Roadtripping

Christmas holidays, Covid-19… we are staying in Gabon, we have time, we have motivated friends, so we are taking this opportunity to drive down all the way to the small city of Gamba, which lies on the coast in the very South of Gabon. It’s a 770 km ride, and we have planned 2 full days to reach it. We are 2 cars and 2 families, accompanied by our guide Yannick. We hit the road on Saturday in the early morning.

We are now used to the horrendous, back-killing and tyre-killing stretch of potholes, dirt and stones between kilometre 50 and 100 after Libreville. Works have been supposed to start there for quite a while now. We secretly hope it’s the last time we have to endure it, but we know deep inside it’s not going to be the case. Anyhow, once these troubles are over, it makes the smooth and winding asphalt road leading to Lambaréné, then further to Fougamou, all the more enjoyable.

Fougamou is a peaceful little town nestled on the banks of the Ngounié river. We spend our first night there in a cosy little hotel. There, we are the object of a serious attack by fourous – these almost invisible insects that bite and leave a red dot on your skin, which start to itch terribly 5 or 6 hours later. Some of us (mostly teenager girls who felt like our technical trekking clothes would not look good in trendy Fougamou) end up with dozens of red dots.

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On the next day, we leave the thick forest behind us and peacefully make our way on a straight and perfect asphalt laid on plains and savannah, with small hills in the background. Once we pass the region’s main city of Mouila, we have the road almost for ourselves, and with Johnny Cash in the speakers, we are not sure anymore that we are in Gabon (until the next police check, but that comes later).

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A bit of adventure finally arrives before the city of Tchibanga: a few dozen kilometres of dirt road through the hills and villages literally lost in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, we drive serious and sturdy vehicles and get through it easily.

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We pass Tchibanga, and the last obstacle before the coast is a chain of middle-height mountains. Here, to our amazement, the road is beautifully built, we are in a sort of tropical version of Austria. If such roads can exist in Gabon, how come the ones around Libreville still cannot be fixed?

After the mountains, the brand new road we are flying over is nowhere on Google Maps. Not sure how we would have made it without Yannick. We have a thin curtain of forest on our left hiding the ocean, and savannah on our right. By the time we reach the minuscule pier of Mougagara, we have not seen any other cars for a couple of hours.

The road stops here. In front of us, lies the Nyanga river, which we must cross if we want to reach Gamba. To do so, there is only one solution: put our cars on a shabby-looking metal and wood floating and motorised platform , wives and children on a motor boat, and pray that everyone reach the other side. As I stand on the “ferry” with my friend Ronan, I catch myself thinking of the car insurance I just renewed, and wondering if it covers such incidents as “total loss by sinking in the Nyanga river”.

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We make it to the other side safely, and it really is a miracle. We are now in the village of Mayonami, it’s the end of the afternoon and we have been on the road for 2 days. We are stopped at the 28th (no more no less) police checkpoint since we left Libreville. The agent is a zealous one, he wants to know everything about us, even things he is not allowed to ask such as our vaccination book, which we do not carry with us. Fortunately, Yannick gets us out of his hands with a bit of talking. Yes, this is a reality of traveling in Gabon: you must be prepared to meet with police forces at the entrance and exit of every city or big village. Most of the time the discussions go well, but it happens that the officials have something else in mind (guess what) than just checking your papers.

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Gamba, finally! We are happy, exhausted, and greeted on the beach like kings by the Ibonga NGO team and a few very welcoming locals. We are sleeping in Ibonga’s brand new wooden bungalows, next to their research center dedicated to the sea turtles of Gabon. The beach of Gamba is actually one of the primary eggs laying spot in the world for 4 species of turtles, including the mighty leatherback sea turtle, which population is going through a steep decline (as the temperature of the waters around Gabon is slowly but surely rising above the 29° mark, more females and less males are born). And now we are in the middle of the laying season. They explain us their daily activities on the 14 km-stretch of beach they have under their responsibility: during the day, they walk to locate the nests, and at night they walk again and try spotting the turtles laying their eggs. Each turtle is marked and in this way they can study their habits and exchange information with other research centres in Gabon and neighbouring countries. Besides this work for the turtles, they are very active in building environmental awareness among the inhabitants and especially kids of Gamba.

We all gather the few bits of energy we have left and at 10 pm, under the magic light of the pale and full moon, we follow the Ibonga guides for a night walk on the beach in the hope of meeting at least one turtle. At some point, we think we are seeing one. As we approach the dark shape, it turns out it’s a log. We are actually closer to being asleep than awake, which causes strange hallucinations. But that’s okay. We have already learned that in Gabon, wild animals are not coming to you on demand.

Here is a link to Ibonga’s FB page – lots of turtles you shall see, and a few white tourists around Christmas time: https://www.facebook.com/Ibonga-ACPE-332614610194976/.