Two Congos, Gabon, Sao Tome & Principe and Cabinda

cameroon rainforest

Adding an extra 1,500km to our route out of southeast Cameroon, courtesy of a river system with an unhelpful shortage of crossing points, was testing even by our standards.  On the map it looked like a minor inconvenience.  On the ground it meant a very long detour over roads that had already done their best to derail us.    

The dirt tracks that had carried us into the Congo Basin had been just about manageable on the way in, as most things are when you don’t yet fully understand what you’ve signed up for.  In a region that receives roughly twenty times the UK’s rainfall there was also the nagging possibility that our exit route would become impassable and we would, like Dr Livingstone, disappear for some time. 

We spent much of the journey watching the sky with the sort of attention normally reserved for mechanical warning lights (spoiler alert) but, apart from one night of violent storms that transformed our quarry campground into an orange lagoon, the tracks remained open.  Bob, for his part, continued with the stoicism of an elderly packhorse.  Three days later we were back where we started in the relative civilization of Yaounde, coated in a thick film of red dust but otherwise intact. 

the road to brazaville

In front of us now was a newly completed tarmac road stretching southeast towards Congo-Brazzaville: 1,600 km of uninterrupted ambition. Visas for the Central African countries ahead of us were smugly glued into our passports, and it was a rare overlanding interlude where everything was, temporarily, in agreement.

There are two Congos. The Republic of Congo (ROC) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sit side by side in Central Africa, divided for much of their length by the mighty Congo River. Together with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic (now behind us) and Gabon (off to our right somewhere in the greenery), they form the Congo Basin: a neat green patch on the maps but, on the ground, an endless wall of vegetation stretching beyond the horizon in every direction.

A vast, humid wilderness covering around 3.7 million square kilometers, it is the world’s second-largest rainforest after the Amazon but, interestingly, generates between 75% and 90% of its own rainfall, significantly more than the 50% produced by its global counterpart.

Crossing into the Republic of Congo marked our nineteenth African country.  Around two-thirds of the ROC lies within the basin and most of its six million inhabitants are sensibly concentrated around the main cities.  Away from these overpopulated hubs we were statistically more likely to encounter elephants or gorillas, although we did meet two overlanding Brits in an abandoned quarry.  An implausible encounter to anyone unfamiliar with overlanding.

makoua, equator monument

Oil dominates the economy, but the steady stream of logging trucks, heavily laden with tropical hardwoods, was visible evidence of another valuable export heading towards distant markets. ROC’s largest customer is China, the relationship a classic African development trade-off: roads and investment on one side, dependence and resource extraction on the other. The dilemma is difficult to ignore, but as modern-day travellers we were definitely benefiting.

The smooth road carried us through an endless corridor of rainforest.  A tiny detour allowed us to circle the equator monument a couple of times, but otherwise the view rarely changed as one hour stretched into the next. Thoughts wandered to European explorers, disappearing for years at a time into this malaria-infested wilderness, and we found ourselves admiring Stanley’s persistence. Whatever else history may choose to say about him, crossing the Congo Basin armed with little more than a notebook, a questionable map and a growing collection of increasingly unhappy porters was a level of commitment that deserves at least a passing acknowledgement.

We may well have mused longer on nineteenth-century exploration had the check engine warning light not illuminated prompting an unusually rapid response from Bob, who promptly dropped into limp mode.      

lebanese garage, brazaville

Our mechanical skills are embarrassingly pitiful. Yes, Bob is forcing us to expand our limited knowledge, but neither of us is particularly inclined and even simple maintenance, such as cleaning the air filter, often gets forgotten. Recalling recent weeks of dirty, dusty conditions, we were confident that we could fix our problem with a couple of hard slaps and a shake to the once-white filter, now bright orange and dense with trapped debris. Unfortunately, this achieved little beyond giving us something to do and, out of ideas, we averaged 40 kph over the remaining several hundred kilometres into Brazzaville.  Finding a Lebanese garage owner armed with a diagnostic machine proved easy enough; a P0103-17 code - mass air flow problem – not so much.

