In February 2008 I went on a safari to Gabon and the neighbouring islands of Sao Tome & Principe. Having recently joined this website I thought I should try and write a trip report as there isn’t a lot of information about Gabon on the internet. I hope this proves to be of interest.

After arriving in Libreville at about 6.30 p.m. on the 10th February, it took a long time to get through the airport, checking in at the Meridien Re-Ndama Hotel was also painfully slow. Service in the restaurant was no faster making for a rather later night than we would have chosen.

Day 1 11th February Libreville – Port Gentil – Omboué – Evengué Island

Despite the best efforts of the Meridien Hotel, failing to deliver room service and taking an age to collect our luggage, we managed to get to the airport on time to catch the scheduled flight to Port Gentil. During the hour long flight we were given a drink and a cake which was surprisingly made in Indonesia, an example of how almost all food in Gabon is imported, well I guess if you have oil you can afford to. Although oil produces the most revenue Gabons' biggest industry sadly is logging



We then transferred to a little Pilatus Porter for the hour long flight down to the town of Omboué. The flight provided beautiful views of the Gabonese coastline with its lagoons, swamps and large expanses of savannah forest mosaic looking in places a little like a giant golf course. From the airport we walked down to the jetty on the Nkomi/Fernan Vaz Lagoon and boarded a boat for the 10km trip out to Evengué Island.







Evengué Lodge is a beautiful little place with 5 wooden bungalows either on the edge of the lagoon or back towards the edge of the forest. The young Italian guy who was managing the lodge produced excellent food served on the veranda of the main building looking out at the lagoon.


It was fairly hot and humid when we arrived mid-morning, after a brief attempt to bird in the garden and forest edge it started to thunder and then rain, carrying on for much of the afternoon. Evengué Island is also the HQ for the Fernan Vaz Gorilla Project which looks after gorillas orphaned by the bushmeat trade, the younger ones are rehabilitated and prepared for life back in the wild. When the rain stopped we walked over to have a look, after carefully disinfecting our footwear we were taken to a large enclosure where a big silverback Mabeke and his companions live.


Mabeke




Owendja

After a lifetime in captivity Mabeke will never return to the wild, to see such a magnificent animal behind a fence was very sad but at least he was in his natural habitat. We were then briefly shown some youngsters in a more forested enclosure who are being taught the skills needed to survive in the wild and were told that they would soon be moved to the much bigger island just next door to live a proper wild existence in preparation for their eventual release.



On our return to the lodge it started to rain again so a proposed boat trip in search of birds was cancelled.

More to follow

Beautiful photos! I'm looking forward to learning more.

Fascinating, what an experience. Look forward to more.

An Indonesian cake, consumed in Gabon. Very international.

It's easy to see the results of the biggest industry from your aerial shots.

Thanks for sharing this unique trip with us. Looking forward to the rest.

Very interesting so far, inyahti, and you're right -- not much about Gabon on here... Thanks for providing some new info in this and your subsequent posts...

Thanks for all the comments,

Day 2 12th February Evengué Island – Mission St Anne – Mpivié River – Loango Lodge

Fortunately it was not raining when we left by boat along the shoreline of the lagoon stopping briefly at the Mission Church of St Anne du Fernan Vaz.







This little church built entirely of iron was designed by Gustav Eiffel, the components were made in France and then shipped to Gabon, Monsieur Eiffel remained in France to work on another project in Paris.

Just after the church we left the lagoon and entered “The Heart of Darkness” or so it seemed as we motored up the Mpivié River, the surrounding swamp forest formed great green curtains of vegetation lining each bank of this little black water river.





As the river narrowed we scanned fallen and leaning trees for basking slender-snouted crocodiles and pythons, these small fish eating crocs climb in to trees to catch the sun’s rays as there are no sandbanks to lie on.








At times the water looked like black glass

White-throated blue swallows and Cassin’s grey flycatchers hawked for insects over the river and a finfoot made a brief appearance swimming along the forest edge. Then to our complete surprise we saw what appeared to be a safari vehicle parked in the river as we drew alongside it became clear that although in the water the car was actually parked on the end of a road.



After climbing in to the car we drove through the forest and across some quite large areas of open savannah grassland. The most noticeable thing about these grassland areas is the almost complete absence of large grazers, as far as I know most of the familiar large savannah antelopes and other herbivores that you find in East or Southern Africa have at least in recent historical times never existed in Gabon. After an hour or so we arrived at Loango Lodge which sits on the shore of the Iguela Lagoon just outside Loango NP looking across in to the park.



In the afternoon we were taken across the lagoon a short distance to where some of the vehicles are kept and then driven out in to a strip of savannah. After only a few minutes we stopped jumped out and walked over to the edge of a patch of forest, before entering the forest our two guides gave us a safety briefing not surprisingly this was in French. Thinking I had perhaps only understood roughly 75% of what I’d just been told I was very glad to have been walking in Africa many times before. Once inside the forest we disappointingly saw almost no birds but quite soon encountered a forest elephant, our guides were both unarmed which is quite normal in Gabon. The basic rule when walking in the forest is to always have one guide in front and one behind and in the event of an encounter ne paniquer pas. Forest elephants are not considered that dangerous when encountered in the open but in the forest it’s a different storey, at our guides’ signal we hastily reversed back down the trail, without even trying to get a look. Further on we came across a mother and calf in an open patch we stopped to watch them from the forest but they quickly fled.

After our rather exciting walk we continued by car across the savannah stopping to photograph an elephant on our way over to the beach.




Forest elephants known locally as assala are much smaller than bush elephants and have rounder ears and straighter more downward pointing tusks.


Passing a small herd of elephants emerging from the coastal bush we came upon a forest buffalo standing rather incongruously right on the edge of the surf.



In Loango during the wet season animals often come to the shore to graze on the salt laden vegetation. After a sundowner beside a narrow channel known as Louri Lagoon we returned to the lodge passing more forest elephants on the way.



After dinner I opted to go on a crocodile catching trip on Iguela Lagoon, the French lodge manager Philippe said that it was possible to go out with some researchers to catch crocodiles so that blood samples could be taken for study. In fact I was just taken out by a couple of guides, I had hoped that as well as crocs I might catch a glimpse of some nocturnal wildlife but despite boating someway around the edge of the lagoon we saw precisely nothing. They did eventually manage to catch a tiny baby Nile croc which was then released without taking blood so the whole exercise was really pretty pointless.

