took an hour to get our exit stamp at D’Abang-Minko’o. They put the stamp on the yellow post-it note used to mark the page of the entry visa!!, not in the passport itself!! I guess we will have to keep that post-it forever.
We crossed the Ntem River. The border town is Eboro. The Gabon side was a real test of patience. 10m after the bridge was a local police office that required 2 hours to deal with – the moron checked every entrance and exit stamp of every country we had passed through in several passports, then he had to leave to photocopy forms that we each had to fill out and finally he came onto the truck, patted several of the contents of the overhead rack, looked into the cooler and left. 200m down the road was a 5-minute stop at the National Police. 200m down the road was a 2000 CFA toll charge that took 5 minutes and then after another 200m was Customs that amazingly also only took 5 minutes. Then it was a 27km drive into the first town for Gabon Customs. Only because Steve had all the pertinent photocopies (one passenger manifest for each passport) and visa numbers on the manifest did this stop take only 20 minutes.
NORTHERN GABON
Oyem (pop 38,000). Oyem is a town of fat tree trunks, apricot-coloured lanes and pretty lakes. Though it’s the heart of Fang culture, few travellers make it here due to its isolated location. But if you do take the road less travelled, you’ll find a pleasant little lakeside town surrounded by forest villages. It’s also a good spot to cross into Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.
Minkébé National Park. Shingled with cacti and rock-dome inselbergs (isolated ranges and hills), Minkébé is one of Gabon’s most inaccessible parks, the home of forest elephants, gorillas, cheetahs and isolated ethnic groups. Conservation programs are in place through the WWF, which is trying to boost the income of villagers through artistic endeavours. Though travel here is tricky, it’s not an impossibility. You can contact the WWF or head to Bitam, a little rubber town not far from the park.
Prices for some things (cigarettes and soft drinks were about 2/3 higher than in Cameroon). People in the border towns were unable to go to other cities without a special permit. Some of the people I talked to were all from Cameroon and wanted to go back where jobs were more plentiful and prices lower. Who you know was important in getting a job.
Fairly close to the border, in a poorly populated area, was a huge football stadium, I presumed built for the African Cup of Nations held in Gabon in January 2017.
We bush camped our first night at about 650m elevation and just as we finished dinner, had a massive thunder storm and downpour. My MSR Hubba has not been doing well in the rain and I tried to sleep in the truck. But it was too uncomfortable and I eventually went to my mostly dry tent and Exped down mat which is the most comfortable sleeping pad in the world.
We stopped in two larger towns on both of our first two days for an hour each time. But there was little to buy or see but Steve shopped. Supermarkets and larger stores were more common here than in Cameroon. The Alimentations had bulk quantities of a small range of products. But many also had several freezers full of frozen meat, possible because Gabon has uninterrupted power. Chicken from Brazil and the USA was the same price as locally grown tomatoes.
On March 2, we drove 200kms and crossed the equator in the process. Gabon has an entirely different look and feel in its towns than anything since Mauritania. There was none of the entrepreneurial businesses seen virtually everywhere else: no making concrete blocks, furniture (king sized wood beds and the big puffy living room sets) or metal doors and gates, no wood yards, no car or motorcycle repair places with their oil-soaked ground, no moto-taxi guys waiting on corners for rides and no motorcycles. We passed many logging trucks carrying huge logs and trucks with finished lumber, all beautifully milled in large commercial saw mills, not the small operations we have been used to.
For a change, there were few churches – the evangelicals had happily not made it to this part of the world. I believe their proselytizing is only about money anyway. It has been shown that Christianity is only thriving in the poor, poverty stricken parts of the world. Western societies where corruption is less common and most things work don’t seem to have much use for religion.
The rural areas had few concrete block or mud-block homes and virtually all were wood, stick-built – mostly unpainted with a disheveled, shack-like look and old, disorganized corrugated roofs. During the day, there were almost no people about, maybe a few older people sitting on plastic chairs, but none of the bustle of most of rural Africa we have gotten used to. Despite there being wash on the line, where were the people – inside, in town, working in unseen fields – who knows? Nobody was selling stuff on the side of the roads. There were no piles of firewood or charcoal waiting to be picked up. There was almost no visible agriculture – no oil palms or bananas, no cassava or coco yam plots, no gardens of vegetables. There was no burning of fields and thus clear, non-hazy skies for a change. Gabon has an economy based on oil and there is little need to provide for oneself.
The landscape was hilly with deep, unseen river valleys and lush forests of fairly large trees but few really big trees indicating likely secondary growth. Logging trucks with huge logs were common. Later in the day, there were people about but most just sitting around on their plastic chairs. Kids went just as crazy when they saw us and adults waved in a friendly way. But all houses had electricity – usually Gerry-rigged form bamboo poles and most had satellite dishes.
