 Gabon Click to get the inside scoop from real travelers here at VirtualTourist. See the Gabon Travel GuideInside advice from real people on:Overview, Hotels, Things to Do, Restaurants, Nightlife, Shopping, General Tips, Transportation, Off the Beaten Path, Tourist Traps, Warnings or Dangers, Local Customs, Packing Lists or Sports Travel.
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| Page Views: 2,439 Last Visit to Gabon: May, 1982 I Used To Live Here | THE rain forest by kokoryko - last update: Sep 11, 2006 |
The emerald forest forest Well the title is just a hello to John Boorman's movie recorded in Amazonia. Here it is Gabon, the African rain forest. It was not exactly a travel; I spent 18 month in Gabon as a volunteer with the French ministry of cooperation and development. I was assigned as exploration geologist to the ministry of mines and spent 12 month in the rain forest doing my job: Exploration. |
|  | Living in the rain forest Living in the rain forest is something special for an European, and probably for most of people, even in Africa, where more and more people live in cities or villages. Most of the work I was living like a nomad in the forest, changing camp every day or every 2-3 days. When you enter the forest, you do not know when you will come out. The Monts de Cristal area in northern Gabon is almost barren of people (at the time, there were less than 1 million inhabitants in Gabon, for an area half of France and if you think there are cities and villages, there is not a lot left for the "countryside") I walked between 15 and 30 km per day and during two weeks sometimes we met no human being neither we even saw traces of population. |
|  | Secondary camp: nice weather, indeed! When work had to be done in certain ares where we stayed for more than one week we build "secondary camps", tents and tarpaulins, trying to bring as much equipment as possible, to make the "explorers" life easy. The rain forest is a place where it . . . rains ! During the rainy season,heavy rains sometimes last continuously for 2-3 days, and during the "dry" season, there is no week without rain. Well there will not be a lot of tips here, they may be outdated, just some general impressions, few advice for the ones who may have the luck to go really inside the forest. All this is really "off the beaten path" and as all is like that I put them in "normal" categories. Remark: the pictures are old, the colors faded out with time, and the scanning reduces a bit the sharpness. Other remark: there are some tips about wildlife (food for me, at that time), some possibly chocking pictures (dead animals), some remarks which may be unappropriate in the 21th century; remember this was 26 years ago ; I was a nature lover at that time, and I am still one- a realistic nature lover- and I do not at all support hunting or game eating in Europe or other "civilised countries, so please, do not misunderstand what I write sometimes. |
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| Pros: | "Experience of a lifetime." | | Cons: | "Be careful with health." | | In A Nutshell: | "missing this special ambience" |
kokoryko's Gabon Travel Tips
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Comments for kokoryko about Gabon | | | | |
Bwana_Brown Sun Jan 27, 2008 19:59 UTC This page made my day! What a fantastic account of your days in the wilds of Gabon - it made my 3-years in Papua New Guinea look like a walk in the park! These old photos and comments brought back happy memories of Zambian days! Loved the 'grumiers' too. | atufft Thu Jan 24, 2008 04:12 UTC Thanks for writing and images of your vintage experience in Gabon, a place we almost visited, but chose Ghana/Burkina Faso instead. Maybe one day we will get into the great forest there. | janiebaxter Sun Jan 20, 2008 14:17 UTC Hello, Thank you for your comment on my pages! Your Gabon pages are great - this place is high on my wish list. | JohnniOmani Thu Aug 16, 2007 15:08 UTC G'day , now that is what I call an adventure. Great stuff. Cheers from Nova Scotia. Jz |
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