Day 3 13th February Loango Lodge – Tassi Savannah Camp

In the morning we boated across to the car park and then drove with a trailer full of supplies the 25kms down through the open grasslands to Tassi Savannah Camp. On the way we saw a few elephants, several small herds of forest buffalos and the occasional sitatunga.








Forest buffalos and woolly-necked stork, it's hard to believe these animals are the same species as the familiar Cape buffalo. There were in fact 12 animals in this herd which is the average herd size for forest buffalos.

At one point our driver stopped because he’d spotted some red river hogs but they disappeared, however as we scanned the landscape in the hope of seeing them we saw to our slight amazement a group of chimps away in the distance crossing from one patch of forest to another.

Tassi is a nice little camp consisting of five tents on wooden platforms and a covered bar/dining area in the open savannah with a nice view down to the Atlantic in front and across the grassland to the forest behind.






The view down to the Atlantic



In the afternoon we drove to the Max Planck Institute research camp at Tassi Sud half an hour away, a very hot drive. There we met a nice young American woman who was habituating a local gorilla group so that she could study them. Chimps are also being habituated and in the near future tourists will be taken on treks to see both species. We chatted to the researchers for some time while our driver mended their quad bike and then set off on a game drive. Along with the usual elephants, buffalos and sitatungas we came across a nice group of red river hogs.


Sitatunga are very common in Gabon


Slightly smaller than bushpigs these beautiful hogs are quite common in Loango

How amazing & heartening to hear that sitatunga are common in Gabon considering how elusive (and therefore rare? Am I wrong about that?) they seem to be in southern Africa.
Thanks so much for a very interesting report. Looking forward to reading more.

They are indeed beautiful hogs.

Thanks so much for this fascinating report.

Sitatunga! Cool...

I don’t think sitatungas are necessarily that rare in say the Okavango they’re just very difficult to see because of the habitat. On my one visit to the Delta on a 1999 safari I had a very brief glimpse of a female as she disappeared through some reeds while on a boat trip from Kwara, had the boat not been quite high, I wouldn’t have seen anything. Otherwise I’ve had good views of sitatungas a long time ago in Akagera NP in Rwanda and Siawa Swamp NP in Kenya on both occasions from viewing towers, in each case being able to look down in to the reeds made all the difference.

In Loango around Tassi the habitat is much more open, mostly grass with a few small patches of shrubs and as you can see from the photo the grass was quite short. There were some small marshy areas but these were really just little grassy ponds with a few sedges and nothing very tall so seeing sitatungas was fairly easy.

I will post some more on Gabon quite soon

Apparently one of the best spots for sitatunga is Kasanka National Park in Zambia. I have never been there, but it seems that if you visit a certain tree hide early in the morning you can watch up to 70 sitatungas in one single place....

inyathi,

Did you see any forest duikers, bushbuck or bongo in Loango (or other places in Gabon you have visited)?

Yes I saw various duikers later in the trip which I will come to, no bushbuck not sure why and no bongos. I think there probably are plenty of bongos in Gabon but they’re basically found in places that aren’t currently accessible. As far as I know at the moment the best place to see them is at Dzangha Bai in C.A.R. but I haven’t been there yet.

Day 4 14th February Tassi

Due to a problem with one of the local elephants an electric fence had been put up around the camp however as it wasn’t switched on or in the best state of repair, I wasn’t too surprised to find fresh elephant spoor in the sand not far from my tent. During breakfast a large herd of red river hogs could be seen in the distance feeding along the edge of a forest patch. At 7:15 a.m. we drove for about 15 minutes out to a large forest patch where we walked for some time but inexplicably we saw nothing except for an African Giant squirrel, no birds or monkeys or anything else, I guess this was just bad luck. Back outside the forest after a discussion in rather limited French we agreed it was too hot to be worth trying elsewhere and opted to return to camp. Being in the open savannah and close to the sea there is a constant breeze which keeps the camp pleasantly cool.



Just after 4 p.m. we drove down to the beach, the pale sand seemed to stretch for ever in both directions. To the south of us away in the distance we could just make out a small herd of elephants and decided to go and take a closer look.





The sense of being in a pristine wilderness was spoilt somewhat by the amount of garbage washed up on the shore, plastic of allsorts including numerous flip-flops. A fair number of huge logs cut from the forests somewhere in the interior had also washed up. As we walked three buffalos ran off at our approach, and then a herd of elephants appeared half hidden in the coastal bush.



We walked carefully past them and finally reached the elephants we’d first seen. One of our guides then led me round behind them so I could photograph them against the Atlantic Ocean, a nice reward for a good hours walk. This was the first time I’d walked up this close to herd of elephants with a guide who wasn’t armed, fortunately despite getting pretty close they were wholly unconcerned by our presence.





On the return walk the guides were laughing and joking until in a moment of absent mindedness I walked a little too close to the edge of the lagoon. As one of them franticly waved at me I hastily retreated from the waters’ edge feeling a bit of an idiot. Having been to Africa many times I would normally be very cautious around water but walking along a beach as the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean had taken my mind of the potential danger. If there were any Nile crocs around, they thankfully remained hidden.

Day 5 15th February Tassi – Loango Lodge

After our disappointing walk the previous morning, we wondered why we been driven to a forest some miles away when there appeared to be perfectly good forests right next to camp. Since none of the staff spoke more than a few words of English we had to discuss our options with the main guide in our very limited French. He agreed that we could walk from camp, so we set of at the same time in the morning and walked straight in to the nearest forest patch, only to discover that it was about the size of a postage stamp, the next patch proved to be not much bigger. Again we found no birds, however we did see fresh gorilla and chimp spoor which was interesting.

As the day was heating up there seemed little point in remaining at Tassi so we asked to return to the lodge for lunch. In the afternoon we boated around the Iguela Lagoon finding some elephants amongst the mangroves


including one cow wearing a radio collar courtesy of Save the Elephants and WCS. We then headed out towards St Katherine’s Point where the lagoon meats the Atlantic Ocean to see a colony of Royal terns.



On our return we saw several palmnut vultures though unusual birds to see in East Africa they are extremely common in Gabon.