What followed was a ritual that would be repeated at several garages in more than one country.  Hoses were inspected, wiring was scrutinised, and the MAF sensor was cleaned and even temporarily replaced, but our problem persisted.  Tired, increasingly irritated and no closer to a solution, we sought refuge in the only remaining diagnostic tool available: alcohol.    

kinshasa, drc

Sitting on the terrace of the best hotel in town, looking across the Congo River at the twinkling lights of Kinshasa (capital of DRC), wasn’t the worst place to be, but dulling the frustration of our predicament with a stream of cocktails was going to be expensive. Pointe-Noire, Congo’s economic capital and largest port, promised a greater concentration of mechanics and short-lived hope.

diosso gorge

The newly completed 535 km road linking the two cities should have been a delight as it wound through the Mayombe Mountains.  The rainforest had been temporarily replaced with rolling, grassy savannahs and the dramatic steep-sided cliffs of the Diosso Gorge.  But Bob was stubbornly remaining in limp mode, resulting in much of the journey being in second gear crawling up one steep ascent after another, a growing convoy of trucks behind us.  Unable to reach Pointe-Noire in a day, we pulled into another abandoned quarry, this time finding a Dutch couple already installed.  They had spent the previous night in a Brazzaville police station after being forcibly moved from their camping spot next to a local cemetery by gun-wielding officers.

Despite sharing our perhaps equally misplaced affection for Land Rovers, and spending well over an hour trying to find a solution, Bob remained stubbornly convinced that limp mode was the appropriate response to whatever was going on.  There is a peculiar satisfaction in discovering fellow travellers whose experiences are every bit as testing as your own.  Mutual sympathy was exchanged as another evening disappeared into a haze of alcohol. 

Pointe-Noire’s garages proved no more successful, although one particularly determined French mechanic did manage to change the behaviour of the warning light (and associated limp mode) by applying duct tape to the wiring within the connection block.  A brief burst of optimism.

Driving into Gabon was now too ambitious.  One of the most heavily forested countries on earth, images of endless jungle roads through vast areas of remote and unpopulated regions, with the threat of heavy rain never far away were conjured up.  Deciding on an easier option, we abandoned Bob in a hotel car park to reflect on his recent underperformance and flew in.

libreville, gabon

It took less than an hour to fly into the capital of Libreville, long enough to witness the endless carpet of forest below us and a feeling of relief that we weren’t navigating our way through it.  Libreville, proved more pleasant than expected, once we escaped the airport; collecting our luggage took longer than the flight itself.  Wide roads, lined with palms and flowering trees suggested a city designed by sensible civil servants with access to substantial oil revenues.  It was clean and pleasantly functional provided you stayed clear of the overflowing pharmacies buckling under the demand for prescription drugs.

For more than five decades, Gabon was governed by two members of the same family.  Omar Bongo and later his son Ali Bongo were widely criticised for corruption, authoritarianism and elite enrichment, but one decision the made has left a legacy.  In 2002, Gabon created thirteen national parks covering roughly 10% of the country’s territory – an unusually ambitious conservation effort by any standard, let along in Central Africa. 

The result is one of Africa’s most intact natural environments.  Vast areas of rainforest remain protected, providing habitat for forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, and countless other species.  As the world has become increasingly concerned with climate change, Gabon has found itself in the unusual position of being valued not only for its oil but also for its trees, the forests absorbing more carbon than the country emits. 

The downside is accessibility.  Many of the parks are extremely remote and infrastructure remains limited.  Reports from fellow overlanders swung between an inability to reach some of the parks or disappointment at the management, or lack of, when they did. 

Without wheels, our own solution was considerably less adventurous.  A ninety-minute boat ride from Michele Marina carried us across the Komo estuary, followed by a forty-five-minute journey in an open-sided safari truck to Chez Beti, a beachside rustic eco-lodge on the edge of the Nyonie region. 

The lodge was run by Beti, a food loving Frenchman who embodied several national stereotypes simultaneously.  Each mealtime, guests (mostly Gabon ex-pats) gathered around a communal table where excellent food, unlimited wine and generous spirits flowed with reassuring consistency. 

