We are still in Libreville, i have sold my motorbike, but we are waiting for the jeep to be sold....anyone out there who needs a great right hand Land Rover Discovery in Gabon please get in touch asap...or we are stuck in Libreville for Christmas!!!!
We will not make it Mikongo now to trek into the jungle in search of gorillas, but might yet go to a nearby reserve where there are rumoured to be elephants and water buffalo, its not over yet!
Promise to post some photos on here soon, when we return to the UK - never seem to have much luck downloading them in Africa.
Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Paradise Found
After another long ride on half tarmac, half not tarmac roads from Yaounde, and stopping along the way to eat lunch at a roadside cafe where we tasted Boa snake and crocodile - both looked great on the plate in some black sauce but neither tasted of anything in particular - we made it to Kribi. We found a wonderful place to stay in, the Tara Plage Auberge on the edge of the forest with a large beach all to itself, hammocks hanging from trees and one step from the shore bungalows to sleep in and immediately jumped into the warm sea, Palli and I in our bike gear (they needed washing anway) and all decided that we should stay there forever!
Well, at least 2 days anyway....
In between relaxing, swimming, drinking and eating the best shrimps ever we managed to fit in some filming for Courier and a wonderful canoe trip up the river Lobe to visit a Pygmy village. On the edge of the river in the forest we met 20 or so Pygmies who performed some traditional dances for us with songs and drumming and after giving them some cigarettes, sweets and some money of course we took our pictures with them (even I looked tall!)
We then made our way back down the river and paid for our canoe ride, where we got totally overcharged (8000 CFA per person instead of 5000) walked back along the beach feeling rather annoyed but passed the beautiful Lobe waterfalls, which are small falls crashing down into the sea.
Sadly Monday arrived too soon and reluctantly we packed up our stuff, left paradise behind behind and rode away to reach the border of Gabon. (After being told that we would need to collect the Gabonese visa in Yaounde on Monday we luckily managed to pick it up on friday after a 3 hour wait at the embassy before leaving for Kribi. )
We didnt make it to the border at Ambam on Monday as the road east from Kribi to Ebolowa (170 kms) through the stunning rainforest was nothing but thick wet mud.... the rainy season had just ended in Cameroon. We spent many hot sweaty hours splashing through deep puddles and pushing my bike out of the mud a few times.... my bike chose this day to have some problems with not starting and cutting out alot.
At one point the road had completely washed away and while some local men seemed to be doing their best trying to pour dry mud into the gap we had to negotiate our way around it, i dropped my bike coming a bit too fast back onto to dry mud, but unharmed except for my pride we carried on ready to see what was next.
Next was an overturned lorry stuck in thick mud, with many other lorries backed up behind it.
The many people standing around, who were waiting for a crane to come from Yaounde and pull out the lorry, all assured us that other vehicles had been passing between them for the last 2 days with "no problems" at all!!!!! Ha ha ha, if there is one phrase thats really starting to irritate me on this trip its "no problem".
But not one to give up easily and after watching both the jeep and Palli pass through, the jeep needing a push, I rode on.
Almost through the gap between the lorries when i got stuck in a hole. Palli rushed to my aid and we managed to turn the front wheel back in the right direction, i revved hard and with Palli pushing we got the wheel out of the hole only to get it stuck again ontop of a mud ridge with the back wheel stuck on top of another behind...and my legs dangling down in the middle. In one of those laugh or cry moments i laughed, gave in and let Palli take over. A second later he manouvered my bike out of the mud and we carried on breathing sighs of relief.
Enjoying splashing through puddles by the end of the day and covered in mud once again we made it to Ebolowa (meaning 'rotten monkey') for the night and cleaned off with bucket showers...yes, that's cold dirty water in a bucket style!
Tuesday, we set off early for the border having been promised tarmac roads and crossed the border easily. We were asked for a carnet for the vehicles, but admitting we didnt have one for any vehicle the customs man was not sure what to do about that, so he just let us go, no fine no questions asked and we made it to Bitam, the first town in Gabon in time for lunch.
Totally proud of ourselves for reaching our final country on this adventure we celebrated with large cokes, steak and chips!