Final post on Loango to follow, hopefully after that this report wont be quite so long I never imagined when I decided to do this that I would write so much.

This is wonderful and exciting, visiting a whole new destination. Can't wait for more.

Day 6 16th February Loango lodge – Rembo Ngowe River – Akaka – Loango Lodge

We got up early for the communal boat trip over to Akaka Bush Camp only to be held up by some other guests who chose to have a lie in. Our driver made up for lost time taking us at full speed down the lagoon south to the mouth of the Rembo Ngowe River slowing down as we passed a small colony of purple herons.



Cruising slowly upstream we passed through mangroves, papyrus swamps, raffia palm jungle and swamp forest, every bend of the river presented another stunning view of this jungle wilderness.




Squacco Heron






Palmnut Vulture









Alongside some of the more common African water birds we found a pair of Hartlaub’s ducks a bird found only in the rainforests of Western Africa. We also had our first views of the red-capped mangabey a rare monkey restricted to swamp and coastal forests around the Bight of Benin and one of the special mammals of Loango, followed by a much more common moustached monkey.


Red-capped Mangabey




Moustached Monkey

One of the guides also spotted a West African manatee but the most I saw was a ripple in the water.






Akaka Bush Camp is situated in the forest overlooking the Rembo Ngowe River 66kms south of Loango Lodge.

At the time the camp was a bit of a wreck and was due to be completely refurbished, however the dining room where we enjoyed a nice packed lunch was in a reasonably good state of repair. On a short walk through the rainforest behind the camp we saw a few black-casqued hornbills but little else. Returning to the lodge in the afternoon we dropped of the other guests and carried on over to an island in the lagoon to search for the endemic Loango weaver. After finding the birds we made our way back to the lodge to discover a troop of red-capped mangabeys feeding in the trees behind the lodge garden.

At the airstrip near Loango Lodge we met Patrice Christy who would accompany us for the rest of our time in Gabon. Patrice is a Frenchman who knows more about the birds and other wildlife of the country than just about anyone. We then boarded the Pilatus Porter for the 2hr flight to the Ivindo airstrip.




2 elephants can be seen in the foreground and a herd of buffalos are just visible in the top corner


St Katherines


Savannah Forest Mosaic

I couldn't resist putting in loads of photos, I had to take one out because I'd exceeded my limit but I thought the river trip was just so beautiful.

I'm up to the red river hogs. Very pretty creatures. Nice to see an animal in the surf, a surfing buffalo. The sunning snout nosed croc is a nice find. Lots of different creatures.

Thank you so much for this great trip report. Have been thinking about Gabon for a few years and there is so little information available.

Amazing and unusual sightings … what a treat. That river is gorgeous. Thanks so much.

Thanks Lynne, that’s exactly why I decided to write this, I would love to see more tourists visit Gabon, the more people who go to places like Loango there more chance there is of keeping out the oil companies and other eco vandals.

I will add some more posts and photos soon.

This next part describes our visit to Langoue Bai in Ivindo NP unfortunately it’s no longer possible to visit this place, hopefully in the future the situation may change.

Day 7 17th Feb Loango Lodge – Ivindo NP – WCS Langoue Research Camp

Flew from Loango NP airstrip to Ivindo airstrip outside Ivindo Town a small logging town near Ivindo NP


Ogooue River

The views of the forest as we landed were dramatic.



We were then met by a car from WCS and driven out along a logging road through the forest in to the park until the road ran out. At that point we put on our backpacks loaded with only what we would need for the next four nights, leaving our excess luggage in the car and set off in to the forest. The first half hour was a moderately hard slog up a steep hill then the trail levelled out and it was quite easy from then on.


One of the researchers carrying supplies to camp


Some kind of viper I guess moving off the trail

After about 2 hrs of walking we arrived at the camp which was built on a rock shelf that formed a natural clearing in the forest. Near the camp we saw a rufous-sided broadbill and from the camp had views of grey-cheeked mangabeys a long way off in the tree tops.



Langoue Research Camp was quite basic with dome tents, a communal shower block and a composting toilet. The food was quite good considering it all had to be carried in by the researchers.

Glad you did not encounter a Nile croc when you ventured a few steps too far into the water. Must have been exciting to see the elephants. You viewed them on foot, right? The forest view really is dramatic with the shades of green. Let's hope the forests remain intact.

Did you see quite a few sitatunga? I'm thinking about Kasanka, like Paolo is, for sitatunga, bats, and whatever else is out and about.

Yes we saw quite a few sitatungas in Loango, though they didn't always hang around to be photographed. We were incredibly lucky to be able to visit Langoue Bai as WCS closed their camp to tourists at the end of 2008, this was also a great place for sitatungas see below. There are similar places in Congo Brazzaville and also C.A.R. that can be visited where there are lots of sitatungas. Otherwise yes Kasanka would be the place to go along with the neighbouring Bangweolo swamp for the black lechwe and shoebill storks.



Day 8 18th Feb Langoue Bai in Ivindo NP

After breakfast we hiked over to Langoue Bai about an hour away from the camp the last part down a very steep hill. Bai is a BaAka pygmy word for a natural clearing in the rainforest such as this one along the Langoue River. It is generally thought that these clearings are slowly created over many centuries by forest elephants searching for essential minerals lacking from their food.



The Bai is roughly 1km long and 300m wide and supports s profusion of grasses, sedges and other plants that would struggle to grow in the forest. These plants along with the Bai’s mineral rich waters attract large herbivores like forest elephants, forest buffalos, sitatungas and lowland gorillas.



We climbed up to the middle section of the viewing platform and sat in some plastic chairs to view the wildlife through the telescopes provided while the researchers went to work on the top deck. I had been forewarned that I might be able to borrow a Canon 500mm lens this lens with a 1.4x converter gave me 700mm and a stunning view without having to use a scope, luckily there was no one else who wanted to use it. Over at the waterhole/wallow six forest elephants were including a tiny baby were drinking, accompanied by two wallowing buffalos and lots of cattle egrets. Some of the elephants had their trunks pushed down in to the mud and were blowing bubbles they do this to stir up the minerals.




Elephants, buffalos and sitatunga


blowing bubbles


sitatunga.


sitatunga

We were then distracted by a commotion in a tree some distance away a troop of grey-cheeked mangabeys came and went followed by some putty-nosed monkeys which proceeded to chase each other around the tree.