Wildlife sightings were mixed.  Elephants and buffalo proved reasonably cooperative, gorillas and leopards remained committed to maintaining their reputations for rarity.  It hardly mattered.  On the edge of the Wonga Wongue National Park, the setting was extraordinary: pristine beaches, wide open savannah and dense equatorial forest all combined in a landscape that felt almost untouched.  It would have been easy to stay longer but another flight awaited. 

sao tome

Some 200km off Gabon and almost exactly on the equator, Sao Tome and Principe form Africa’s second-smallest nation after the Seychelles.  Having been assured that we could transit back through Libreville and onward to Pointe-Noire without the inconvenience of another visa application, we boarded the plane before anyone had the chance to reconsider. 

Landing on Sao Tome - the larger island, home to most of the country’s 200,000 inhabitants and named after the doubting apostle – we found a capital draped around a picturesque bay.  Some colonial buildings, such as the Presidential Palace, retained a degree of faded grandeur; but most were dilapidated and boarded up.  None of the ATMs were prepared to dispense cash, a recurring African problem for which Euros remain an effective cure.

ilheu das rolas, sao tome

The compact National Museum occupied a squat coastal fort and offered a concise history of the islands.  Outside stood statues of the Portuguese explorers who arrived in 1471 to discover an uninhabited paradise and immediately set about importing sugar cane and slaves.  Nearby was a bust of Amador Viera, who led a major slave revolt before being captured, hanged and quartered and remains one of the country’s national heroes.

Our self-guided tour was brief.  One room celebrated cocoa, which transformed the islands into the world’s largest producer in the early twentieth century and earned them the nickname: “The Chocolate Islands”.  Another displayed colonial furniture.  A third, showed grainy photographs of tortured Black Africans, providing a less comfortable reminder that, even after slavery was abolished, plantation labour remained a decidedly unpleasant occupation

Scattered across the island are around 150 former rocas – vast colonial plantation estates that once functioned as self-contained miniature towns.  Some have been restored as boutique hotels and restaurants, others are still inhabited, despite their crumbling state, by the descendants of indentured labourers, but most sit abandoned, slowly disappearing beneath the jungle they once displaced.

Driving around the island on potholed roads, we saw derelict villas, collapsing jettioes, baobabs, coconut palms and brilliant turquoise bays where fishermen bobbed in dugout canoes.  The further south we travelled, the more the island seemed to relax.  By the time we reached the southern tip, the local philosophy of Leve Leve - “take it easy” - seemed entirely logical.  After sufficient quantities of sweet palm wine, it was difficult to argue for any alternative.

another equator marker

A short boat trip over the crystal-clear waters of the Atlantic deposited us on the sandy shores of Ilheu das Rolas, a tiny, 2-square kilometre islet straddling both hemispheres.  Here a short but sweaty climb led to the Equator Monument, a giant mosaic world map built by Portuguese naval officer and explorer Gago Coutinho.

Before becoming one of the first people to fly across the South Atlantic in 1922, Coutinho had also completed the first recorded ascent of Pico do Sao Tome.  Rising to 2,024 metres, the peak supposedly resembles a clothes iron, although this is difficult to verify since its summit spends much of its life concealed beneath a dense cloud layer known locally as leite de vaodor – flying fish milk.

pico sao tome

Naturally, we decided to climb it.  Two local guides arrived at our lodge the following morning, slightly late but cheerful enough to be forgiven.  The standard trek takes two days, with a night spent camping near the summit.  Going against sound recommendations, we elected to climb and descend in a single day. 

The first couple of hours passed pleasantly enough through cocoa and banana plantations before the trail entered primary rainforest.  Giant ferns, tangled lianas, orchids and towering trees closed in around us.  The Mona monkeys crashing through the canopy overhead were a much more reassuring sight than Sao Tome’s infamous three metre Cobra Preta, whose bite reportedly gives victims roughly two hours to find anti-venom before fatal paralysis sets in.

We reached the summit shortly after midday.  The final approach,m a scramble along a narrow ridge, clinging to roots and negotiating steep drop-offs.  After all that effort, the summit rewarded us with a chipped concrete marker and absolutely no view whatsoever, the flying fish milk lapping at our feet.

tiny plane to principe

Our descent coincided with heavy rain.  The degree of protection provided by the forest canopy wasn’t sufficient to prevent all of us sliding downhill in a series of increasingly undignified manoeuvres.  With latitude coordinates of 0° 16' 10'', it was pitch black by 6pm and our last hour was an undignified stumble by phone torch.  Only once we were safely back at the lodge, opening a bottle of vinho verde, did we conclude that the one-day excursion had been a good idea. 