We continued through the rainforest to Mitzic where we found a rather dingy hotel to stay in, rather unaptly named 'Bel Air', with no running water, no food and some rather nasty looking bugs in the rooms.
Wednesday, and we continued towards Libreville crossing the Equator again- a tough day - no breakfast or lunch much to speak of, over exhaustion of the last 3 months starting to hit me and the road varying between bad and very bad. But we did stop for over 3 hours in the sweltering heat in the forest and film the last scene for Courier - with some rather hilarious moments of endlessly waving flies away from our faces.
With Libreville only 100 km's away we spent the night at a very nice friendly hotel called 'Les 4 Freres' in Kango. The boss Paul made us feel very welcome and even gave us some fresh shrimps for free with our dinner.
Slept, fed and watered we set off for the last ride to Libreville, which was a terrible road and included a stop and a fine by the police for not having local insurance for the vehicles....oops, it ran out a week ago. But the price rapidly dropped from 450,000 CFA when we said we only had 40,000 left in our pockets, which was not a lie and they took the 40 looking very pleased with themselves, and waving it proudly at trucks passing.
We got away lightly all things considered, and we have not had to buy a Lasse Passe for any of the vehicles in the last 3 countries and been extremely lucky that we have not had one fine or bribe throughout the whole trip....well Palli gave his sunglasses to one policeman and Haukur gave a couple of postcards from Iceland but thats it, not bad really.
So if you are not exhausted yet by the length of this blog, i'll just let you know that we are in Libreville, at Hotel Bananas, looking into selling the jeep and bikes or shipping the bikes home (not having much luck so far) and hopefully once we have all this sorted out we can go to the Mikongo centre at the Lope Nature reserve and trek through the jungle, before getting on a plane home on the 23rd.
But right now we are all feeling extremely pleased and proud of ourselves for making it this far. Since leaving Morrocco we have had no major problems - no breakdowns, no accidents, and amazingly no punctures all trip, we have all been ill only once with stomach bugs and apart from being covered in insect bites we are all still standing!
Unbelievable!! What an adventure!!
Well, at least 2 days anyway....
In between relaxing, swimming, drinking and eating the best shrimps ever we managed to fit in some filming for Courier and a wonderful canoe trip up the river Lobe to visit a Pygmy village. On the edge of the river in the forest we met 20 or so Pygmies who performed some traditional dances for us with songs and drumming and after giving them some cigarettes, sweets and some money of course we took our pictures with them (even I looked tall!)
We then made our way back down the river and paid for our canoe ride, where we got totally overcharged (8000 CFA per person instead of 5000) walked back along the beach feeling rather annoyed but passed the beautiful Lobe waterfalls, which are small falls crashing down into the sea.
Sadly Monday arrived too soon and reluctantly we packed up our stuff, left paradise behind behind and rode away to reach the border of Gabon. (After being told that we would need to collect the Gabonese visa in Yaounde on Monday we luckily managed to pick it up on friday after a 3 hour wait at the embassy before leaving for Kribi. )
We didnt make it to the border at Ambam on Monday as the road east from Kribi to Ebolowa (170 kms) through the stunning rainforest was nothing but thick wet mud.... the rainy season had just ended in Cameroon. We spent many hot sweaty hours splashing through deep puddles and pushing my bike out of the mud a few times.... my bike chose this day to have some problems with not starting and cutting out alot.
At one point the road had completely washed away and while some local men seemed to be doing their best trying to pour dry mud into the gap we had to negotiate our way around it, i dropped my bike coming a bit too fast back onto to dry mud, but unharmed except for my pride we carried on ready to see what was next.
Next was an overturned lorry stuck in thick mud, with many other lorries backed up behind it.
The many people standing around, who were waiting for a crane to come from Yaounde and pull out the lorry, all assured us that other vehicles had been passing between them for the last 2 days with "no problems" at all!!!!! Ha ha ha, if there is one phrase thats really starting to irritate me on this trip its "no problem".
But not one to give up easily and after watching both the jeep and Palli pass through, the jeep needing a push, I rode on.
