By Tony Webster – Hot out of Gabon!
I am sure this is the first time you have been asked this question, and you probably think you know the answer. Nevertheless, I was lucky enough to join the Vuvuzela Team in their quest to find out the truth…
Ted Grobicki and I set out on the most dangerous part of our visit to the Vuvuzellas (the road to Johannesburg International Airport) on Tuesday 11 May and joined up with the team in Libreville in the early evening. Part of the team had already departed from Libreville airport to prepare the welcoming supper and the remainder had forgotten that Ted and I would have bags AND a box of 30 footballs. This very quickly got us into the camping spirit, in realising that space was at a premium!
When we entered the camp-site in Cap Esterias I was amazed at the lockable gate, the mown lawns and the lapping ocean. I was assured that this was not normal, but a bit of a find for the hard done by campers! When we were presented with two huge fish beautifully cooked, I knew that this was the place for me!
The next night started to bring us down to earth, we could not find the Auberge Hubert in Ndjolé that we had been recommended – pity, as an Auberge sounded just right for me. So instead we bush camped up in the hilltops! Nevertheless, the Cordon Bleu cooking continued, this time with a perfect Banana loaf as the ‘pièce de resistance’.
On an early morning walk the following day we noticed that we had been visited by an elephant during the night (well it had been a hundred metres or so from us). On this discovery Andrew showed his spirit and decided to track it. This was unsuccessful due to the thick forest but it did at least warn us that elephants were around – we should have remembered this when the next day we spent the whole day in Lope National Park, with a guide, trying to find some elephants, only to catch a glimpse of them as the sun went down. However, nature has a funny way of taking you by surprise… We had decided to camp at the Lope Hotel Annex and, with just Paula, Laura and I setting up for supper that evening, we were again reminded of the presence of forest elephants. About 30 metres from the camp an ENORMOUS trumpeting deafened us. Paula admitted that her heart had stopped and I was glad that I had just been to the bathroom! In the silhouette of the dim light in the distance we could see the giants pulling up the vegetables in the garden of a local’s house. They had obviously been annoyed by our torches flashing in their eyes!
You may ask why only Paula, Laura and I were present at the tents – well that is another story, but let me begin! The remainder of the team were in the process of being duped. Not a sensible thing to do with two Accountants, one Actuary and a negotiator for Harmony Gold! It all began when we agreed up front that the fee for using a mandated guide to help us around Lopé National Park would be CFA10 000’. On our return, this was all forgotten and the guide’s fee increased eight fold! The re-negotiation took 2 hours after the trip as the night enfolded around the team and was resumed the next morning for another hour. We got a substantial improvement but we never returned to our originally agreed fee and we resolved to get things in writing the next time! So the financial boffins were off negotiating whilst we were being visited by the elephants. A cell phone call to them (the negotiators and not the elephants) got them returning at high speed but once again the elephants eluded the team as a whole!
For the 3rd day in Lopé we ventured out on a forest walk near the camp of Mikongo and this time we did not see forest buffalo, monkey (Putty Nosed, and Moustached) nor sitatunga (bushbuck) as we had the previous day, but we did see a Gorilla nest – the sleeping place of a gorilla from the night before. Unfortunately that was as close as we got.
But we did have a beautiful swim!
On Sunday the cars parted ways. The Grobicki’s headed off to Lambaréné, and the Webster’s stayed put; chilling out, fixing things and spending the afternoon in the pool at the Lopé Hotel. Cocktails in the pool seemed like the order of the day!
After spending some time giving away footballs the following day saw us all in Lambaréné and taking in a trip around the Albert Schweitzer Museum. Dr Albert Schweitzer, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, spent many years in Lambaréné at a hospital that he established to fight Leprosy.
Monday night was our first hot shower in a week! We were in the grounds of the Mission of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception – a wonderful place to camp on the lawns of the school. We were welcomed by the friendliest nuns who are doing an amazing job educating young people in their mission on the side of the river. That night we had a delicious meal of local fish and plantain which had been grilled by the side of the road – yummy.
Tuesday saw us taking a pirogue trip down the Ogooué River and visiting what was once a beautiful hotel on an island. There are still drinks in the bar and cushions on the couches but no guests. It has now become a skeleton of it former self and is being engulfed by the forest having been on the market for 2½ years following the death of its proprietor. It is sad.
It seems that Gabon has not yet got its policy for tourism aligned with its desire to protect their species. The authorities seem to want to push their national parks for game viewing but have not yet resigned themselves with the fact that to do this guests need to be abe to see the game! There are evidently troops of up to 1 300 mandrills in Lopé but we did not see any! There are thousands of Forest Elephant and we saw 3 very briefly. They have a beautiful hotel on the bank of the Ogooué River with a beach and a view to die for, but when we were there they had about 5 guests! We heard the Chimpanzees but unfortunately we never saw any. Then there is Mikongo Conservation Centre, established in the Lopé national park in 1999 under funding from, initially, EDG (European Development Group), and latterly, ECOFAC (Conservation et Utilisation Rationnelle des Ecosystèmes Forestiers en Afrique Central), supported by the European Commission (EC) Funds for Development and recently by additional support and research co-operation from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). We met with a researcher from a branch of the ZSL who told us that the habituation of a Gorilla family at Mikongo in the forest was abandoned as they realised that to do this, and then protect the family, it would require an investment in staff for up to 30 years. These staff would be required to continuously follow and guard the gorillas against poaching. Needless to say that although research is still conducted from Mikongo it is now closed to guests! In Rwanda and Tanzania the authorities have made this commitment and tourism is booming. Well, I will now get down off my soap-box, but with Gabon’s largest source of foreign currency, oil, due to expire in 2020 they are now left with logging and tourism. I think that their creation of 13 national parks is admirable, but if they want to secure a revenue stream to support the parks then the tourists will need to get a bit more than just trees to attract them!
By the way, coming back to the title of this blog, we were never sure of the answer as the only person who could provide it to us (and whose name shall remain in the depths of the forest and only be known to those present) fell into a hole in the ground in the centre of a gorilla nest and disappeared!!
Thanks to the Vuvuzela’s for their invitation to a trip which I thoroughly enjoyed and the memory of which I will treasure forever.