Any ambitions for further strenuous hiking were abandoned the following morning.  Instead, we flew to Principe, the smaller island, 160km to the northeast.  Home to fewer than 9,000 people, it is only 15 km long and possesses an airport so compact that disembarkation, immigration and exiting of the terminal took less than five minutes.

sundy praia, principe

Our accommodation was at one of several resorts owned by South African tech entrepreneur and astronaut Mark Shuttleworth.  According to local lore, after spotting Principe’s green dot from his rocket, ‘the Man in the Moon’ decided to live there.  His company HBD Principe - “Here Be Dragons” – now employs most of the population.

Back in Pointe Noire, no miracle had materialised and Bob was still seriously underpowered.  Having exhausted all the mechanics within a decent radius there was nothing for it but to continue – slowly.  Our route now would take us into from the ROC into Cabinda (Angola), across a sliver of the DRC and finally into Angola proper.

fuel shortages

Cabinda is one of Africa more peculiar geographical arrangements: a small piece of Angola that isn’t actually connected to the rest of Angola.  Marooned between the two Congos and sitting atop an inordinate quantity of oil, it is a highly militarised province.   Armed soldiers were managing long fuel queues and stopping part way across a sandy plain for a pee we were a bit alarmed to hear gunfire close by.  Five minutes later we passed a group of guys in army fatigues apparently on maneouvres, although with one of them with his pants around his ankles, the nature of the exercise remained unclear.   

camping drc

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is large enough to be its own continent.  Nearly  four times the size of Western Europe, it contains well over 100 million people, hundreds of ethnic groups, countless languages and enough minerals to make multinational corporations weak at the knees.

The east of the country remains highly insecure, with armed groups ensuring it features prominently on most foreign ministries’ lists of places best admired from elsewhere.  Our intention was therefore simple: hug the western edge and escape into Angola as efficiently as possible.    

Our route led inland and we re-entered rainforest-clad hills.  Progress was again slow which meant that we had to spend the night beside the road not far from the border.  Apart from trying to decipher a road tax system involving the purchase of multiple tickets which were randomly collected at armed checkpoints, our passage through western DRC was gratefully uneventful.  The border, however, was another matter. 

matadi bridge, drc

We had the choice of two possible crossings into Angola: Matadi/Noqui and Lufu/Luvo.  The latter involved a longer detour but promised better roads.  Both required passage through Matadi, the last major navigable point on the Congo River.  Still undecided, we crossed the Matadi Bridge, a 520 metre suspension span that held the title of Africa’s longest bridge of its type for twenty-five years before Mozambique’s Maputo-Katembe Bridge stole its crown. 

Prepared for the well documented chaos of Matadi, it appeared that we had arrived on one of its quieter days and we arrived at our crucial junction far sooner than anticipated and, making the sort of snap decision that usually precedes an inconvenience, ignored the turn towards Noqui and continued straight ahead.

matadi traffic

Five minutes later we were stationary, literally swallowed up by an impenetrable mass of trucks, cars and enough motorbikes to fill several football stadiums.  Previously wide, level roads, had narrowed into steep streets and the traffic stretched uphill as far as we could see.  We progressed in inches, enduring regular abuse from motorcyclists for offences that appeared entirely imaginary, and performed one breath-holding hill start after another.  We thought the worst of it was over when we managed to get past the enormous boat that one truck was trying to get to the top of the hill but it took another couple of hours until everyone fell away and we were once again alone, surrounded by the forest.

Judging by the queue of freight trucks outside immigration, Lufu-Luvo was clearly a busy commercial crossing.  But, immediately noticed, formalities were completed quickly providing some vindication for our choice.  Then, just as we were preparing to drive through the barriers separating us from Angola, an armed guard appeared and instructed us to wait.    

All traffic was halted.  As was the growing crowds of pedestrians gathering near the barriers.  Before long, men draped in flags and shouting through loudhailers arrived, prompting considerably excitement amongst the assembled masses.  Several surges towards the border followed, each repelled by a collection of police and army armed with rifles and sticks.

The immigration office was being closely guarded and pressed up against the outside wall looked to be an optimum position as we repeatedly attempted to persuade officials that, as entirely uninvolved foreigners, it would be better if we were allowed through.  Regardless of whether or not our requests were understood, the answer remained a firm no. 