Around midday the elephants left in a panic for some reason




the calf in the middle was very small

and then a family of gorillas arrived emerging from the forest on the opposite side of the Bai to drink after a while they disappeared kindly returning after we’d had lunch.












Great blue turaco a common bird at the Bai


Elephant, sitatunga and cattle egrets

Finally a single elephant appeared and started chasing egrets.


Pesky egrets


Viewing platform, over in the far distance (to the left) you can just make out the waterhole where the elephants were drinking, which gives an idea of how far away they were.

We left the Bai at about 16:20 to get back to camp well before dark, because of elephants it’s not considered safe to walk through the forest in the dark. By the end of the day I’d taken over 900 photos more than I’ve taken on whole safaris in pre digital days. Overall this was one of the most extraordinary days I've ever spent on safari.

To echo other comments, thankyou for writing up your trip: I found an interesting article regarding a trip to Gabon in the NY Times entitled Visiting Africa's Eden which can be found here.

Thanks, interesting article, they visited the south of loango NP at Loango Lodge in the north of the park they don’t wash the dishes in the lagoon at least I never saw them doing so. At the end of this report I will try and include some extra info on visiting Loango and other places in Gabon.

Day 9 19th Feb Ivindo NP

After our fantastic day at the Bai we decided not to go back and instead went birding in the forest. In the morning we walked over to a small waterfall, there was a grey-necked rockfowls nest on the cliff so we waited to see if the bird might show up but it didn’t.



We at least saw a cuckoo falcon on the way, otherwise it was very hot and humid and the sweat bees were appalling. Afternoon more birding, pretty quiet though we did find an old chimps nest.

Day 10 20th Feb Ivindo NP

Went birding again to look for the bare-cheeked trogon a local endemic, one of the Gabonese researchers who was guiding tried to help me get some photos but trying to follow his directions in French was a real challenge it’s amazing how such brightly coloured birds can become almost invisible when they sit still.


not the best photo but a beautiful bird all the same

Shortly afterwards he signalled that there were gorillas up ahead, not sure if he wanted us to approach we hung back, suddenly there was an ear splitting King Kong roar and a crash of vegetation as a silverback threatened the guide, from where we were we couldn’t actually see anything at all but the noise was fantastic. The silverback roared again and then the forest went quiet as we carried on there was a distinct smell of gorilla dung. The gorillas at Langoue are completely un-habituated so they usually run when they encounter people in the forest. We then visited another rockfowl nest site and waited behind some camouflage netting but again no birds showed up. In the evening back at camp we could hear chimps calling nearby a nice end to another extraordinary day.

Day 11 21st Feb Langoue Research Camp – Lope Hotel



Walked out of camp at about 7:15 a.m. and hiked back to the road, on the drive back to Ivindo town we saw 2 Peter’s duikers on the road. After lunch at the WCS office we were taken to the train station, we had to wait a little while about 3hrs for the train but the 2hr journey to Lope NP was very scenic.











Arrived at the Lope Hotel late afternoon, the best that can be said about the hotel is that its location overlooking the Ogooue River is stunning and the food was very good, also the garden was good for birding. Otherwise the service was hopeless and the cabin rooms had seen better days.


Savannah near the Lope Hotel


Lope Hotel




Ogooue River below the hotel


Forbes's Plover

Day 12 22nd Feb Lope Hotel Lope NP

In the morning some Gabonese researchers arrived at 8:00 to take us mandrill tracking, they drove us to two locations out on the savannah to try out their radio telemetry gear, getting no signals they explained in French that the mandrills were “dans la grande foret” much too far away for us to have any chance of finding them.


Mandrill Tracking


Lope NP savannah landscape


Gallery Forest

They then led us on a short walk through some riverine forest by which time it was far too hot to have any chance of seeing birds or other wildlife. As they led us through the forest one of the researchers used a pair of secateurs to constantly snip off bits of vegetation presumably to make it easier for us but after a while it became very tiresome. We did however manage to find a fire-footed rope squirrel and an interesting red flower.




Parasitic Flower

Basically in the dry season especially July/August the mandrills congregate in huge hordes and move up into the area of savannah forest mosaic in the north of Lope NP to forage among the forest patches. In the wet season (when we were there) they split up and disperse back in to the main rainforest because there is more fruit available. Our travel agent in the UK (Audley Travel) had booked the trip for us clearly not knowing that February was the wrong time to see mandrills. With hindsight and a bit more knowledge we should have cancelled and asked Patrice Christy to arrange a bird walk in the park earlier in the morning. Ever the optimist I decided to stay out with the researchers a bit longer in the hopes of possibly seeing other wildlife. After much driving and walking through two forest patches we managed to see a couple of elephants and two buffalos, the buffalos were at least in the forest which provided a bit of excitement. Game viewing in Lope NP is nothing like as good as in Loango NP at least it isn’t in the wet season in the dry it may be better.

Day 13 23rd Feb Lope Hotel – ZSL Mikongo Camp Lope NP

We were driven from the Lope Hotel along the wide dirt road that is Gabons’ ‘Highway One’ to the turn off for Mikongo Camp which is located in the rainforest. From there we walked down the road through the forest towards the camp with Patrice who wrote the book on the birds of Lope NP so we saw plenty of species, before we were picked up by a car from the camp and driven the last bit. In the afternoon we had a brief glimpse of some grey-cheeked mangabeys.



Mikongo Camp is a basic but very nice little camp of comfortable wooden cabins run by the Zoological Society of London. Since 2001 ZSL have been trying to habituate local gorilla groups in order to establish Mikongo as a centre for gorilla research and tourism. The results so far have been mixed and shortly before our visit gorilla trekking was suspended. At the moment Mikongo Camp appears to be closed to visitors I’ve no idea why or for how long.

Day 14 24th Feb Mikongo Lope NP

All day walking in the forest, at one point we had to change course when we found a large rhinoceros viper right next to the trail. The guides were a little unhappy when I approached it to take photos.



Further on we saw lots of black colobus and finally a crowned monkey.




Black colobus


Crowned monkey

Stopped for lunch at a grey-necked rockfowl (picathartes) nest site after much waiting a bird finally appeared and gave us a great view but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any photos of this extraordinary looking bird.


