The Vuvuzela Diaries

Written by Laura

Let me set the scene. Neil, Mik and Paula (after the Sharks!) are Stormers supporters. Grant supports the Bulls. All of us enjoy rugby and it is particularly exciting that it is an all South African Super 14 Rugby Final. The final will be at 16:00 our time on Saturday afternoon. We know that at Jon’s house in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville there is DSTV which will be showing the match. There aren’t many places in West Africa that have DSTV. We also know that there will be beer and good company to watch the match with. We worked out the distances and decided that if we left very early Friday morning, we could pass through the border from Gabon into Congo around Friday lunchtime and we could just make it in time to watch the rugby on Saturday. Mayumba is actually very close to Pointe-Noire if you could head south along the coast and we know that there used to be a road that went that direction. However we heard that the road is now very bad and the few cars that have come through there in recent years have got bogged at some stage. Therefore we have to take the longer road around and our time is precious.

 The town of Mayumba should be a very productive place thriving on the industry of tourism as it truly is an exquisite spot with incredible wildlife. Alternatively it should receive millions of dollars in taxes from the oil companies that are present in the surrounding area. Unfortunately for Mayumba, it receives no income from the oil companies as that money is used by the top government officials and it receives no money from tourism as the existing tourist industry is so poorly maintained. No bridge has been built over the lagoon to access the town and so the people need to rely on the ferry. A few years ago there was a large event, with a government official present so they could present the town with a new ferry. It turned out that the ‘new’ ferry was in fact an old one that had been renovated. The ferry didn’t complete its maiden voyage. Apparently they managed to get it to work for 6 months but since then they have been using a bac – a metal structure large enough to fit 2 cars and a tug that attaches to the side of the bac in order to push it from one side of the lagoon to the other. The tug is in fact rented out from a logging company at large expense and when the logging company needs the tug, then the bac cannot transport people and cars across the lagoon. We didn’t realise this and set off early on Friday morning to catch the match!

Friday

6am wake up before sunrise to get packing as soon as possible.

6:45 Start driving towards Mayumba with breakfast padkos packed from the night before to save every spare minute possible.

8:00 Arrive at Mayumba ferry platform, first in the queue and hoping the first ferry trip will leave at 8:30.

8:30 Rich informs us that the ferry is broken. He is told that it will be fixed by 10:00.

9:30 No efforts to fix the ferry yet. We decide to go into town to get a samp and bean baguette. We discover that there are no baguettes in the town as there is no flour in the whole town to make the baguettes. The flour is waiting in a truck the other side of the lagoon.

10:30 We are informed that in fact we are not waiting for the bac to be fixed, but rather the tug is being used by the logging company to load logs out at sea. The tug may come back at lunchtime to take a few of us across the lagoon before it goes back to the large logging ship.

Vehicles start arriving at the petrol station to get fuel. This has happened before and the whole town ran out of fuel so the vehicle owners want to avoid being the unlucky ones with no fuel.

11:00 We unravel the awning for shade and make ourselves at home next to the lagoon.

14:00 Still no sign of the tug. We decide to go to the beach for a swim. From there we can look out to sea and if we saw the tug making its way back from the ship out at sea, then we would come back to the lagoon. We can see the tug and we can see that it is next to the ship but in fact, it is doing no work as there is a larger tug there as well that is doing the work.

15:00 We are told that the tug is still needed by the logging company but it will be available after the ‘day’s work’ and be ready at 16:00.

17:00 The tug is still at the logging ship out at sea. We are informed by a ‘ship engineer’ that the tug will not come back today but it will take a few people across the lagoon tomorrow morning at 7:00 before it goes to work. We decided to buy fish to braai in the evening and Erin and Rich kindly offer to let us camp in front of their house.

19:00 Neil gets hold of the shipping company’s directors address in order to let him know that there are tourists waiting for the tug. The director is busy when Neil goes to visit so Neil decided to go later.

20:00 We had a wonderful fish braai (a Meru – arguably Gabon’s best tasting fish) and enjoyed a number of Gin and Tonics and beers to ease our frustrating day. Erin and Rich were wonderful hosts and it was very interesting hearing their stories as they have worked to save wildlife in Asia, Africa, South America and Central America despite even being shot at in some places!