The explanation for the above is that Gabon has a small population and has relied almost exclusively on oil and logging for its economy.
Gabon is almost exclusively French speaking. The police like to come into the back of the truck and speak French at us. They shake their heads when no one responds and we say “Anglais”. One town had a building labeled La Poste but you couldn’t mail anything and nobody could direct you to anywhere you could buy stamps. It was full of people presenting identity cards and forms at a wicket. They were completely unable to understand my accented French – their only response was “no English” and waved their hands and pointed down the street to some unfindable postal service.
Few people were working and most guys were having beer breakfasts. Incongruously, I met a Mauritanian shopkeeper, an itinerant Filipino and a Chinese guy of unknown origin in one town, the only non-black people I had seen for some time.
At 2pm, we crossed the equator at a sign on each side of the road “Vous Franchissez l’Equateur“. On one side the sign had separated at its three component boards and was falling down. The other side’s sign was covered with decals of various travellers. We all took photos. I took a pee on the exact line. Shortly after, we stopped at a stream and all had a much needed bath and washed clothes. We passed the English hot-air balloonists going the other way. Apparently they had turned around because of huge potholes as the road approached the Congo. They had flown their balloon in Equatorial Guinea.
The winding road was good with no shoulders and a few avoidable potholes. For a change, there are no speed bumps in Gabon. We bush camped at 40m elevation and there were no mosquitoes, but lots of sand flies that I didn’t even notice until the next morning when I saw hundreds of asymptomatic bites (along with everyone else).
LAMBARÉNÉ (pop 24,000)
Everyone has his Lambaréné’, Nobel Prize–winner Albert Schweitzer said. This, then, is his, with its glossy lakes, fast-flowing rivers, thick green foliage and ingrained sweetness. The town is somehow kinder and gentler than the rest of Gabon, as if the profound humanitarian efforts of Schweitzer (‘the greatest man in the world’ said Life magazine in 1947) changed the character of the land. And his legacy is indeed felt everywhere, from the wonderful, still-operational hospital (which Schweitzer founded in 1924 to treat people with leprosy) to the volunteer-staffed lab that researches malaria and other tropical diseases.
Schweitzer (1875-1965) first arrived in 1913 and made at least 13 visits over the next 80 years. He was originally from Alsace in Germany and spent 1914-1917 in a POW camp. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954.
The town is divided into three areas spanning the river, quite close to each other. The area near the bank has the Schweitzer hospital grounds; across the bridge is the island with the main markets, the river port, and Le Tribune, from where shared taxis leave; across another bridge is the Quartier Isaac, where you’ll find nightlife, restaurants and most hotels.
Hospital Museum. Housed in the former hospital building (it moved to the new, current premises in 1981), you can see photos, paintings and the impeccably arranged house and artefacts of Schweitzer and his wife on a guided tour. The museum had a chronology of his life, and his bedrooms with all his books and personal effects sitting out in full display. There’s also a small zoo, the animals of which include descendents of Schweitzer’s beloved pelican Parzival. You’re also able to see the graves of Schweitzer, his wife and colleagues.
After the museum, I wandered up to the hospital and had a mini-tour. I talked to an ophthalmologist who complained that he had no way to do refractions and that his slit lamp was broken. His only method of examination was an ophthalmoscope.
Several went on a river trip (10,000CFA per person with 5 people) on a long boat trip. They saw a few birds and some bats under a bridge. The rest of us tried to kill 4 hours in a town with nothing to do. We got hassled by a dude to insisted on us buying him wine.
We bush camped and had no rain for the second night in a row – and no bugs. The further south we go, the greater the deforestation. As we approached the Congo, huge open expanses of grass backed by medium sized trees and low bush appeared.
The road south is one of the most beautiful and well-constructed in the world – shoulders, white lines, signs for curves, guardrails, signage for towns and speed zones, nicely painted red and white cement mileage markers every kilometre, cement drainage ditches and narrow cement spillways, culverts lined with nice stone work over every conceivable water course, few vehicles, almost no garbage and a landscape that looks like it should be teeming with wildlife. But, except for a few birds, there is nothing – no raptors, cattle, goats and almost no people – the occasional wood shack and tiny towns of a few wood houses and some people lounging around on chairs. Even in the towns, there are construction crews building retaining walls for the road. The streams have stone walls and cement stairs leading down to them. It was all rather surreal.
But the road for the last 50kms to the Congo border was pot-holed dirt and slow growing. The grasslands covered in small bush and intermittent groupings of trees was a lush green colour with the onset of the rainy season. There continued to be no agriculture or cattle.