Waiting for the rockfowl



Day 15 25th Feb Mikongo Lope NP

Whole day in the forest again, saw a lot of monkeys crowned, moustached, putty-nosed and black colobus and some good birds.


Putty-nosed monkey

Also lots of spoor of elephants, buffalos and gorillas and at one point some small pugmarks of a golden cat or maybe a leopard cub we couldn’t decide for sure.



Day 16 26th Feb Mikongo - Libreville

Went for a fairly short walk along the river to look for kingfishers saw the white-bellied and then a pair of Ogilby’s duikers appeared briefly which was great but they were too quick for me to take any photos. Also saw a blue duiker and a Lady Burton’s rope squirrel. Went back to camp for lunch and then returned to the Lope Hotel for the flight back to Libreville on the same plane as before. The Pilot decided to give us a really close look at the Ogooue River which was quite spectacular.




Going in for a closer look


Any lower and we'd be waterskiing


Lope NP

Back in Libreville we were very annoyed to discover that the time of our flight to Sao Tome the following day had changed.

Next Post Sao Tome

The elephant/gorilla sequence is fantastic.

Thanks Leely,

I was very lucky not only to have had such great views of the animals but also to be able to borrow a fantastic lens. My own lens is a Canon 100-400 and when used with a converter the autofocus is disabled so I would have really struggled to get any decent shots with it.



Day 17 27 Feb Libreville – Omali Lodge São Tomé

Not long before leaving on this safari our travel agent informed us that our flight from São Tomé to Principe had been moved from the 29th of Feb to the 28th as a result we would lose our only whole day on São Tomé. A day we had intended to spend walking and birding in Obo NP this was very disappointing however since the flight from Libreville to São Tomé was scheduled to arrive at about midday we realised it might still be possible to spend the afternoon in the park if we went straight there from the airport. So we’d arranged for a guide to drive us from the airport to the Botanic Gardens at Bom Successo, after a packed lunch we would then hike up in to Obo NP hopefully getting far enough to be able to look down on Lagoa Amelia an old crater lake before turning back, seeing a few of the endemic birds on the way. We would then check in to Omali Lodge in the evening.

At least that was the plan so understandably we were pretty annoyed to be told (the day before) that our flight from Libreville wouldn’t be leaving until 2:00 pm to make matters worse the flight was then delayed for another hour, so we didn’t actually arrive on Sao Tome until 3:00 pm local time (Gabon is 1 hour ahead of STP). By the time we reached Bom Successo it was about 4 pm, after walking for about an hour we just reached the National Park entrance gate and the start of the proper forest at which point we had to turn round very frustrating.


Strangler fig


Taro




Forest edge Obo NP São Tomé

So we didn’t see a lot of birds, when we returned to the car there was just enough light to have a quick look around the botanic garden which is run by ECOFAC (ECOSYSTÈMES FORESTIERS D'AFRIQUE CENTRALE) an EU funded conservation organisation that operates throughout the region. We were then driven to Omali Lodge, in the evening we arranged a taxi to take us to a local restaurant called Filomar, ordering was a bit of a challenge as we only knew a couple of words of Portuguese but our meal of fish was the best of the trip. This at least provided a nice end to a tiresome day.

Day 18 28th Feb São Tomé – Principe – Bom Bom Island Resort

Birded for a bit around the lodge garden and then after breakfast I decided to see if I could walk in to São Tomé Town the capital of STP. It probably took about half an hour of very hot walking but it was worth it as it’s a beautiful little town with lots of old Portuguese colonial buildings. Stupidly I’d failed to notice that I’d accidently switched my camera on to the wrong setting so I’ve got very few photos.


Main road to São Tomé Town


São Tomé seafront

Omali Lodge was a very nice comfortable place however it was undergoing major renovations to transform it from its’ previous incarnation the Marlin Beach Hotel. The beach at the front was across a main road so not exactly secluded not that this worried us as we were there for such a short time. With so much else to see and do nearby it’s unlikely that we would have wanted to sit on the beach anyway if we had been there longer.


View from the garden Omali Lodge

Sometime around 1 pm we left Sao Tome and flew (about 1hr) to Principe the smaller of the two main islands and checked in to the Bom Bom Island Resort for some r. & r.


Flying in to Principe

One post on Principe to complete this report, and then I'll try and post some extra info for anyone who might want to visit either Gabon or STP

Very interesting and well illustrated.

You certainly have tempted me to do a trip into central Africa.

You mentioned that it's no longer possible to visit the Bai? Do you know why that is? It's a habitat that I've always been interested in - are there other Bai's?

This should be my final post on the actual trip, although I think I will need tto make it 2 posts to include all the photos I want. Lynne I will answer your questions about Langoue in another post in a day or 2

Day 19 29th Feb Bom Bom Island Resort Principé

Birding and r. & r.

The resort property includes a good area of protected rainforest. In the early morning you can walk out the main gate and back up the road through the forest and with minimal effort see just about all of the islands endemic birds as well as introduced mona monkeys, before breakfast and then spend the rest of the day on the beach.


Principé Kingfisher not a great shot, this one of the islands endemic species and is common around the resort


Another endemic the Principé weaver


Western reef egret dark morph


Walkway from the restaurant on Bom Bom Island to the main resort on Principé


Beach & Forest Bom Bom Island Resort

Day 20 1st March Principé

After some brief birding we went on a full day tour of some of Principés’ historical sites.

The islands of São Tomé & Principé were colonised by the Portuguese in the late 15th century, prior to their arrival they were uninhabited and almost entirely covered in rainforest. Much of this original forest was cleared to create plantations known as roças to grow sugarcane, coffee and principally cocoa, to work the plantations slaves were imported from the mainland. Portugal officially abolished slavery in 1875 however the system of contract labour that was then introduced to the islands was little better. Conditions for workers were so bad that in 1909 chocolate makers like Sir William Cadbury started an international boycott of the islands. Very slowly things started to improve, hospitals and schools were built on the roças but these changes were not enough, 1953 the workers revolted and over 1000 were massacred by Portuguese militias. So it was hardly surprising that on independence in 1975 São Tomé & Principé became a Marxist state. Most of the Portuguese plantation owners fled and government took over the roças nationalising them. Due to increased competition and collapsing cocoa prices many roças were simply abandoned and reclaimed by the forest which now covers 74% of the islands.