After about an hour, whatever demonstration, rally or disagreement was going on, appeared to lose momentum.  Not hanging around for a resurgence, or permission, we climbed back into Bob and rolled quietly towards the middle of the concourse just as the barriers were lifted.  Angola here we come! 

Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea & Central African Republic

banyO track nigeria to cameroon

The mountain crossing from Nigeria into Cameroon has something of a reputation in overlanding circles. Stories circulate of vehicles swallowed by mud, of endless winching in torrential rain, and of travelers emerging days later with shattered nerves and marriages hanging by a thread.

At 145 km it is not especially long. It simply concentrates a remarkable variety of unpleasant road conditions into one sustained experience: deeply rutted tracks, steep clay inclines, river crossings and surfaces that, at the first hint of rain, transform into something between grease and a practical joke.

BANYO TRACK

We were fortunate. Crossing at the very end of the dry season meant conditions were about as good as they ever get. Bob, after several weeks of mechanical melodrama that had caused us to question both his reliability and our life choices, behaved impeccably. What had sat niggling at the back of our minds for weeks turned out to be one of dramatic mountain scenery, empty tracks and just enough difficulty to feel adventurous without requiring follow-up counselling.

We rolled into the Muslim town of Banyo on the first day of Eid to discover that Cameroon’s customs officials had, quite reasonably, better things to be doing. The Douane office was shuttered, the weekend loomed, and it appeared we might be settling in for an unplanned residency.

Our search for accommodation produced one of those establishments where the distinction between “room available” and “room you would like to sleep in” is largely semantic. We paid for a room but slept in Bob, which turned out to be money well spent. The owner proved to be the brother of the absent customs officer and, more importantly, had connections at the local army base where diesel could still be procured.

The following morning, we returned to the Douane just as a man on a motorbike appeared, evidently summoned from more pressing engagements. Without even bothering to dismount, he produced a rubber stamp from his backpack, applied it to our Carnet and drove off. Thus was our entry into Cameroon solemnly ratified.

Immigration was rather less formal. There wasn’t any. Our only official acknowledgement of entering the country came in the form of a policewoman who photographed Bob on her phone. We seemed to be the only people remotely concerned by the absence of passport stamps.

ekom-nkam falls

Cameroon likes to market itself as “Africa in miniature”, which sounds charmingly manageable until one discovers this includes miniature versions of colonial partition, linguistic division and low-grade insurgency. Roughly the size of Spain and home to some 29 million people, it has a youthful, fast-growing population and a religious divide that, unlike in many places, generally rubs along with commendable restraint: predominantly Muslim in the north, mostly Christian elsewhere, and with remarkably little of the theological enthusiasm for making life difficult for one another. So why is it so difficult to access from Nigeria?

The explanation lies in the sort of colonial tidying-up exercise at which European powers once excelled. Cameroon began life as a German colony before, following the inconvenience of the First World War, being carved up between Britain and France. The British were allocated two narrow strips along the Nigerian border, while the French helped themselves to the remaining eighty percent.

manengouba

When independence arrived in 1960, the map was stitched back together but the differing legal systems, languages and political expectations remained. Over time, many English-speaking Cameroonians came to be increasingly sidelined by the Francophone government in Yaounde – rather as if invited to a party only to discover they’d been seated at the children’s table.

Tensions simmered for decades before boiling over in 2016, when protests by lawyers and teachers over language and judicial representation were met with the sort of heavy-handed response that rarely improves matters. Separatists declared an independent state, rather grandly christened “Ambazonia”, and a low-level insurgency has smoldered ever since, producing sporadic clashes, kidnappings and enough roadblocks to keep any bureaucracy enthusiast thoroughly occupied.

The only alternative to our mountain crossing was to join a 300km twice-weekly military convoy through separatist territory – no doubt an efficient service, though faintly at odds with the spirit of overlanding Africa to spend the journey under armed escort.

From Banyo, our route wound south through Cameroon’s western Anglophone highlands, a landscape of volcanic peaks, steep agricultural terraces and luxuriant green slopes that felt refreshingly alpine after the furnace conditions of Benin and Nigeria.

