A Year Without Winter – News

Dear friends. Entering Gabon will be the eleventh African country that we have visited.
During the previous ten countries, we have entered on our website detailed accounts of our experiences. From now on, we have decided to enter just the basic facts without the long emotional descriptions that, for the time being, we will keep in our notebook. When we return, we would dearly wish to publish a book called ‘A Year Without Winter’. This will contain the whole account of our journey. If we get to publish this book, the profits made will be used to carry on supporting the solidarity projects that we have made throughout our travels.

Frontier – 25 March 2008

Inside the wooden police booth, a German has been waiting to cross for 5 hours. We prepare ourselves for a similar fate but to our relief, we are allowed to leave after ten minutes. Meanwhile, the German still has to wait.
At the customs 200m ahead, our carnet is duly stamped and then we are off to the town of Bitam, the first town after the frontier, to have our passports stamped at the police station.

Bitam

We sleep on the lawn of the Bitam orphanage and make the most of the only shower available: an equatorial downpour.
GPS N2°04.018’ E11°29.555’

We remain for some hours with the children of the orphanage. They sing and dance in an extraordinary way. We try to join in but we just have them in stitches. We leave a toy and an ELFO token. (details in solidarity)

Equator – 26 March 2008

We step for the first time during our travels actually on the equator!

Ndjole – A place very much like a frontier

I imagine that in the Far West, frontiers must have looked something like this. This is a crossroads; the road, the railway and the river that transport tree trunks to the valley.
We sleep beside the river in front of a restaurant where we dine on a rather tough piece of steak.

Grumier – The run of death

Convoys of five, six trucks carrying tree trunks from the surrounding forests. They tear down these roads, resurfaced by the government particularly for the wood industries; they are very dangerous. They drive recklessly at unbelievable speeds; they do not stop, they cut corners, overtake on corners and over speed bumps. They are like runaway trains charging down the road. They are the main cause of deaths along these forest roads; we proceed with extreme caution!

They will sell anything just to fill their stomachs.

Libreville – 27 March 2008

This is the Capital and is so called because at the end of the eighteenth century, slaves here were set free.
In the French supermarkets, you can find anything, just like a European city… and the prices.

Visas for Congo
We apply for the Congo visa (30,000francs a head) which we can receive in 24 hours with a nasty surprise. We have to pay for a car permit to enter… that’ll be another 30,000francs thank you, a total of 90,000.
Discussing the problem will not resolve anything and I risk the declination of the visa.
None of the other over-landers have ever hinted to this permit. We are convinced that they are milking more money out of us.

Congo Visa DCR (ex Zaire)

We ask for our Congo visa DCR for seven days back (28,000francs a head) which is given back to us in three days. Once again, we they ask us to pay for a permit for the car. 30,000francs.
We are now so convinced that this is a racket, we decide not to take the visas, we will try in Brazaville... Money.

Visa for Angola
There shouldn’t have been any problems getting these visas, even the tourist ones that last a month. Pity then, that they have run out of the stickers that go on them. They say they will arrive in two or three months. Eh, Angola is far… and the excuse is poor.

Visa for Gabon
Hang on a sec... We’re already in Gabon! Yes, but that scatterbrained embassy bloke from Gabon in Cameroon gave us some false information. The worst is that we cannot reach Sao Tomé without a double entrance, something that he had guaranteed.
A double entrance application made with the first visa costs 25,000francs (as we had requested). Now, a double entrance request here costs 40,000francs, plus three visits to the immigration centre, one at the airport, one at the police station and a four-1hour wait in the ‘fridge-cell’ they call a waiting room at the visa office. Fortunately, the employees are reasonable.

Visa
Because of all this stress with the visas, we have decided to take a holiday from our holiday. So, we go and apply for another Visa for the island of Sao Tomé and Principe, 30,000francs each and we will have our hands on them within 24 hours.

And then, we fly from Libreville to the island of Sao Tomé. And then... HOLLIDAAAAAAAAY!