Neil attempted to contact the director again but was unable to do so.

Saturday

6:00 Another early start as we know that we can’t risk missing the tug leaving at 7am. We didn’t even have coffee in our rush to catch the tug.

7:00 No sign of the tug

8:00 Neil called the director and is informed that the reason the tug hasn’t come back is because the bac is in fact broken and they are waiting for a welder to fix it. It should be fixed by 10:00.

8:30 We set up the awning again and make coffee. We were able to get baguettes today for breakfast as the store owners decided to undertake the onerous task of unpacking all their goods from the truck across the lagoon, pack them into a pirogue and then unpack them into another truck our side of the lagoon. Every part of this process required the use of at least 5 men in the production line.

10:00 The welder arrives. He hasn’t brought his welding equipment with him. We have to wait for him to find someone in Mayumba to locate some welding equipment.

10:30 We get a message from Rich. He is still in Tchibanga as his flight was cancelled yesterday. Today’s flight was also cancelled. However he thinks that we’ll be able to watch the rugby in his hotel room if we can make it by 16:00. That means we need to leave Mayumba by 13:00.

 11:00 The tug returns! It comes to fetch the bac and we pack up in a big rush so we can make the first voyage. Disappointed, we realise that the tug was just taking the bac across to the other side of the river so the repairs could be performed there.

12:00 Andrew chats to some of the locals to establish exactly how bad the road is to Pointe-Noire along the coast. At this stage it seemed we might get to Pointe-Noire quicker that way, even with a few occasions of getting bogged. However he is informed that that road also has a bac that you need to use to cross a river and that bac too, is broken.

12:30 Neil gets a pirogue across the river to see what efforts are being made to fix the bac.

14:00 Message from Neil – the welding has begun, amongst lots of shouting and drinking of palm wine.

15:55 Just 5 minutes from kick off, we decide to call around Mayumba to see if there is (by any tiny chance) a place to watch the game here.

Then we see it, the tug pulling the bac across the lagoon with Neil at the bow leading the momentous voyage across to pick up the stranded cars!

16:00 The bac can only take 2 vehicles and everyone is trying to get onto the bac in order to cross as quickly as possible. Grant is first in the queue and Andrew is close behind.  After all, we have now been waiting 36 hours. A bush taxi tried to cut in between the 2 meters separating Andrew and Grant. Neil banged on the back of his truck. He paused for a few seconds then starting reversing again. Neil banged again. He paused briefly but then kept coming. Neil fortuitously found a large rock nearby and shoved it behind his right back wheel. It stopped him dead in his tracks and Andrew quickly drove onto the bac. We got a number of death stares but after waiting 36hours, we weren’t going to be made to wait another half an hour.

We finally were leaving Mayumba! Just at the time, the game was starting in Soweto. On the bright side, at least Neil, Mik and Paula didn’t have to watch their team lose!

Written By Laura 

Grant, Paula and Tony went back to Libreville so Tony could catch his flight to Johannesburg and so Neil and Mik could be picked up to continue their journey south after spending a week relaxing at the beach. The ‘Grobicki’ crew – ie Ted, Andrew, Danielle, myself and an honorary Charlie ‘Grobicki’ spent another day in Lambarene exploring the many lakes that are part of the delta from the Oogoue River. The vast expanse of the lakes and the dense forest on the land were quite something to behold. It was amazing that all the small communities are only accessed by boat, and we only saw a few huts and fishermen all day to share our magic views.

The next day we headed south from Lambarene and bush camped outside Tchibanga. We camped amongst the trees in the forest and thoroughly enjoyed our evening sitting next to a fire and eating fried plantains (a fruit that is best described as a savory banana). Unfortunately our morning was less pleasant as we were discovered swarms of ‘fooroo’. These are miggies that you can hardly see with the naked eye and you don’t notice their bite. However the red blotches become visible within a few hours on every part of your skin that you didn’t cover and the intense itch persists for a number of days. We had learnt this from a previous encounter with the ferocious fooroo where Charlie was unable to sleep because of the fiery itch and swimming in the sea at 3am only barely cooled his legs and eased his pain. We packed up camp in record time and provided much entertainment to the locals walking past to work in their fields, as we did our best to cover every spare patch of skin. Our attire included makeshift balaclavas made from shirts and scarves, 2 layers of long sleeved shirts tucked into long pants, shoes, and socks pulled over our long pants. We heard the locals cackling with laughter for hundreds of meters down the road at the silly Le Blanc’s fashion sense and even sillier decision to camp in the middle of the forest with the Fooroo!