Perhaps our being English helped, but we found people unfailingly warm and welcoming. The sole exception were the men in orange road-safety vests, who displayed an almost touching commitment to stopping us at every conceivable opportunity in the hope that either Bob or his occupants had committed some previously undiscovered motoring offence. One radar trap conveniently positioned a few hundred metres before the speed reduction sign, led to half an hour of argument before the matter was settled by our suggestion of taking down details and visiting the Minister for Tourism.

mt cameroon

The cooler temperatures encouraged activity. We detoured to the thunderous Ekom-Nkam Falls and the twin crater lakes of Mount Manengouba, before turning our attention to Mount Cameroon, the brooding active volcano which, at 4,095 metres is West Africa’s highest peak. Our summit attempt was, in mountaineering terminology a complete shambles.

Having spent weeks in such relentless heat that we had more or less forgotten weather possessed other settings, we set off carrying entirely inappropriate gear and the sort of misplaced optimism usually associated with amateur investors. Several hours later we were engulfed by a sleet storm of startling vindictiveness. Within minutes we were soaked, freezing and trudging miserably downhill. Thus chastened, we descended to the sticky coastal sprawl of Douala ready for a brief retirement from the road.

Fortunately, salvation lay just 128 km offshore. A twenty-minute flight would carry us to Bioko, the volcanic island home to Equatorial Guinea’s capital, and equally importantly, allow us to add another flag to Bob’s steadily expanding collection. This latter objective may not have been entirely rational, but overlanding has never been an activity especially burdened by such descriptions.

view of mount cameroon from equatorial guinea

Equatorial Guinea consists of the mainland region of Rio Muni and five islands, including Bioko, where the capital Malabo is located. It is a country that has traditionally hidden from tourism though the recent introduction of an e-visa (air access only) has eased matters somewhat. Overland access to the mainland remains a lottery best avoided.

living conditions on bioko island

It was hard not to be impressed on arrival. The clean, modern airport – admittedly rather short on people – was efficient, and our guide was waiting to greet us. The drive to our hotel followed a new three-lane highway as eerily devoid of life as the terminal itself. Glossy office blocks and apartment complexes rose from the lush vegetation, polished and immaculate, but almost entirely empty.

We passed the conference centre, built for African Union summits, beside fifty-two identical empty mansions complete with helipads for visiting heads of state. To date, two summits have been held, the most recent in 2014. The infrastructure was undeniably superb, provided one’s definition of success does not depend on people actually using it.

Passing an artificial beach and an ultramodern hospital so exclusive as to be largely non-operational, we arrived in Sipopo: Equatorial Guinea’s carefully constructed showpiece. President Teodoro Obiang, Africa’s longest-serving ruler spent more than half a billion pounds on this rebrand of prosperity while presiding over one of the world’s most unequal societies.

Few outsiders paid much attention to this Spanish-speaking backwater until the discovery of oil brought Western energy giants flocking in and propelled the ruling family onto the global rich list. Although per-capita wealth exceeds Britain’s, around two-thirds of Equatorial Guinea’s population - less than 2 million - survives on one or two dollars a day. Infant mortality rates remain among the world’s worst, access to electricity and healthcare is poor fewer than 20% of the population have access to potable water.

empty mansions

In stark contrast, through relentless embezzlement and extortion, the President and his family inhabit a world of multi-million-dollar mansions, private jets, superyachts and - if local stories are to be believed - a rainbow-coloured fleet of Ferraris on standby to coordinate with handbags and socks.

Freedom House places Equatorial Guinea alongside Burma, North Korea and Somalia on its list of the world's worst regimes: a ruthless one-party state where elections are stage-managed, opponents jailed and state coffers enthusiastically looted. Daily life is tightly controlled, while the government stands accused of torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Breakfast at the Sofitel Sipopo – not to be confused with the equally fabulous-looking but conspicuously empty Sofitel Malabo back towards the airport - was lavish enough to feed every occupant of the hotel’s two hundred rooms. Instead, it catered to perhaps a dozen guests. As we watched one large, heavily tattooed individual slowly cracking his neck while contemplating the pastries, it occurred to us that we were the only people present without personal security. Pehaps the eye-watering €300-a-day fee for our guide was justified after all.