Hospital Roça Sundy, amazingly our guide for the day was born in this hospital


Old Building Sundy


Old gatehouse Sundy a reminder of Portuguese rule, Sundy was the biggest roça (plantation) on Principé


Old train, going nowhere


This old steam engine was used to power a machine for processing palm oil




On the 29th of May 1919 English Astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington confirmed Einstein's theory of relativity while observing a solar eclipse on the island of Principé. According to Einstein’s theory light passing close to a massive star e.g. the sun is bent by gravity to prove this Eddington photographed the stars closest to the sun which were only visible briefly during the total eclipse.


Principés wild interior, most of this forest is protected as national park also called Obo as on São Tomé




Local Children



More to follow very shortly

The history and all the old buildings on Principé were so interesting that I had to stretch this to 2 posts to include all the photos.


Ruined plantation house Roça Porto Real, for someone with plenty of cash this would make a great guesthouse or hotel or even a private house, though in some ways it would be a shame to do it up


Roça Porto Real


Roça Porto Real


Portuguese tiles on a wall at Roça Porto Real


Stencils once used to mark sacks of cocoa, some cocoa plantations have been revived in recent years as connoisseurs of fine chocolate regard cocoa beans from STP as being amongst the best in the world


The tiny town of Santo Antonio is Principés' main town


Beach Santo Antonio


Coast View with Ilheu Bone do Joquei - Jockey Cap Island in the background


Local fisherman repairing his net


Local transport


Praia Banana, the view down to Banana Beach from Roça Bela Monte


Principé view, the island is Ilheu do Bom Bom


This house at Roça Bela Monte was bought and restored by a Portuguese family who then mysteriously abandoned it leaving fanily photos on the wall and other belongings. Nobody seemed to know why, STP is basically a peaceful country, despite it's past history everybody seems to get along fine. The house is now is kept as they left it no one lives there.




Local children Roça Bela Monte


We ended our sightseeing at a local house where they were making rum, our guide is feeding the cane in to the mangle (grinder)


Rum still, perhaps unwisely I sampled some but it didn't kill me


Principé view


The beach Bom Bom Island Resort

Day 21 2nd March Principe – São Tomé – Port Gentil – Libreville – Paris

After 1 last walk up the road to look for monkeys and birds, followed by a final swim in the Atlantic we packed up and after lunch flew back to São Tomé and after a short wait on to Port Gentil arriving back in Gabon around sunset. After a much longer wait we flew on to Libreville, having had no rain since our first afternoon in Gabon we found ourselves flying through a huge thunder storm we were extremely relieved when we landed and very glad not to be carrying on with the other passengers to Douala in Cameroon. However the plane was parked some distance from the terminal and it was still raining hard so when the stewardess informed us that she’d requested a bus and been told there wasn’t one we weren’t amused. We just had to make a dash for it; fortunately our bags were not soaked through as we had to check them straight on to our Air France flight to Paris.

The more I've read, the more I want to visit. I wish I had more time and money and hope that by the time I can get there it will still be as charming. Those forests look amazing but I'm sad that the Bai isn't available to visit, however, it may be in the best interests of the animals not to have hordes of loud tourists stomping in. Thanks for the wonderful photos, very enjoyable.

When I started writing this report I decided that I should add some extra info at the end which might be useful for anyone considering visiting Gabon as a few things have changed since my trip and it's now no longer possible to go to some of the places I visited.

Loango National Park

Due to some local dispute the air charter company Africa's Connection that we used is no longer able to fly from Port Gentil to Omboué, visitors must instead travel by boat on a service run by the Hotel Olako in Omboué
Evengue Lodge, Loango Lodge, Tassi Savannah Camp, Akaka Bush Camp and another camp which we didn't visit St Katherine's Beach Camp, are all run by Africa's Eden click here

Africa's Eden just about run the show in the north of Loango NP, however there is another lodge called Gavillo which is main caters for fishermen. At the south end of the park there are various places to stay in and around Sette Cama Village which are probably a lot cheaper; to get there you need to fly to the oil town of Gamba. Some details can be found on the Gabontour website here

In general we were impressed with Africa's Eden their camps and lodges were pretty similar in standard to some of the places we've stayed in East or Southern Africa. The guides were very good, however communication was sometimes a bit of a problem, at the time very few of them spoke any English, hopefully this may have changed.

In order to see the animals roaming the beaches you need to visit Loango in the wet season Oct-Apr, this is why on our trip we stayed at Tassi Camp and only visited Akaka Camp had we visited during the dry season we would have done the reverse because the large mammals move in to the Akaka area and so are more easily seen there.

When we stayed at Tassi we chose to go birding in the forest without much success due to bad luck I guess, we could have gone kayaking instead and maybe we might have seen more.

From mid-July to mid-September humpback whales swim up the coast past Loango, so you can go whale watching from Loango Lodge at this time of year.

I guess all of the Africa's Eden camps will have been refurbished since our visit, some carpenters were arriving at Tassi just after we left to sort out a few minor problems. The Meru style tents all had wooden doors that didn't fit perfectly and some of the fly screening needed repairing, but this didn't really matter as the sea breeze kept any mossies away.

Gorillas

As well as at Tassi there is another habituation site in the park,I understood from talking to the researchers at the Max Planck camp that the gorilla & chimp habituation was going well, though it's a slow process and it would be some time before tourist treks start. Of course that was just over 2yrs ago, assuming that nothing has gone wrong I guess tourist treks should start pretty soon which will be fantastic for the park and for tourism in Gabon generally. Info on the progress of the gorilla habituation can be found on the Africa's Eden website.

Although actual gorilla trekking hasn't started (as far as I know) it is possible if you're very lucky to see gorillas as this article from the UK Guardian shows here

I believe your chances of seeing them are better in the south of the park this also where if you're lucky you might see surfing hippos.

For info on the Fernan Vaz Gorilla Project based on Evengue Island. here


Langoue Bai

The WCS camp at Langoue is closed for the foreseeable future; the camp was first opened to guests as part of their research. They wanted to see what effect tourists would have on the wildlife and find out how much money could be generated from tourism. To see the results of this research and find out why the camp is now closed read this WCS report here.

