Lambaréné and Ndendé

The initial plan of seeing Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the morning and catching afternoon transport to Ndendé, the last town in Gabon before Congo, of course failed.

There are men in town around where the transport North (Libreville etc.) and South (Mouila & Ndendé) leaves who somehow match passengers to vehicles. One of them gave me his phone number and asked me to call him when I wanted to go, I had told him I’d be going around noon.

But the coffee in the bakery was good, the pain au chocolat sweet. I walked on towards the river to catch taxi to the hospital. A man gave me a piece of roasted beef meat, cut off from a huge slab, it was delicious and I had a 1000cfa portion for 2nd breakfast.

Then on to catch a taxi. Not easy. One must call destination, when the taxi stops and the taxi driver accepts or refuses. And where I stood no taxi driver wanted to go to the hospital.

I walked up the road to where a small crowd was standing, calling their own taxis. That was even worse as I had to fight and shout through many other people, who clearly knew what they were doing while I wasn’t.

Resigned I walked to the market to see if the bushmeat restaurants were already open, I wanted to snap a photo of their exotic menu. The menus were already out. Note the pangolin. Bonne appétit!

I walked back to where the taxis were being hauled and decided to walk a bit up the road and catch them before they reach the roadside crowd and perhaps there would be an empty taxi that would take me as a first passenger and then collect others matching the road to the hospital. It worked. 300cfa – normal price is 100cfa – but I didn’t care. I was in. I even complained to the taxi driver that noone wanted to stopped and he told me I should lure the taxi drivers with a higher price. Right.

We crossed the bridge on Ogooué River then climbed up on the island part of Lambaréné then we crossed one more bridge on the river and up again and there we were in the hospital.

The hospital is famous because of its founder, a German-French doctor Albert Schweitzer who established it at the beginning of 20th century and got a Nobel peace prize for its work there. The hospital is on a forested hill in a very peaceful area. There is a small museum with some photos and you can see the rooms of Mr Schweitzer and his wife. The ticket is 2000cfa if you’re a resident. The lady selling the tickets informed me that if I’m not a resident the tickets are “a bit expensive” and yes they are, 5000cfa, so I bought a ticket as a resident. There is not much to see in the museum but just the short walk in the area is nice.

And I liked the area so much that I decided to walk back to quartier Isaac, where I stayed, and stay the whole day in Lambaréné.Right in front of the entry to the hospital complex there is a palm groove, quite atmospheric not only because of the graves that are there.

It was about 6km back to where I stayed. I wasn’t in rush. I stopped for a beer in a buvette, quiet and peaceful.

I saw an ATM! I had realised I may not have enough money to last me until I reach Dolisie, the first major town in Congo, around 500kms away. The Bradt Guide mentions that the road from the border to Dolisie takes “around three days” and Petit Futé guide says there are no more ATMs after Libreville in Gabon. Oops. The ATM was at a petrol station and it didn’t work but a man told me there was another one, in town, I should go to tribune and there it was. Oufff.

I kept walking down to the main part of the river. Note the satellite dish in the photo. Looks like even the smallest villages in Gabon have access to electricity and on every wooden house there is a satellite dish.

I walked back to the hotel mainly to tell the receptionist that I would stay one more night.I took taxi to the tribune. This time it was easy. If you wander what a tribune is, here you go, I knew it only when I saw it.

The ATM worked.

I walked back passing by the tiny port which was actually very busy. A boat from Port Gentil arrived. Port Gentil is a city at the coast, possibly the 2nd biggest town in Gabon, but the only ways to reach it are by boat or by flight. The boat goes from Lambaréné and it takes 6 hours. And as I saw it and chatted with a man who was giving me all that information, I kinda felt I wanted to go to Port Gentil, that this would be my chance to take the boat on this river, through the forest, through the jungle, in peace and bliss, and return the next day to Lambaréné and continue to Congo.But my dreams were shattered the next minute when an actual ticketmaster chatted me up, the boat was only going in two days time. Ah. Next time. The lower deck price is 15000cfa, the upper deck is 20k. Totally worth it.

I spotted a man with POLSKA sign on a red polo t-shirt. The guy didn’t even know what he was wearing, I had to enlighten him. He agreed to a picture.

Across the bridge there was a small restaurant. I sat down for lunch, my meal was sans nom au chocolat. Sans nom is a fish that someone at the restaurant compared to tilapia. What I got was actually just a slice of the fish, which rather means the fish is much bigger than tilapia. The chocolat wasn’t a chocolate, the woman serving called it chocolat indigène, it’s a powder made from some tree fruits or nuts and the tree is called in local language I already forgot how and I didn’t note it down. Sorry. The fruits/nuts look like this, you can also buy blocks of the powder.

The meal was very good although the chocolate didn’t taste much like chocolate.

Back in the market I finally found a barber that wasn’t occupied. For 700cfa he cut quite well and he was taking picture of himself and a white man sitting on his chair. The people around here like to have their hairline well cut so there are razors used to sculpt the line properly. It doesn’t look good on me and even if this man didn’t use razor on me he still was venturing into keeping my beardline well-sculpted.I broke down and I bought a bottle of groundnuts, at a whopping price of 2500cfa. They were delicious so at least that.Back in the hotel I met the owner who just arrived from Libreville and he shared palm wine with me. The palm wine was exquisite. He told me he bought it straight from the tapper in a village on his way. When I mentioned I saw palm wine in the market he told me that was shit that the market people mixed it with stuff and water. True, the wine I had was not sweet as usually fresh palm wine is but bitter and sour in a mineral way, I should say this wine was dry (Polish: wytrawne).