When we arrived at the beautifully situated sea side village of Mayumba we fortuitously met a very friendly American called Erin who was on her way home for lunch. Erin and her fiancé, Rich, work for Wildlife Conservation Society and had arrived just 2 weeks before to take on the essential, but tough, job of preserving the incredible wildlife in the area. This ranges from gorilla, elephant, buffalo, humpback whales, dolphins and the largest population of nesting leatherback turtles in the world.

 Erin introduced us to Aimee, who together with her partner, Rich also have played a crucial part in preserving Mayumba’s wildlife. I particularly enjoyed hearing how Aimee had recently organised an educational festival and a march through the town of Mayumba with 500 school children carrying a gigantic paper-mache turtle (which they had made themselves) and dressed up as different marine animals to promote saving the local wildlife. Aimee and Rich very kindly let us camp next to their house in their exquisite spot. Their house is charmingly situated 12 km out of town between the lagoon and the ocean with savannah and forest surrounding them. We didn’t mind not being able to get into the nature reserve (tourists are only allowed into the reserve with permission from the conservator and she was on a 3 week holiday at the time).  We had a wonderful meal of the largest langoustines (lobsters) we have ever seen washed down with surprisingly good cheap Spanish box wine imported from Equatorial Guinea, and enjoyed spending the next day paddling on the lagoon and relaxing with Aimee and Rich.                                                                                                                      

While we had been relaxing, Maude and her passengers were making their way towards Tchibanga. The 2 cars re-united and we took on the road to Gamba together. When we asked the locals about this road, the first question we were asked was, “Do you have a snorkel on your vehicle?” Not a question we were used to being asked. However we discovered that in the wet season, snorkels are essential and the road often is impassible as it winds its way through the muddy, waterlogged wetlands. We asked a number of people whether we would definitely make it all the way through to Gamba and we even took a guide with us to ensure we made it there. From the quality of the road perspective, we were in luck. Gabon has had a particularly dry year and the road was mostly sandy with a few average troughs of water. We pulled ourselves across the first ‘bac’ (ferry) without any hassles, although it is rather quite an unusual experience using your own strength to pull your vehicle across a river! However when we got to the next large river we were informed that both possible ferries were broken. One would potentially be repaired within a month! There was no possible way of getting the cars across the river. Minor problem – Danielle and Ted were flying out from Gamba (an ‘oil town’ run by Shell 50km north of this river) a few days later, and we all wanted to visit Sette Cama, a nature reserve another 2 hours further north which is famous for its surfing hippos and other nature highlights. Fortuitously again, we met 2 incredibly kind and helpful men: Landri and Kolo. Landri is from Gabon and Kolo is from Niger. They both work for Shell, based in Gamba and it was their long weekend. They approached us when they realised our plight and offered to help us. We decided that we would still go to Gamba but we had to leave the vehicles next to the river. Neil, Mik, Paula and Grant were keen to watch the Stormers in the super 14 semi-final which was being played in Cape Town later that afternoon. Kolo and Landri organised so they could watch the match in the Shell compound and the proud supporters were able to see their team to victory. Landri and Kolo also organised a hotel for them to stay in Gamba, while the rest of us bush camped amongst the savannah close to the broken ferries. Our two local good Samaritans picked us up the next morning from the other side of the river (about a 100km drive round trip) and that was just the start of what they did for us in organising our time in Sette Cama. They made calls about boats to hire, accommodation, gathered information about the reserve and drove us around so we could get supplies! We were so grateful for their help on their long weekend. It would have been really difficult without them and without a car.

