Gabon 2

Sick Landy

The Land Rover is in surgery: the parts have to come from London and South Africa, and it will take a week to be repaired. So the van Wyks and the Malherbes will carry on and blaze the way, while the Swarts will follow as soon as they can. The problem is the Angola visa: it is only valid till 24 October, and that seems to mean we have to be out of Angola by then. The Swarts will have to see when they get on the road, and we will try to smooth the way for them.

Crossing the equator, going south

While waiting we went to the lagoon area, and visited Omboué, on the coast. To get there we had to travel through 300 km of forest, including a forestry reserve and an oil concession where Shell seems to be pumping gas. The roads were in reasonable state, at least intide the concessions, but after that it was a little rough. To complicate matters I was not able to fill at the last town, and so we had to stop in the forest, get eaten by unseen bugs, while siphoning fuel from a jerrycan.

Lambarene: Albert Schweizer's hospital

Slash and burn cultivation

Untouched beach

Rain forest ride

Olako hotel, Omboue

River crocodile

Fisher.  Anyone knows its name?

Once arrived we visited one of the rivers into the rain forest, and were lucky to see a number of the rare river crocodiles, as well as a number of fish-catching birds. The next day we went to the beach, an untouched piece of coastline, except for numerous plastic bottles and bags. But we found the tracks of a leatherback turtle that had come ashore to lay eggs, and even the patch where she buried them. Let’s hope nobody finds it!