Considering the great expense to spend another night at the formidable Lope Hotel, we opted to camp in the bush nearby. After having spent a night deep in the jungle, we awoke to discovering elephant droppings on the path to our campsite. We apparently had visitors during the night and didn’t notice. Driving out of the park area, we saw a flash of an animal scampering across the street that we are nearly certain was a chimp.
After our experience with the mandrills it proved to us just how many creatures are living in these woods. Just because we don’t see them immediately doesn’t mean that they are not there. To think that Lope has a troupe of 1000+ mandrills roaming around and who knows how many other things!
The road was a very good dirt road for our entire drive today and even the ferry at Booé was functioning and efficient. I love that when there are no bridges in Gabon, they have free ferries to transport you across. Once we crossed with the ferry, we got on a paved road that stretched up to Bitam. I recalled somebody mentioning that the customs office was located in Bitam so we made sure to clear our papers there.
In the Bradt guide, it mentioned a French expat who has hotels in the area. We decided to track him down to get information. Rather, I was the one who had to ask around to track him down and then sit and speak with him. He grew up in Algeria while it was under French control and later came to Sub-Saharan Africa 46 years ago as a French volunteer, similar to Peace Corps. He has property on the Cameroonian border that he was trying to promote for tourism, which has been sitting idle. His son is managing the property but I guess not many people pass through this way. He offered us the chance to camp there for the night.
It took a while to drive out to the area, it was a detour off the main track. We arrived in a large village that we thought to be our turn off and decided to ask for directions. There were a lot of people milling about as there was a local football (soccer) match going on. The man we asked directions for told us to wait a minute and he ran off. When he returned, he had the hotel owner’s son with him. He came to the main town to watch the match.
He jumped in the car with us to show us the way to their property and we had to put Rob on the roof, not enough room for us all. I get an earful of how difficult life is out there; how he is abandoned out at that property, he has no motorbike or transportation of his own. The conversation consisted of all of the normal complaints that I have no ability to help change… wouldn’t that be nice if I could?
Our timing was great. We were able to watch the sun setting on the lovely river on the property. The tents needed to be set up quickly before darkness set in. We had a simple omelet for dinner and got to bed early. I hope that tomorrow we will reach Yaoundé in good time.