Our 2 days in Sette Cama were fantastic. It took us 2 hours by boat to get there. Sette Cama is a little village situated on a lagoon and again, just a few hundred meters from the sea and on the edge of the Loango National Park. On the 25 May, it was Paula’s birthday. Mik had brought candles all the way from London and we all agreed that Paula’s birthday was one of the most special days of the trip. We initially went by boat along the lagoon and its meandering tributaries lined with mangroves and thick forest and saw hundreds of birds, hippos relaxing in the water and red-capped mangabeys (a type of monkey) playing in the mangroves. We then went on a very interesting 7km walk with our excellent guide, Gyslain, through ancient tangled forest and eventually emerged on the beach. After a refreshing swim, we walked 5km back along the beautiful isolated and pristine coastline. On the way home we observed and approached at very close quarters, 3 forest elephant and a herd of 15 forest buffalo who were actually quite inquisitive. Watching forest elephant whilst we were on foot, with the sea and beach in the background was quite a unique experience. To top the day off we went home by boat and watched the moon rise over the water whilst we had the feeling of being engulfed by the forest as it seems to do every evening as the light fades.

The next morning we went on another exciting walk. We watched a troop of red-capped mangabeys playing in the trees and just made out the shape of an elephant eating his breakfast amongst the bush a few paces from us. It’s amazing how such a large animal can be so difficult to see and we would have walked right past him if we hadn’t heard him eating!

After a swim and packing up camp, we returned to Gamba enjoying another ride on the charming lagoon on our little boat , Kolo and Landri yet again went out of their way to help us and again, they gave us lifts. We all enjoyed sharing in a wonderful Gabonese meal at a local restaurant with plantain, manioc (pounded yam), crab, spicy fish soup and chicken. It was a fitting farewell meal for Dee and Ted who sadly flew out from Gamba for Libreville and then onto Johannesburg later that afternoon. Dee’s cheerful presence has been greatly missed since she left the group. It was especially sad to wave goodbye to her seeing as she has been a valued part of the planning and enjoyment of this adventure since it was conceived in London many moons ago!

Back to the big river and the broken ‘bac’, we were reunited with the Cruisers on the other side and the rest of the crew (now down to 7) spent another night bush camping in the savannah. The next morning, we all tried to get to the sea through the forest for a morning swim/bath but we displayed out West African ignorance and left our panga behind in the car. Andrew and Neil were the only 2 who managed to persevere their way through the maze of thick bush and after an hour, they eventually had their swim. We made our way to Mayumba and had another fantastic seafood braai of lobster and fish with Rich who kindly let us camp next to his house again. We spent the day relaxing – catching up on much needed clothes washing, swimming in the sea and bathing in the lagoon. There is quite an art to this as you have to lather soap and shampoo onto your body whilst you’re in the boat and then ensure the boat is anchored in the middle of the lagoon so you don’t lose it with the current whilst you’re rinsing yourself off. Lastly, you have to get back into the boat without tipping it over! That night, Charlie, in his element, made a bonfire for us on the beach. The atmosphere with the bonfire, beach and evening stars was great, however we all now know that the sea has a salt content of 31% and if you use sea water to cook your pasta, then your pasta basically becomes inedible!

We planned to leave very early the next day so we could make it all the way to Pointe-Noire to watch the finals of the super 14 rugby. However that African adventure deserves a whole story of its own!

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.

So Neil and I decided to hop out the car for a week whilst the others (with two new honorary members, Tony and Ted) headed for Lope National Park. We had a week to kill, public transport at our fingertips and the bags on our backs (or Neil’s to be slightly more precise). We decided not to rough it too much – what is the point on being too hard on oneselves?

Our first stop was Nyonie. After a debacle with the travel agent, and me losing my cool, we managed to book ourselves two nights at the Nyonie Camp and were to be collected from Michelle Marina in Libreville the next day. We were a little apprehensive to see if the booking which was made on the phone in French/Spanish/English was actually confirmed, and were most relieved when we found other tourists at the pier and the boat that was to take us. From here it was an hour’s ride on the speedboat and up the estuary through Mangrove swamps. We were then transferred by 4×4 along a bumpy track through rainforest to reach our final destination – Nyonie Camp. The camp overlooks an isolated beach and is truly stunning. We put our bags in our bungalow and headed for a drink and lunch. The bar was open and you literally helped yourself as you pleased (it was a lucky thing for the owners that we were both fending off stomach bugs, so we couldn’t overdo things) and meals were served with a ring of an old bell from the Titanic and all the guests sat down at a long table to eat their three course meals (with vin rouge, of course – this is catering for the French market).

