These last two posts on our trip to West-central Africa come a while after our time living in Africa came to a close. In all the hustle and bustle of moving, the blog was, admittedly, left behind in all the dust. But now that we're sitting here in Germany, it's time to finally catch up with all we've missed on our September trip to Gabon and Sao Tome.
This trip was special since it was our last official trip as part of FAO in-region training (where normally you try to use up as much of your remaining budget as possible). I can say that we ended on a high note, but not before going through a few trying experiences in Gabon that exemplify the spirit of the phrase "T.I.A." or "This is Africa."
Our trip began, as usual, with our night flight from Casa to Libreville (it seems like being exhausted is a pre-requisite to traveling to and from Sub-Saharan Africa). We landed in Libreville to be eventually whisked to our hotel just in time for a nice early morning nap at about 5:00 AM. On the plus side, that night in the hotel was free.
There was no whisking involved, we sat there for an hour waiting for the hotel shuttle. Meh.
Now, this being out last big trip on the continent, we couldn't leave without having one of those "Murphy's Law" trips (you know, where "what can go wrong, will go wrong"). Gabon did not disappoint in this respect. Our Gabon began easy enough with a (a usually delayed) flight to Porte-Gentil where we met with the owner of the tour company who sat us down to explain that "things go a little slower around here" due to the the lack of tourism-supporting transportation infrastructure as we've seen in other countries.
But the flight was uneventful, thank you very much, but it was the smallest airplane that I had been on in a long time. And we all know how much I love to fly! So we get to PG and get in a cab and go to a cafe to wait out our time to get on the boat. Which, silly me thought it would be a boat boat. Nope, it wasn't. When we boarded the first boat for our scheduled 4-hour float to Loango Lodge, this truth set in quickly. Well...after a few hours, we hit a substantial "bump" which turned out to be some some floating wood in the open estuaries waters of coastal Gabon. This wood damaged the propeller, turning our 4 hour trip in to a six-hour trip. On the plus side, we did stop for a bathroom break at a local village that treated us to some homemade palm wine. Imagine a dry white wine with some vinegar added. Nevertheless, it helped the rest of the boat ride go by a lot easier. The kid (as always) enjoyed every second.
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| Start of our trip, landing at the oil town of Porte-Gentil from the Capital of Libreville. Optimism is high |
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| Our stop for palm wine from a plastic motor oil bottle. What could go wrong. |
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| Cruising the inland waterways of Western Gabon |
We finally arrive to the dock, and our guide said to wait right here Ill be right back...an hour later he pulls up in this shanty wagon of a safari truck. Half the seats are missing, my seat was not attached, there was no windshield or mirrors...We all climbed in thinking that it would be a short ride to the lodge...another hour later, with SUPER sore bums, we arrive at the Loango Lodge. Our lodging and food were absolutely amazing at our safari lodge in Loango park (cut off from the world it seemed but we had the place to ourselves). The next morning, we boarded a boat that, hours ago, had been completely submerged due to a heavy rain storm the night before and possibly a lead in the hull. The assurances that all was well (including the engine), we began our 2 hour riverine journey to the off-site lodge at Akaka camp.
Our guide was amazing at spotting wildlife, like just amazing. The tiniest and best camouflaged snakes were no match for his eagle eye! Well, wouldn't you know it, we had engine trouble about half way through, slowing us to almost dead speed, adding a couple of hours to our little canoe trip. Sure, we got a longer boat ride, but we got to meet some lovely people from a research group who let us call our home base to send another boat back to get us (2 hours away). We loved the birds as well as the forest elephants who came to greet us. The highlight of our day came as we were walking around the trail through empty cabins and were greeted by a sizable forest elephant who obviously had no problem hanging out with us.
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| The infamous "Akaka Camp," our home after we broke our second of three broken boats for this trip. |
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| Our forest elephant friend just welcoming us to his camp. He doesn't get many visitors. |
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| Finally leaving camp! |
One packed lunch and four hours of waiting at the "Akaka Camp" with a (thankfully) sleeping kid , we began our long 3-hour voyage back to the Loango Lodge, pretty much just done with the day's experiences. Night soon fell upon us and as our boat had no lights whatsoever (that's not dangerous right) we were delighted by soft but ominous glow of distant flames jetting from the tops of distant oil wells (the lifeblood of the Gabonese economy) and electric glow of the brackish water krill (or whatever tiny sea life) that lit up as they were churned up by the boats wake speeding through the night. It was kind of surreal and I wish I had a picture.
It was surreal but also terrifying. When i told the guys that I was extremely nervous about the voyage they all laughed at me. Thanks for the reassurance.
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| All smiles (most of the time). Love this kid! |
I hate to say it, but Gabon may have been kind of a "miss" as far as our Africa trips go.
For Ryan only though, I really did enjoy Gabon minus the boats. We spent more time trying to get somewhere (in very uncomfortable situations) than actually seeing things. Instead of just continuing the complaint train, I'll just say that our experience with Loango National Park was actually very nice (what we saw of it) and almost made up for the improvised water taxi (rowboat with a 50hp outboard) completely over capacity with commuter trudging through hippo infested estuaries (we saw quite a few) on our way back to Port-Gentil to catch our hopper back to Libreville. The birds were rare and beautiful (including the elusive Rosy Bee-eater) as well as some unique land and sea life.
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| Done with this whole thing. The "water taxi" leaving for Port-Gentil. We kicked a few locals off the boat, sorry! |
In short, Gabon is a country huge in potential for tourism but maybe not quite there yet. I'm glad I saw it, but probably won't need to head back in a hurry. From Libreville, we continued on our journey west to the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe. Read on, reader.
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| Random picture taken at Libreville airport. The most orderly line I've ever seen during my year on IRT. |
As Ryan said before, it has been a while since we even thought about writing a blog post about our last trip in Africa. I am sad that all the details are not fresh in our minds, because it really was an amazing trip! But on to Sao Tome, the best tiniest awesomest island I have been to! (Well besides nantucket, but thats neither here nor there!) 
