Ebolowa, Cameroon to Bitam, Gabon, attempt no. 2

Armed with printed reservations I took a moto to immigration office. There I had to wait a bit as Mr Johnson was not yet in the office at 9am. It took a minute to get a stamp, he didn’t bother registering me again, I was there already the day before.

I took an omelette in a chop joint across the street. The man added ask sardine to the omelette and a mixture of chopped tomato, onion and something green. It was the best omelette I had on this trip.

Another 300cfa moto to get to the border. Before the border a checkpoint, the one that outed my driver the day before as a prison guard. This time they checked my passport. A man with cold eyes saw my cancelled stamp from yesterday, I explained why and then he started asking me if I had hotel reservation for Cameroon and why not. And what was I doing in Cameroon? Tourism? What was I doing in Cameroon? Visiting, travelling, sightseeing? What was I doing in Cameroon? He was staring at me the whole time as if waiting for me to trip while answering his questions.

At the border on Cameroon side no problems. No registration, both booths just looked at my passport and expressed hope I wouldn’t have to come back again.

In Gabon at the border a different set of people although there was one man who recognised me and even asked why I’m back. I’m back because I have the reservation now. Ah, OK. The infamous man with glasses (all iOverlander reports from both border crossings to Gabon mention him) was there, they showed him a book where my denied entry was recorded, the cause: did not have hotel reservation. But now I do. The man in the glasses started asking questions, he wrote down again the list of all countries I visited and my planned itinerary ahead. Spoiler alert: I go home from Kinshasa. He kept looking at my hotel reservations, both in Bitam and Libreville, asked me which hotels I’d stay at. All the time he kept repeating to himself and his camarades in the room how tiring this job was and he kept repeating fuck fuck fuck. Puta puta puta. Oh well. Then he wanted to call the hotel, the one in Libreville, to check if my booking was valid but he didn’t have airtime on his phone. So someone had to go out and buy airtime for him. In the meantime he kept handling other passports. With me in the room there was a woman who travelled from Cameroon with a group of artists for a music festival in Libreville: Gabon Music Expo. 9 people, 9 passports, including one from DRC, which needed a visa. 60kCFA. Oops. The men in this border office were filling out fiche de passage which allows for getting to Bitam, where we’d get the entry stamp in the immigration office. Bureaucracy in bloom. Each person passing through the room I was in paid 2000cfa for the fiche. Let’s see.

Finally after wasted minutes the man in glasses called Onomo Hotel, the one I booked in Libreville. It was the cheapest hotel that allowed cancelling the booking on the day my reserved stay was starting, €93/night. The call was a sham. The man called the hotel, didn’t introduce himself, didn’t know which hotel he was calling and he only said he had a Polish man with him, his name Artür (my middle name!) and does the man have a booking? Which hotel would answer such question from a stranger who wouldn’t even give a name? Amazingly the hotel called him back and said I didn’t have a booking. Puta. I had to find reservation number, which also amazingly wasn’t on the printed email from booking.com. I told him to use my last name, which is not easy to pronounce in this part of the world and I told him to mention it’s done via booking.com. Amazingly he seemed aware of what booking.com was. He called again and this time the hotel called back and confirmed I had the booking. Oh puta. It took another 40mins for him to fill up my fiche, calling his mysterious boss in Bitam to ask if I could be allowed into the country. I was free to go, pretty much the same time the artists were let free. It took me 2 hours of sitting in the office. But at least I took a photo of a beautiful moth (I did ask for permission and of course the first answer was no but they later agreed).

I was warned I could not fold the fiche de passage, a paper is only valid if it’s beautiful and smooth, my parents’ names were recorded on the back of the fiche. 30metres later another booth and another registration of my papers. And finally I was free to go. Puta.

Behind the border some cars were waiting for passengers to Bitam. 1000cfa, 25kms. I sat at a bar, a beer was in order. But people in the bar were drinking a milky yellowish drink from beer glasses. It was came justice mixed with juice tapped from a tree they called bois âme (not sure if my spelling is correct) or in Fang language it was called onyeng. The drink tasted almost like palm wine, it was delicious and they gave me a glass and it was free. Now let Gabon be like the bar.

When I was sitting in the car, 1 passenger in front, 3 in the back, the man collecting money wanted extra 500cfa from me for the baggage. I just said no and gave him 1000cfa.

We left.

In Bitam I was dropped in front of immigration office. They asked for a photocopy of passport and the visa “from the embassy”. In front of the office was a shop, run by a Nigerian woman from Imo State, 100cfa per copy. The staff in the immigration office was gloomy but without any further questions in 15mins I got my passport stamp and was free. They kept the hotel reservations.

The Nigerian women in the shop quickly became my friends, I bought a Libertis/Gabon Telecom SIM card for 1000cfa and loaded 8500cfa of credit. Internet in Gabon is expensive, 5GB costs 8000cfa, that’s almost four times more than in Cameroon, although I must note that in Cameroon I used an offer for “people over 35 years old.” In some countries seniors are young.

The women from the shop wouldn’t allow me to walk to Hotel des Voyageurs where I wanted to stay for the night. They stopped taxi for me, 500cfa, there are no motos in Bitam and possibly in all of Gabon, and off we went.

The hotel was 2 streets away. Plenty of prices, the cheapest room with private bathroom was 10,000cfa. The room was freshly painted and clean. No toilet seat.

I went out to eat, across the street there was jollof rice and barbeque chicken on a skewer, 800cfa. A bottle of beer cost a whopping 1000cfa.

I

walked around, the town was one big market. I tried to stay away from the immigration in case they decide to check where I really stayed and chase me, very improbable but who knows? In the market I tried to snap a few photos but the women were sharp and told me to keep my phone in the pocket. On one street there was meat: dead gazelles and some big rodents which looked like huge rats or beavers. There was also dead monkey. Bushmeat.

I went towards where I thought was busses possibly to Libreville. There were two agencies. One told me the first bus leaves at 4am, another at 7am. The other told me the bus leaves at 5-5:30am. The ticket costs 14,000cfa. If I wanted to g to Lambaréné, I’d also take these busses and step out at Bifoun Junction, ticket price 12,000cfa.

I walked around a bit more and found… A coffee machine. Yay! Not really a coffee shop but a phone shop that had a small espresso machine, not even a table, just single chair outside, 200cfa. I took two. The man said coffee en grain was possible to be bought but it was really Cameroonian coffee. He pointed to a blue and green supermarket where there was coffee but all they had was moulu, ground coffee.

I looked for groundnuts but there were nowhere to be found. One woman was selling them, 1500cfa for 1l bottle. She also had some bitter kola, I paid 200 and got 3. They were fresh and tasty. But the woman said all the nuts are coming from across the border.

For dinner I had again jollof and BBQ chicken. Guinness was very cold (that’s very good and rare around) in a Démocratie Bar. 1000cfa per bottle. It was raining in the evening and it also rained the morning of the next day.