I found two agencies in Bitam going to Libreville. One told me the bus leaves at 4am and the next one going at 7am. There was a big bus and a small.bus standing there. The big bus looked promising.
The other one told me the bus leaves at 5am, then they told me 5am is when I should be at the agency, the bus would leave at 5:30am. There was no bus onsite when I talked to them, the man told me the number of passengers determines if a big bus goes or a small bus goes.
In each agency they told me I could buy the ticket in the morning before departure.
My alarm clock went off at 3am but I just couldn’t. I snoozed it till 3:20 and at 3:20 I changed the alarm time to 4:20.
At 4:20 I managed to get up, took a quick shower. Outside it was raining. I walked to the agency. Before 5am there were people sleeping in the waiting hall on quite comfortable-looking couches. A few people sat on wooden benches. A small bus stood in the courtyard. It was raining.
At about 5:30 more people started coming and it became quite full at about 6am. That’s also when a man took out a list of names who had bought tickets the day before, dammit. There were 21 names and his list had 25 positions.
But somehow I did manage to squeeze in and get my ticket, I had to show passport and my name was on the ticket, number 23. 14000cfa for Libreville. It was raining.
The artists I met the previous day were among the passengers, 9 of them.
The small bus didn’t have any space for load on the roof and people had plenty of load, one woman was carrying three mandatory bunches of plantain. But there was no chicken and no goats. They squeezed the smaller bags under the seats and the larger bags in the space behind the last row of seats which was actually quite large.
We didn’t leave before 7:40am. It was raining. As we sat I the bus according to our ticket numbers, I only managed to seat as a fourth person in a row of seats on a foldable seat between the permanent seats. It was okay but if was a hard bench and at the end of the trip, 12 hours no less, my ass was in pain and I also managed to break the backseat but thankfully at the end of the journey.
We left. 10 minutes later, a first checkpoint. Everyone showed their ID cards to the policeman, who stood outside, in the rain. He took a few foreign passports and residence cards, a couple next to me had residence cards but the woman didn’t have a passport. They were from Cameroon but they claimed they didn’t cross the border. Those whose passports were taken had to get out of the bus and follow the policeman. 30 minutes wasted.
10 minutes later after we left another checkpoint. A policeman, or gendarme, or immigration officer, in civil clothes checks the IDs and this time he took mine, too. We got off the bus and entered his tiny booth. The policeman blubbered and I thought he was either drunk or stoned. He returned the residence cards to the couple and there were three of us left, me and two women. 2000cfa to get the passports back. The women pleaded with him but he wouldn’t budge. I also pleaded with him coz what else to do? I wasn’t gonna pay. He said 1000cfa, one woman gave it to him, the other one claimed she had no money and returned to the bus to borrow it from someone. She brought 500cfa. I kept pleading but all the guy could say was 2000cfa. I even took my passport from his desk but he started shouting so I gave it back to him. After some minutes he took the 500cfa from the woman and let us go. 40 minutes wasted.
Another 10 minutes later another checkpoint. This time it was a woman who was checking everyone’s ID and again we were taken out to her booth. I got pissed and decided I wouldn’t speak any French. And honestly, it is not that easy to pretend you don’t understand what they say to you when you actually do! The woman wasn’t any better than the policeman before. One of the women claimed she had no money, to which the officer started shouting that if we were coming from Libreville she’d understand perhaps, as there were many checkpoints on the way. But coming from Bitam it’s just the beginning, the woman should not lie. Oh dear. And my strategy worked, the officer did not even try talking to me but returned the passport to “that English.”
2 hours since the start we managed to cover about 70kms. Before one checkpoint the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and a man sitting in the front seat told the bus we should all pitch in 500cfa per person so that he can negotiate with the checkpoints, pay them 2000cfa and we could go, without further hassle, otherwise we wouldn’t make it before the end of the day. But the bus people weren’t that cooperative, perhaps the Gabonese didn’t want the trouble of bailing out the foreigners, perhaps we all counted on our luck. One woman, she called herself “a missionary”, with DRC passport and a letter describing her “mission” wanted to give 2000cfa because she so badly wanted to reach Libreville the same day because she had a flight to catch the next day.
