Cameroon and Gabon

So we left the church ground in Yaounde. The staff were pretty unfriendly until they waved us off. And we said goodbye to some of our gang who went elsewhere for a while. Headed towards Gabon. Cameroon is quite well developed and as soon as we got to the Gabon border we could see that Gabon is even more developed.......proper houses. We stopped to change a tyre so Chilean Herman and I sat in a shop doorway and shared his ipod to listen to some hardcore trance he had downloaded. Making shapes.

We stopped at the sign that told us we were at the equator. That was the first time i have crossed the equator over land. The countryside in Gabon is beautiful; rolling hills, gushing rivers, rainforests. Of course the rainforests are being logged which is a bit wrong, but if thats how the locals make money....they should invest more in tourism cos its a beautiful country. We went to Lope National Park which was a days drive from the main road but it was stunning, so many shades of green that i havent seen before. The front of the truck is like an open top bus so we have the best 360 degree views of the scenery (i have to stand on a seat!) We usually chat and enjoy the views, sometimes i put my tunes on.


From the park we did a safari and saw some elephants and monkeys and bush buck, though all from a distance. It was ok, the others seemed more excited than me. Hopefully at other parks we will be closer to the animals. We left the park and headed out in the opposite direction to which we came, lots of bushcamping in the middle of nowhere. We got bogged in the mud at one point but luckily there was a guy with a tractor to pull us out. After 2 days the road was deteriorating and some locals told us that the road ahead was 'broken'. So we turned back which meant a 3 day return trip to the main road. But we didnt care because the scenery had been so good. This time we got to go through the villages at a different time, most memorably going through these tiny remote villages in the early morning mist as they were starting their day and making breakfast, it was beautiful. I also had my picture taken with a 6 foot, dead, green Mamba snake.

Although i have said they were remote villages, to be fair many of them have soccer jerseys so they must have some contact with the outside world.