In the afternoons there were game drives and we were lucky to see some very skittish Forest Elephants. They are much smaller than the African Elephants and tended to hang around the edge of the forest. When we drove up to them, they literally took two steps into the forest and were gone – you could not see an inch of them. The bird life was abundant and we also saw a few monkeys and a host of dolphins frolicking in the waves. The camp gets very busy over weekends and was very festive on Friday lunch – being the only English speaking people amongst about 50 guests was a challenge but we still managed to meet some interesting people.

From here we headed for Point Denis. The ferry also leaves from Michelle Marina, so we conveniently hopped from one to the other and steamed off to Point Denis at 5pm on the Friday afternoon. The guide book advised that all the accommodation was close to each other on the beach and if you weren’t sure where you wanted to stay you could hop off the ferry and choose on foot. This was far from the truth, and whilst all but two of the resorts had closed, they were about 3km from each other! So I sat on the beach whilst Neil walked down the beach and slowly discovered this vital bit of information. We ended up staying at La Maringa, which was actually very nice. The bungalows you stay in are very quaint with en-suite bathrooms and aircon. We ate a delicious meal in the restaurant that evening which overlooks the beachfront and in the distance bustling Libreville twinkles away at night on the other side of the estuary.

After a relaxing day at Point Denis we decided to head back to Libreville and then on to Cap Esterias. We did a quick shop of food supplies, as we wouldn’t be able to get anything once we were at Cap Esterias, and caught a taxi to the outskirts of town. From here we had to hop in to a taxi-brousse, or shared taxi (think Mowbray-Kaap), with our bags and shopping and travel in the dark for about an hour over a bumpy dirt track. Luckily the taxi drops everyone off at their doorstep and as we were the last stop we went round the village dropping everyone off. The guy just before us hoped out, and we noticed that he was wearing handcuffs! He had a policeman with him and then we realised that we were at the local police station – little did we know that this guy was sitting on the seat right behind us the entire journey!

Our last few days we spent at La Maree at Cap Esterias and we partook in the large Sunday lunch vibe that was being served up on the weekend. The weekdays are very quiet without any diners at all (the restaurant is basically closed) and the weekends extremely busy with expats. The owner was very kind allowing us to camp on her property for free and we were very grateful for the amazing location she has which overlooks a beach with a reef that makes a natural tidal pool on her doorstep.

The week flew by and we had some good relaxing time on the beach and at the game reserve. It was great to see Grant, Paula and Tony back in Libreville, along with Maude who we surprisingly missed as we have got so used to living out of the car!

In Gabon, you might just find yourself landing on an airstrip full of goats, dodging forest elephants on the stroll home from the bar, or wandering into a celebration of starkly painted dancers that harkens back hundreds of years. Outside Westernised Libreville, just about everything in Gabon is so newly accessible that just by being there you’re already off the beaten path and in the middle of a whole new world. And if you happen to be travelling with a 4WD, mechanic, cash to burn and a French dictionary, you’re bound to have the adventure of a lifetime. Exploring this land ain’t no walk in a national park. Lack of infrastructure and transportation will lead you on long, bumpy journeys, and it practically costs 20 bucks just to breathe the air in the glitzy capital city, Libreville.

But you’ll be stunned by what is shaping up to be Africa’s next best ecotourism destination. Thanks to President El Hadj Omar Bongo’s designation of a whopping 10% of the country’s land as national parks – closing it down to loggers and miners and opening it up to travellers, conservationists and ecotourists – it’s now possible to explore endless white-sand beaches, primate-filled tropical rainforests, rolling savannahs and estuaries. Probably the most beautiful of the country’s parks, Loango National Park is located on the Southern Gabon coast, and is renown for – wait for it – surfing hippos. The wilds of Eastern Gabon are where you’ll find the Ivindo National Park, with its own eco-camp and resident elephants and gorillas.

Nature and wildlife fanatics will not be disappointed: long days of trekking will be rewarded with seeing wild creatures in their own pristine environment. The experience will transport you back to a time when Mother Earth – not humans – ruled the land.

Thanks to Lonely Planet