Clearly WCS need to persuade Africa's Eden or an outside company like say Wilderness Safaris to take on the challenge of running a camp at Langoue but I can't see that happening at the moment.

Other Bais

There are other bais in Gabon the largest is Mwagné Bai which I has a significant population of lowland bongos but as far as I know there are no tourist facilities in Mwagné NP at the moment. There are however various bais in neighbouring countries that can be visited. In Congo Brazzaville, Maya Nord Bai in Odzala NP and Mbeli Bai in Nouabale Ndoki NP and in the C.A.R. Dzangha Bai and Bai Hokou in the Dzangha-Sangha Reserve. Dzangha Bai supports the largest population of forest elephants in the region and is also a good place to see lowland bongos. Near Bai Hokou you can go gorilla trekking and also look for habituated agile mangabeys. I haven't been to any of these places yet, C.A.R is not perhaps the most stable country but to visit Dzangha-Sangha where it's perfectly safe you can just fly in from Gabon without visiting Bangui or anywhere else in the country.

Not many travel agents offer trips to C.A.R. and Congo but there are a few, a quick Google search should find you some.

I will post some more info on Lope NP and some other places in Gabon and also some info on visiting STP

I am sorry if this is a bit long, this will be my last post on Gabon, and then I will add just one more post on STP to finish off.

Lope NP

I don't know what the current situation is with the mandrill tracking as I haven't found any up to date info on the web. I have found two interesting articles but they're both from 2007

Here

Here

As we discovered there is no point in going mandrill tracking in the wet season you need to be there in July/August. I also think this is a better time to see other mammals such as forest elephants, buffalos, red river hogs, various duikers and perhaps chimps. Most birding tours go at this time of year.

Mikongo Camp run by the Zoological Society of London appears to be now closed, certainly ZSL no longer have visitor info on their website here and the Africa's Eden website says it's closed. However birding companies such as Birdquest and Tropical Birding are offering tours for next year that appear to go there, so I don't know what the situation is. Mikongo was intended to become a major centre for gorilla tourism which would hopefully fund the running of Lope NP. However their habituation project has had mixed results and gorilla trekking was suspended. Despite this I felt that Mikongo was still well worth visiting to look for other primates and birds so why it's closed, I don't know.

The Lope Hotel is easily reached by train from Libreville it's in a very beautiful area and is a great place for birding a particular highlight was a large flock of roosting rosy bee-eaters. If you're not that interested in birds and you can't go in the dry season it may not be worth going while Mikongo Camp is closed. Although apparently if you travel from Lope Village to Booue (or vice versa) just to the east of the park, you might see the rare endemic sun-tailed monkey that was only discovered in 1984. I didn't know this before we went to Gabon and I've no idea how often they're seen.

Plateaux Bateke NP

Most of Gabon's other parks are still pretty inaccessible to the ordinary tourist. However you can go to the Bateke Plateau which is in the far south east on the border with Congo Brazzaville near Franceville at the end of the Transgabonais railway line. Serious birding tours go to the plateau because it has huge areas of wide open grassland/moorland that are home to open country birds not found elsewhere in Gabon like Denham's bustard and Congo moor chat. Formerly there were southern reedbuck in the park but I think they are now extinct. The only lions in Gabon occurred here but they are also probably extinct.

Within the NP there are some areas of forest that are home to some of Gabon’s large mammals, some years ago gorillas were probably hunted to extinction on the plateau. In 1998 the Aspinall Foundation (a UK charity) started a gorilla reintroduction project in the Mpassa area of the park, rehabilitating local gorilla orphans and abandoned captive bred gorilla babies from their zoos Howletts and Port Lympne in Kent. They have another older reintroduction project just across the border in the Lefini Reserve in Congo, both are proving successful. I don't think it's possible to visit these gorillas.

Unless you're a keen birder I think the Bateke Plateau is probably a bit too far away to be worth visiting

Lake Evaro & Lambarene

When we planned our trip we were given the option of visiting Lake Evaro and Lambarene to the south east of Port Gentil as an alternative to going to STP. Alongside the Ogooue River are a series of beautiful lakes which form part of the Ogooue delta, at one of these, Lake Evaro there is a lodge where they have a gorilla sanctuary. From the lodge you can go on boat trips to look for birds or hippos or just to admire the jungle scenery You can also visit nearby Lambarene where the famous Dr Albert Schweitzer had his hospital.

Kongou Falls Ivindo National Park

I will have to try not to get too angry writing this next bit. In the north of Ivindo NP on the Ogooue River are the Kongou Falls see gatoratlarges' report here. If you want to see these falls the most beautiful and spectacular in forested Africa go now because in a few years time they will be destroyed, a Chinese company CMEC has been given permission to build a hydroelectric dam on the Ogooue River to provide power for the Belinga iron-ore mine. Already a road has been cut from Makokou town through the park to the river causing major damage to the forest and making the area more accessible to bushmeat poachers. Large numbers of Chinese workers will likely be brought in to build the dam and I am sure they will become enthusiastic consumers of bushmeat. Aside from destroying this magnificent waterfall a large area of surrounding forest will presumably be lost to the resulting flooding. Despite major protests from environmental groups in Gabon and around the world, President Ali Bongo is determined that this project will go ahead. You can read an article on the proposed dam here

This article says much the same but has a good aerial shot of the falls
here

Also near Makokou is an area of Ivindo NP known as the Ipassa Reserve this little patch of forest has been protected for many years as a research site. This is where all the birding tours go to find some of the main lowland forest species mainly because it's very accessible and has good trails, though I would think the larger mammals are pretty scarce.

Language problems

If you don't speak French I would recommend learning some before visiting Gabon, everywhere we went we were told the guides were being taught English; yet we never found one who could actually speak any, this of course may have changed. I understand a little French from school, but decided to buy a basic language course on CD and a phrase book this was undoubtedly a help at least at the hotel in Libreville, obviously they're basically aimed at people visiting France, there wasn't a section for going on safari, being able to ask what time the chateau opens isn't much use in the jungle. After we left Loango the language barrier wasn’t really a problem because we were accompanied by Patrice Christy, which is partly why we hired him.

