Our 1-week family adventure is coming to its end. We are driving on the new and empty highway to Port-Gentil in the company of Cédric, a car mechanic who regularly comes down from Libreville to Enamino to check and repair Philippe’s Land Cruiser and Hilux. He is Gabonese and Congolese, and a huge fan of Fally Ipupa, an immensely popular singer from Kinshasa, whose songs fill the air around us. As we are absorbed in romantic stories about a girl as sweet as sugar cane, Cédric suddenly slows down, stops the car, and starts driving full speed in reverse (on the highway, yes yes). As a native from Omboué and a friend of Philippe’s, Cédric the mechanic also has the eagle eye. He has spotted a tiny green dot crossing the asphalt… As we come closer, the green dot is not green anymore. Cédric actually follows this old African saying: “Move like a chameleon: look in front, and watch behind”.
We drop our colourful friend on the other side of the road, in the thick grass, where he belongs. This will be our last encounter with inhabitants of the Gabonese jungle. In the evening, we are in Port-Gentil, and on the morning after, we are on the boat back to Libreville. These have been some of the wildest days of our lives.
Tanad stories from Gabon 