Almost through the gap between the lorries when i got stuck in a hole. Palli rushed to my aid and we managed to turn the front wheel back in the right direction, i revved hard and with Palli pushing we got the wheel out of the hole only to get it stuck again ontop of a mud ridge with the back wheel stuck on top of another behind...and my legs dangling down in the middle. In one of those laugh or cry moments i laughed, gave in and let Palli take over. A second later he manouvered my bike out of the mud and we carried on breathing sighs of relief.
Enjoying splashing through puddles by the end of the day and covered in mud once again we made it to Ebolowa (meaning 'rotten monkey') for the night and cleaned off with bucket showers...yes, that's cold dirty water in a bucket style!
Tuesday, we set off early for the border having been promised tarmac roads and crossed the border easily. We were asked for a carnet for the vehicles, but admitting we didnt have one for any vehicle the customs man was not sure what to do about that, so he just let us go, no fine no questions asked and we made it to Bitam, the first town in Gabon in time for lunch.
Totally proud of ourselves for reaching our final country on this adventure we celebrated with large cokes, steak and chips!
We continued through the rainforest to Mitzic where we found a rather dingy hotel to stay in, rather unaptly named 'Bel Air', with no running water, no food and some rather nasty looking bugs in the rooms.
Wednesday, and we continued towards Libreville crossing the Equator again- a tough day - no breakfast or lunch much to speak of, over exhaustion of the last 3 months starting to hit me and the road varying between bad and very bad. But we did stop for over 3 hours in the sweltering heat in the forest and film the last scene for Courier - with some rather hilarious moments of endlessly waving flies away from our faces.
With Libreville only 100 km's away we spent the night at a very nice friendly hotel called 'Les 4 Freres' in Kango. The boss Paul made us feel very welcome and even gave us some fresh shrimps for free with our dinner.
Slept, fed and watered we set off for the last ride to Libreville, which was a terrible road and included a stop and a fine by the police for not having local insurance for the vehicles....oops, it ran out a week ago. But the price rapidly dropped from 450,000 CFA when we said we only had 40,000 left in our pockets, which was not a lie and they took the 40 looking very pleased with themselves, and waving it proudly at trucks passing.
We got away lightly all things considered, and we have not had to buy a Lasse Passe for any of the vehicles in the last 3 countries and been extremely lucky that we have not had one fine or bribe throughout the whole trip....well Palli gave his sunglasses to one policeman and Haukur gave a couple of postcards from Iceland but thats it, not bad really.
So if you are not exhausted yet by the length of this blog, i'll just let you know that we are in Libreville, at Hotel Bananas, looking into selling the jeep and bikes or shipping the bikes home (not having much luck so far) and hopefully once we have all this sorted out we can go to the Mikongo centre at the Lope Nature reserve and trek through the jungle, before getting on a plane home on the 23rd.
But right now we are all feeling extremely pleased and proud of ourselves for making it this far. Since leaving Morrocco we have had no major problems - no breakdowns, no accidents, and amazingly no punctures all trip, we have all been ill only once with stomach bugs and apart from being covered in insect bites we are all still standing!
Unbelievable!! What an adventure!!
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Cameroon
Over the past 3 days we have ridden almost 1500 km's from the north to south west Cameroon, and apart from extremely sore bums from too many hours sat on the bikes the whole ride has been amazing.
Cameroon is beautiful, i cant get enough of it - driving through huge forests and mountains in the north and tropical forests further south it really is stunning. Passing through many small villages along the way and as ever being the days entertainment for the locals. Just stopping for petrol is a huge occasion and numerous people stop working and gather around us at the petrol pump!
The combinations of shock, wonder and huge smiles on peoples faces and waving as we wizz past is brilliant. People of all ages completely stop what they are doing and stand for ages staring open mouthed in our direction.
Imagine how people react when I take my crash helmet off and see I'm a woman...some do not believe it at all, some just point and exclaim "woman", and over the past week I have been adressed as Palli's son, twice, and been offered marriage by a woman police officer.
Not sure if it says more about the lack of woman biking in Africa or my new dirty, smelly traveller look!!!
