In my never ending quest to obtain an infinite number of air miles, I’m off to Gabon in around ten days (after spending a week in bonny Scotland). I know it’s a long shot, but does anyone have any first hand experience of what to expect? Apart from the rampant malaria that is.
Never been there but that’s gotta be the scariest looking viper on the face of the Earth. Watch your step.
Yes, I’ve done a lot of work there. I’ve been there four times, for a month each time, between July 2001 and March 2003.
I was working on wildlife surveys (birds) around Gamba, around the middle of the Atlantic coast, and in the adjacent Loango and Moukalaba-Doudou National Parks. Loango is where Mike Fay ended his famous “Megatransect” as depicted in National Geographic. The wildlife is great, although not as easy to see as in east Africa - lots of elephants, forest buffalo, gorilla, monkeys, etc.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to visit other parts of the country besides the Gamba area and Libreville. However, I can tell you what I do know.
So ask away. Why did you pick Gabon? What do you want to see?
All I know is that I’going. The office called me and told me that I had a “mission”. Hopefully it’s not one from God
Well, “what to expect” is going to depend a lot on exactly where you are going in the country. Being in Libreville or Port-Gentil is going to be different from being based at an oilfield (I see from your profile you are a geologist) or from wandering around somewhere in the back country.
And that’s all going to be different from camping for a month in pouring rain in the middle of a !@$&* swamp in Moukalaba-Doudou Park (we fondly called our camp “Deep Doudou”), which is how I spent my most recent trip.