Listening to the “Queen’s English” gets fatiguing, mostly because none of our UK passengers sounds like the queen. With clipping of most words, most of them are hard to understand at the best of times. Add in the tendency of several of them to mumble and use words nobody but them understands, makes it all a test.
We didn’t go to anywhere else in Gabon, but I have included this for completeness sake. Gabon is expensive to see anything.
LIBREVILLE (pop 578,000)
The muscular heart of Gabon, Libreville is Gabon’s only real city and home to over a third of its population. It’s also a city awash in oil money and almost totally unrecognisable as an African capital to anyone who’s been travelling elsewhere in the region. Pavements, clean streets, smart restaurants and vast gated villas are the first impressions of the town, but stay a little longer and you’ll easily discover Libreville’s vibrant African heart beating away in the crowded street markets and busy residential areas further back from the gleaming coastline. Any visitor to Gabon will pass through Libreville, but be aware, this is one of Africa’s most expensive cities and will drain your wallet almost as quickly as being on safari.
Presidential Palace. This main ‘sight’ in town – a golden glass, vast seafront monolith – from where the Bongo dynasty rules Gabon. It was built in the 1970s and is rumoured to have cost an incredible $250 million. Security is tight: photography is not welcome and even lingering nearby outside will get you harassed by the guards.
Musée des Arts et Traditions. More welcoming to visitors is this museum, which has exhibitions on tribal crafts and culture and a great collection of masks. A guided tour (usually only available in French) helps to contextualise a lot of the items on display.
Just as interesting are the folk-art sculptures on the waterfront across from the Intercontinental and, a nice walk south along the water, across from the casino. The row of ministry buildings with Soviet-inspired architecture on Blvd Triomphal is worth a wander through, as is the northern suburb of Sablière, the home of ministers and ambassadors. The city’s most interesting market is at Mont Bouet .
On weekends most of Libreville heads to the beach; young people congregate in front of the Tropicana. You can use the pools at the Meridien and Intercontinental for a fee, or even better, head to Point Denis by boat for the day.
AROUND LIBREVILLE
Point Denis. This is Libreville’s weekend bolt hole, a quick boat ride and yet a world away from the capital’s traffic and crowds. The superb stretch of sand here runs for miles along the peninsula, backing onto the Pongara National Park, and lined with fancy weekend houses. There are several beachside hotels on Point Denis, and it’s perfectly feasible to go there for the day by boat from Libreville. Stick to the beaten track and you’ll find boutique hotels, lazy restaurants and watersports; walk to the Atlantic side of the point and you’ll discover miles of empty white sand that is the nesting ground of sea turtles from November to January.
Pongara National Park. Perhaps the easiest place to get into the wild expanses of Gabon if you’re only in the country for a few days, Pongara National Park is an expanse of forest, savannah and empty beaches that backs onto Point Denis.
Cocobeach. Though it sounds like the stuff of honeymoon fantasies, Cocobeach is a dusty little seaside town is a pirogue (CFA5000) trip away from Equatorial Guinea’s Cogo, the gateway to handsome Isla Corisco.
SOUTHERN GABON
Port-Gentil (pop 80,000). Most travellers don’t make it to Gabon’s second city, named for former French administrator Émile Gentil, but if you do swing by you’ll see Gabon’s petroleum industry and economic engine up close – perhaps not a great reason to come, but it makes a change from wildlife-watching. The centre of town is of course the port; “CNI runs boats between Libreville and Gentil three times a week in both directions. The 14-hour one-way trip in 2nd class is CFA15,000, and cars cost CFA120,000 to CFA180,000 depending on their size. A far better option is the 45-minute flight, offered by all domestic airlines.
Loango National Park. The conservationist Mike Fay called Loango ‘Africa’s last Eden’. Here, warm streams criss-cross pockets of thick forest and salty savannah, while vast island-dotted lagoons and miles of white-sand beach provide habitat for all manner of creatures. It’s perhaps best known for its mythic surfing hippos, but you’ll also find the largest concentration and variety of whales and dolphins in its waters, elephants wandering the beaches and an assortment of rare land mammals cavorting in the savannah. If your pockets can take it, Loango is one of the best wildlife-watching destinations on the planet. Sadly, there’s trouble in paradise: in 2010 Africa’s Eden, which invested millions in the network of luxury camps within the park, withdrew its Gabon operations, citing long-standing problems with Gabon’s civil-aviation authorities who refused to renew the license for Africa’s Eden’s own airline. The operation is now under new management, and travellers now arrive by boat from Port-Gentil (6 hours, 15,000 CFA). Surfing hippos. Though it hardly seems credible – a fantasy that belongs in the realm of children’s novels, unicorns and flying carpets – Gabon’s surfing hippos have been making waves around the world since their hobby was outed by conservationist Mike Fay in the 1990s. Unlike human surfers, the two-ton creatures are hardly a picture of grace as they frolic among the waves, but surf they do: wading into the ocean and opening their legs to catch the swell. Despite the hype, however, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll see hippos partaking – after all, their name comes from the Greek for ‘river horse’ and in general they prefer fresh water to seawater.