So at the next checkpoint we are dragged out again and this time the policeman was quite polite and seemed friendly, he even spoke a few words in English. And again after they looked at my passport and even demanded vaccination card (always a sign of looking for bribe) they demanded 2000cfa, “for registration”. The self-appointed negotiator, who looked like an army personnel but in fact his clothes just looked like army – he had red flight safety plugs attached to his jacket which was full of US Army signs – and wedding-style black shoes with golden cuffs – even translated the deux mille as “two hundred.” Why was he even helping the police? But I was let go.
On next two checkpoints he actually talked to the people who manned them and we passed through without further problems and it seemed that the further from the border we went, the less troublesome the police became – they no longer dragged us out of the bus and as for my passport, often they just wanted to see the visa. There was always at least one checkpoint before every town and at least one checkpoint after we left a town.
But the whole ordeal at the beginning surprised me. Gabon is one of the richest countries on the continent and yet corruption was on a display like never before on this trip. Wow. I assumed Congo might be like that and I even told myself that in Kinshasa I’d allow myself to pay. When I was in 2005 in Kinshasa, every uniformed man that saw me or that I saw asked for money. They’d call me from across the street to ask for money. Any picture – money. Bonobo reserve parking – money. Looking at Congo River – money. Approaching presidential palace – money. Let’s see.
T
he road itself was in very good shape although it was narrow. Except the few towns and villages it was all forest, so dense that we often drove under a green canopy.
It was maybe around 3pm when we stopped in town of Ndjole for food. I bought a baguette with avocado salad and some pieces of mortadella and I bought a few small bags of groundnuts.
About 100kms before the capital city, Libreville the road turned from a smooth tar to a nightmarish mud and hole piste. Unbelievable. More unbelievable was that this road was like that until the outskirts of the city. No signs of roadworks. Busy traffic. We slowed down to the crawl.
The artists, who were Cameroonians except the one Congolese from DRC were commenting on Gabon quite a lot between each other. I mean there was a lot to comment about. The checkpoints, the constant ID check, the corruption and now the main road to the capital, N1, disintegrated. Finally an elderly lady who was Gabonese, snapped and started shouting at them that they were not polite, criticising everything, that it was the Gabonese man (the fake army man) who helped them several times that how dare they? Oh chaos ensued because some of the young men from the band didn’t want to let it go.
I had no accommodation in Libreville. At the beginning I didn’t even plan to come there but it seemed easier going there then continuing to Lambaréné. Accommodation according to guidebooks seemed expensive. There was one place, at a Catholic mission, next to Embassy of Vatican, called Maison Liebermann, which seemed cheap but all the iOverlander reports said there was no water. I’m tired of no water. But the man I met in Kye Ossi in Cameroon before the border, Patrick, told me there were cheap hotels in Libreville and I should just ask people.
And he was right, so often in Africa all you have to do is ask people and they would direct you. It’s actually very nice.
So I held to Patrick’s word.
We arrived after 8pm, the bus agency actually quite deep in the city, about 1km from the seashore. And right there inside the bus terminal, an auberge. I thought an auberge like this may be not nice but I did ask for prices. 13k for room with fan, 18k (later the very friendly receptionist went by himself down to 17k) for room with AC. And the rooms looked like they were done yesterday, fresh paint, clean walls, toilet seat, water in shower. I did ask for a discount on a room with fan but no way. I took it. The auberge is in the bus terminal of Le Transporteur Voyages and it should be by now on Google Maps. It’s also next to maison Liebermann.
I went out to find food. Down the road behind Total station, on the corner, the busiest place: café! And what café! Not just small espresso machine but a proper Italian giant. And the man was even grinding the coffee himself! So at 9pm I just had to get a cup. 300cfa, the coffee itself is from Cameroon but there is a coffee roasters in town, Pierre André it’s called.
Next door a woman had food but only chicken and rice left, 800cfa. It was so so but she also had bean cakes, akara that in Nigeria are very spicy, here they were not spicy but they made a good snack nevertheless.
I walked around the street, there were two “clubs” and a buvette but I stayed in a small bar next to the café, 800cfa for small Guinness.
The bed in my auberge had possibly the most comfortable mattress on this trip, maybe because it was just new.
Coming back to Maman 