I also met an English speaking Gabonese man who just came from Port Gentil, who he claimed was the most expensive city in the world. I mentioned Luanda could be a contender and he agreed.At night I went out for a Guinness and he saw me across the street and called me out and I sat by his table with another man and two women. They bought me a beer.

During the day I also met the man, Marcel, who was one of those getting transport for passengers. He kept repeating I should call him when I wanted to go and that in the morning there would be a car going to Ndendé.

Ndendé is about 50kms (later I found out it’s exactly 48kms) away from border with Congo. It’s also 270kms away from Lambaréné. Marcel was claiming it’s only 3.5hrs away, I couldn’t believe given my journey times in Gabon so far.

I managed to wake myself up so that I’m on the transport stop before 7am. The men who catch passengers and match them with transport were already there. But Marcel didn’t have any of it, he claimed me, I was his white man.

There was a car going to Mouila, almost 200kms away where the driver said I could change for Ndendé. The price? A whopping 10,000cfa. Whoa. And that’s for 2.5hrs journey on a good road. I think not too many people travel around.

I managed to get a cup of instant coffee, the bakery with the espresso machine was still closed, and we were on our way. In the coffee shop, there were three Malaysian-looking men. This was the day Ramadan was over and it was public holiday in Gabon. I’m quite surprised how many Muslims were in Gabon or even South Cameroon or even South Nigeria. I thought South is more Christian. Maybe it is but Muslims are more visible.

So, the road to Mouila was fast and empty. On arrival I was transferred to another car going the last hour / 75kms to Ndendé, 6000cfa. The men even carried my bags. But the car wasn’t full so I used the opportunity to get into the patisserie that was next door with hope that. They. Have. Coffee.

Inside met me a glorious view.

The Ramadan ended and the Muslims were taking advantage of it. But where were these guys from? They didn’t exactly look Malaysian. Some of them looked like stereotypical Genghis Khan. Mongolia? Does Mongolia have Muslims? For sure. I thought maybe Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. I asked one but he ignored me. And because the queue and chaos were on, and the beautiful big coffee machine “didn’t have water” I went out and had a baguette with avocado salad. After some time I came back and asked men sitting at a table, where they from. Indonesia. Voilà.

The coffee machine looked like it would work but it still “didn’t have water.” Then I was called to the car, the woman trying to get the coffee machine operational surprised I was leaving without coffee. I tried Madame!

The trip was short, a bit over an hour. At one point the forests stopped and we drove through what looked a bit like savannah. Savannah on the equator? We passed equator coming from Libreville to Lambaréné but the bus didn’t stop for celebration. So we drove through high grasslands, there were even gentle hills around.The driver dropped me in front of Motel de Bonheur, a poorly-looking compound. Dark rooms windows replaced with wooden boards and AC machines (not working) with toilet and shower, 6000cfa.

Almost everything was closed in Ndendé due to the holiday but it’s not like Ndendé had a lot of things to be open, it looks and feels like crossroads on the way to somewhere else. And a bottle of water costs a whopping 700cfa. That’s over €1.

I walked from one roundabout to the other and saw a sign that surely must have been put there for selfies. Like the coolest roadsign ever. Congo 48. I love road signs which point to countries and my favourite one so far has been one in Botswana that points straight to Zambia and right to Zimbabwe. Now I also have Congo 48. I snapped some selfies but the sign was quite large and the selfies were difficult to make. I went on and found a bar that only had one type of beer, 33, in 0.33l bottles but with promotion of buying 3 for 1000cfa. I joined the people sitting there with sets of 3 bottles. Across the road there was a cafeteria which also served food. I had rice with fish.

When I came back to the motel, my head hit the fan and the metal cover fell on the floor. I put it back in, touched accidentally the fan itself, got hit by the current that somehow got through onto the fan wings. I started the fan and when I increased its speed I heard the noise as if the wings were hitting the cover. I waited to see if that noise will somehow disappear but after a few minutes the whole fan detached from the ceiling and fell on the floor! Shit.

I went to the receptionist, she looked like she was very ill, completely devoid of energy, with a sad tired face and moving very slow. She looked at the fan and just said we have to change the room. So we did.

On the street I asked about transport to Congo. A man who owned/worked in a buvette gave me a phone number to a driver. I called. The driver came in his hillux. The immigration opens at 7:30am (it didn’t), he would pick me from the motel and while he would be searching for more clients, I’d wait for the passport stamp. The charge is 5000cfa to the border. From the border to Dolisie it was possible to get in a day (it wasn’t), the charge is a sweet 20,000cfa.

Dinner was roasted fish, I had a bar of all fishes, with manioc. The bar was 1500cfa and I wondered why in the middle of nowhere this fish is half price of the fish in Kribi, which was right there on the fishermen beach. Then I read an article about how Africa imports (!) most of its fish from China, which as well could be the fish that China fishes out of African waters. I mean, I don’t even know what to think about it. All these beautiful roads, they surely are built by the Chinese but the heavy trucks carrying the enormous logs of wood? Now the fish? Is there a good deal here?