Patrice Christy

Patrice is French he lives in Libreville and is an authority on the country’s birds. He has written several books on Lope NP, he also advised Ian Sinclair and Peter Ryan on their book Birds of Africa South of the Sahara and is currently working on the bird atlas for Gabon. He regularly guides for the serious birding companies and is one of the best bird guides I've ever been with. Of course his services don't come cheap, we were in two minds as to whether or not to to hire him (which we did through our travel Agent Audley Travel) but afterwards we were very glad we did. Almost entirely thanks to Patrice we saw nearly 100 new birds, without him I think we would have seen very few if only because birding in rainforest is always very difficult.

It's a real shame that tourists can't visit Langoue Bai and Mikongo Camp, but even without these places I think Gabon is worth visiting, if you can afford it, I'm afraid because of oil it's not a cheap country. A week in Loango would combine very well with a visit to Dzangha-Sangha in C.A.R. or a week or more in São Tomé & Principé. Though with gorillas & chimps being habituated at 2 different locations in Loango NP it’s probably worth waiting until gorilla trekking starts. After it does I would hope that more of Gabon might start to open up to tourism.

São Tomé & Principé

São Tomé & Principé don’t receive a great many tourists and many of those who do go are expats working in Gabon or maybe Angola, who aside from the tropical beaches go for the big game fishing and the diving. Otherwise visitors are mostly serious birders; there are 26 endemic birds on São Tomé and a further 8 or 9 on Principe. On São Tomé some of the more common endemics as well as other more widespread species can be seen quite easily whilst trekking in Obo National Park, to see rarer species like the São Tomé fiscal shrike and the dwarf olive ibis you need to travel to the south of the island and camp overnight in the forest with a good bird guide. Aside from bats there are no native terrestrial mammals on the islands however the Portuguese introduced Mona monkeys from the mainland to both islands where they are now very common.

Aside from birding Obo National Park is very scenic and offers fantastic hiking opportunities, the really fit can hike to the top of the Pico de São Tomé at 2024m unless you set out really early you have to camp near the top. To stay the night in the park you don’t have to camp, much of the forest was once plantation and some of the old plantation houses (e.g. at Roça Bombain) have been restored and are now guesthouses.

The main town São Tomé town is well worth visiting with lots of beautiful if slightly crumbling old Portuguese colonial buildings and can easily be explored on foot.

Our hotel Omali Lodge (Africa’s Eden again) while it didn’t have the best beach would be a good base from which to explore the island, though there are of course a number of other options. To do a little hiking in Obo NP, see São Tomé Town and some of the plantations and to visit some of the islands best beaches I would think you need to stay for a minimum of 3 days, obviously 4-5days or more would be better.

Principé is sufficiently far from São Tomé that you have to fly between the two, this makes visiting both islands quite expensive, so a lot of visitors don’t make it to Principé. There are very few places to stay on Principé, the best and far as I know only resort on the island is Bom Bom Island (Africa’s Eden yet again). I think there maybe a couple of little local hotels in Santo Antonio but that’s about it. Principé is much smaller and less developed than Sao Tome, only the north of the island has any roads, there were formerly roads that went right down to the south but these have basically disappeared. Unless these roads have been repaired since my visit the only way to reach the south of Principé is by boat.

Most of the hiking trails in Obo NP on São Tomé have been created by ECOFAC in 2008 at least, they hadn’t done very much work in the park on Principé but if you hire a guide you can go hiking. There may well be more trails now, it’s not necessary to go hiking to see the islands birds almost all of the endemic species can be seen very easily in the forest around the Bom Bom Island Resort.

The full day tour of Principés’ historical sites was fascinating and probably the highlight of our visit to STP. I would have liked to visit the south of the island as well but we didn’t have time as this is also a full day trip. To really see the island and have a bit of beach time as well again I think you need at least 3 whole days maybe longer if you want to go diving or even game fishing.

I hope this report has proved both interesting and useful, certainly I’ve enjoyed writing it although I never imagined I’d write so much, if I write another report I hope it won’t be nearly so long.

What an excellent primer on Gabon! The wonderful photos and details will make this very useful.

In my previous posts I didn’t mention a national park called Minkébé which is in the far north east of the country on the border with Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville. This is a spectacular place noted for the huge granite inselbergs that rise up out of one of the largest relatively intact areas of rainforest in the region, a forest that is home to bongos, forest elephants, gorillas, and giant forest hogs amongst other animals. I didn’t mention Minkébé because the park has no tourist infrastructure at present, so the only way to get there is to mount an expedition taking everything with you and hiring guides when you get there. Unless you speak fluent French and have experience of organising such expeditions this would be quite a challenge, so I assumed that nobody really goes there. However I’ve just come across a website for an outfit called Transjungle,





So for anyone who really wants to visit Minkébé NP they would be the people to get in touch with. Though obviously these trips are only for people who are really fit, happy to rough it and don’t mind eating dried ‘adventurefood’. Of course I don’t know anything else about these guys other than what they say on their website so I don’t know whether to recommend them or not, but since the purpose of writing my report was to help (in a small way) promote ecotourism in Gabon, I thought I should add the info. I hope their venture proves to be a success, to visit their website

click here

I was shocked to discover on the web today that Africa’s Eden is closing down Loango Lodge in September apparently for good. Basically Gabon has no road network to speak of and so driving from Libreville to Loango NP is virtually impossible, for this reason Africa’s Eden relied entirely on their sister company SCD Aviation to fly guests in. However due to a dispute with the Gabonese civil aviation authorities (ANAC), SCD haven’t been able to fly for over a year, as a result Africa’s Eden have decided they can no longer operate in Gabon and have pulled out altogether. This will be an absolute disaster for tourism in Gabon, without Loango Lodge I can’t see any travel agents offering tours to the country anymore, except for serious birding companies.

This is also very bad news for conservation in Loango NP as much of the research and other conservation projects in the park were funded by Africa’s Eden. This is a real shame as the future for Loango looked pretty good if the chimp and gorilla habituation projects proved to be successful, now the future of these projects is uncertain.
Well I guess I was very lucky to have gone Gabon when I did, as it seems that just about everywhere I visited in the country is now closed. As I’ve no doubt said several times before I decided to write this report in the hope of maybe encouraging a few people to think about visiting Gabon, this has turned in to a somewhat hopeless task, however I hope my report has proved interesting all the same.

To read the news full story on the Africa’s Eden website


Click here

and here