Our visit to the beautiful Waza National Park north of Maroua was quite eventful, we saw giraffe, antelope, warthog, and many birds including vulture, unfortunatley no elephants or lions but we did spend all day with the tracker looking for them. The park is very overgrown and not really set up for tourist safari's. The roads in the park are few and not in a good condition, so we spent alot of time driving through very thick vegetation. Our tracker explained how the government gives no money to the park or the guides that work there and protect it. The 29 guides work 7 day and night shifts at a time and not only guide/track during the day but also keep guard at night for the frequent poachers. In 10 years over 200 elephants from the the park have dissapeared due to poaching.
After being on safari in Kenya years ago i have seen how wonderful it can be - national parks there not only catering to tourists but catering to the animals that need protecting. It is shocking to witness in Waza the lack of infrustructure in a place that really deserves it and also one where i am sure the country would benefit from in the long term.
But i digress....after Waza we hung out for a couple more days in Maroua, celebrated Pierre's 25th birthday by being totally lazy, ate lots, did some much needed bike maintanance and thankfully some laundry..also desperately needed!!
We then set off after an almost tearful farewell from our wonderful guide Augustin (if anyone is visiting Cameroon he is the man to contact - i will post some more info about him at a later date, but for the time being he can be found at Hotel Le Sare in Maroua) south to NGaoundere then east to Bertoua, and onto the political capital Yaounde where we are now, waiting to collect our visa for Gabon.
We will try and go to the coast over the weekend and visit Kribi, a paradise beach, to top up our suntans, which now look more like fake tans as we seemed to be bleached from the orange dust and sand from the roads over the past few days. Cold showers just dont seem to get rid of it!
After Kribi, back to Yaounde to collect the visas and then off to Gabon, hurray!!!
Cameroon is beautiful, i cant get enough of it - driving through huge forests and mountains in the north and tropical forests further south it really is stunning. Passing through many small villages along the way and as ever being the days entertainment for the locals. Just stopping for petrol is a huge occasion and numerous people stop working and gather around us at the petrol pump!
The combinations of shock, wonder and huge smiles on peoples faces and waving as we wizz past is brilliant. People of all ages completely stop what they are doing and stand for ages staring open mouthed in our direction.
Imagine how people react when I take my crash helmet off and see I'm a woman...some do not believe it at all, some just point and exclaim "woman", and over the past week I have been adressed as Palli's son, twice, and been offered marriage by a woman police officer.
Not sure if it says more about the lack of woman biking in Africa or my new dirty, smelly traveller look!!!
Our visit to the beautiful Waza National Park north of Maroua was quite eventful, we saw giraffe, antelope, warthog, and many birds including vulture, unfortunatley no elephants or lions but we did spend all day with the tracker looking for them. The park is very overgrown and not really set up for tourist safari's. The roads in the park are few and not in a good condition, so we spent alot of time driving through very thick vegetation. Our tracker explained how the government gives no money to the park or the guides that work there and protect it. The 29 guides work 7 day and night shifts at a time and not only guide/track during the day but also keep guard at night for the frequent poachers. In 10 years over 200 elephants from the the park have dissapeared due to poaching.
After being on safari in Kenya years ago i have seen how wonderful it can be - national parks there not only catering to tourists but catering to the animals that need protecting. It is shocking to witness in Waza the lack of infrustructure in a place that really deserves it and also one where i am sure the country would benefit from in the long term.
But i digress....after Waza we hung out for a couple more days in Maroua, celebrated Pierre's 25th birthday by being totally lazy, ate lots, did some much needed bike maintanance and thankfully some laundry..also desperately needed!!
We then set off after an almost tearful farewell from our wonderful guide Augustin (if anyone is visiting Cameroon he is the man to contact - i will post some more info about him at a later date, but for the time being he can be found at Hotel Le Sare in Maroua) south to NGaoundere then east to Bertoua, and onto the political capital Yaounde where we are now, waiting to collect our visa for Gabon.
We will try and go to the coast over the weekend and visit Kribi, a paradise beach, to top up our suntans, which now look more like fake tans as we seemed to be bleached from the orange dust and sand from the roads over the past few days. Cold showers just dont seem to get rid of it!
After Kribi, back to Yaounde to collect the visas and then off to Gabon, hurray!!!
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