Gamba & Setté Cama. Loango National Park can be entered from its southern end and, a far better deal than coming from the north. Gamba is the oil-town transport hub, with flights to and from both Libreville and Port Gentil, while Setté Cama is the tiny hamlet with the incomparable location on a spit of land between miles of stunning beach and an enormous lagoon packed full of wildlife.
Mayumba National Park. Closer to Congo than to Libreville, Mayumba feels like the edge of the earth. No wonder expats whisper about it – the national park (www.mayumbanationalpark.com) is the domain of barnacled whales and shy sea turtles. To get here, take one of the twice-weekly flights with NRT from Libreville to Tchibanga (CFA65,000 one way) and then hop on a taxi-brousse to Mayumba (CFA7,000, three hours) leaving the next morning around 6.30am from the Gare Routière. It is possible to travel overland the entire way, but it’s an extremely long and exhausting journey. People travelling by taxi-brousse from Libreville often break up the long travel with a stopover in Tchibanga. The park’s excellent website has many details about navigating the long journey there.
EASTERN GABON
Réserve de la Lopé. Smack bang on the equator, Gabon’s calling card doesn’t disappoint. Undulating hills meet scrubby patches of savannah and enclaves of rain forest where elephants, buffaloes, gorillas and some of the biggest mandrill troupes in the world can be found. There are vehicle and foot safaris (from CFA5000) on offer and there’s an ecomuseum near the park entrance.
The train from Libreville takes between six and eight hours, depending on whether it’s an express or not. It’s best to book in advance as Lopé is a tiny one-horse town with little or no tourist infrastructure, and not a good place to be stranded.
Ivindo National Park. Langoué Bai, in the dense, tropical 3000-sq-metre Ivindo National Park (www.ivindo.org) , is perhaps the pièce de résistance of all the Gabonese ecodestinations, presenting the rare opportunity to view forest animals undisturbed in their own environment. The Bai, a local word for a marshy clearing in the forest, serves as a source of minerals for the animals and acts as a magnet for large numbers of forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, sitatungas, buffaloes, monkeys and rare bird species. A Wildlife Conservation Society–built research station and ecocamp near the clearing allow visitors to easily view the wildlife.
All-inclusive stays at the stunning, ecologically friendly base camp, designed to reduce human impact on the environment (composting toilets, solar energy, no chemicals), are US$315 per night – but worth it.
Makokou & Kongou Falls. Gabon’s answer to Niagara is the gushing falls at Kongou, and Makokou – the small capital of the Ogooué-Ivindo region – is the gateway to the falls. Fondation Internationale Gabon Eco-tourisme (Figet; 07 90 55 13, 06 06 82 47; www.trusttheforest.org) , an excellent environmental organisation, organises camping trips into the rainforest and to the falls, pirogue excursions and a long list of other activities, all at fairly reasonable prices. You can also negotiate a bed for the night.
The budget way to get here from Libreville is to take the train to Booué and then a taxi-brousse to Makokou. NRT flights between Libreville and Makokou’s airstrip go on Wednesday and Friday (CFA70,000 one way). It’s possible to then go on to Congo via Mékambo if you have a visa, but the road is terrible.
Franceville & Around (pop 56,000)
Birthplace of the late Omar Bongo (check out the statue of him in town), Gabon’s third city, Franceville, is quite literally the end of the line, as the impressive Transgabonaise railway line terminates here. There’s nothing much to see in the town itself, but it’s a good jumping-off point for the amazing scenery around the stunning Batéké Plateau. East of Franceville the savannah rises up into the Batéké Plateau, a dry, cool and flat stretch of land that extends south and east into Congo, encompassing the spectacular Cirque de Léconi, a deep, circular, red-rock canyon of loose sand. This is some of the most impressive landscape in the country and locals say spirits lie within. Also in the area (but harder to find) are some spectacular green-and-white canyons. After trips into the canyons, you can bathe in the endlessly clear L’Eau Claire at Abouyi village, just five minutes from Léconi towards Franceville. It’s best to hire a guide in Franceville to visit the plateau or the Cirque de Léconi.