Mr. Augustine was surprisingly candid about life on the island as we passed through an abundance of armed checkpoints. Paranoia perhaps seemed excessive on such a small island but after the failed “Wonga Coup” of 2004 - when a group of British-led mercenaries tried to overthrow Obiang in pursuit of the country’s oil wealth – perhaps it was not entirely misplaced. Thanks to a brother-in-law high up in the military, our guide was able to take us into areas officially off-limits without a tourist permit that, owing to the usual bureaucratic gymnastics, we had been unable to obtain.

Rarely had we encountered such untouched nature. We hiked for hours through pristine rainforest to reach the crater lake of Moka. At Ureka, the black-sand beach stretched to the horizon, the relentless drone of insects from the dense jungle competing with the crashing Atlantic surf. Our footprints were the only ones marking the shore. It was a raw, astonishing paradise, made all the more difficult to reconcile with the profound dysfunction and repression beyond it.

This tiny African country, stripped of the easy smiles that have accompanied us through much of the Continent, left an outsized impression, its citizens quietly hopeful for change. At the time of our visit, rather improbably, some seemed to be pinning those hopes on intervention from Trump.

Back in Cameroon we drove inland to the hilly capital of Yaounde, where despite a newly improved road network, traffic had achieved total paralysis. Drivers ignored traffic lights, treated roundabouts as gladiatorial arenas, and defended every inch of tarmac with grim determination. A sizeable contingent of traffic police attempted to restore order and failed magnificently.

Still, it had a nice vibe.

We had visited the mountains, seen the coast and explored its two largest cities. It was now time to head into the vast rainforests on the western edge of the Congo Basin.

non-stop logging trucks, cameroon

It took three arduous days of driving to reach the tiny jungle village of Libongo. Despite being unable to find any recent information on the state of the road, we had set off in reasonably good spirits, buoyed by the knowledge that this had once been a well- trodden route for tour groups. The key phrase being once.

Any close inspection suggested the road had been quietly deteriorating ever since Covid put an end to such things. A decent stretch of tarmac gradually gave way to a less decent one before disappearing entirely beneath iron rich red dirt - a particular nemesis of ours. This stuff gets everywhere. When dry, it somehow infiltrates drawers, bedding, clothing and every conceivably surface. When wet, it transforms into a slick orange slime with all the traction of buttered glass, coating everything it touches in fluorescent mud.

corrugations, no traction and red dirt

As we wrestled to keep Bob travelling in something approximating a straight line, we also had to contend with hundreds of kilometres of savage washboard corrugations and heavily laden logging trucks, hurtling towards us with all the caution of incoming artillery.

On the plus side, at least we no longer had the bicycles to worry about. Unable to endure the punishment any longer, our bike rack finally admitted defeat. The bikes would probably have been dragged behind us for considerably longer had we not passed through a remote jungle village where the locals kindly pointed out our rather unconventional method of transportation. Many hands swiftly set about disentangling the mangled remains from what was left of the rack, and with no practical way of carrying them any further, we handed them over.

bike donation

Severed brake wires, missing pedals and bent frames were all graciously overlooked as these “gifts from god” were received with considerably more enthusiasm than they objectively warranted. We did not linger for the celebrations, and a quick glance in the rear-view mirror suggested lively negotiations over ownership were already underway.

By now darkness was falling, and finding somewhere to wild camp was proving difficult. The road had effectively been hacked out of solid jungle, with the occasional patches of cleared ground already occupied. Eventually, we spotted a level grassy football pitch beside a village and sought permission from the chief to stay the night.

He gladly accepted a small donation to the village. A young man appeared with water and began sponging several inches of red clay from Bob’s flanks, while around forty spectators gathered to watch the evening’s entertainment: two exhausted white people attempting to look competent. Once darkness made further observation impractical, the audience dispersed.

Late the following day we finally reached Libongo. After introducing ourselves to the young men of the National Gendarmerie, we negotiated safe parking beside their hut in exchange for access to our Starlink. This tiny and remote logging settlement in Cameroon’s far southeast stood on one side of the Sangha river; the Central African Republic lay on the other.

Disappointed at the prospect of losing their internet connection, but promising to keep a close eye on Bob, the Gendarmes waved us off the next morning. Having secured a ludicrously expensive boat crossing - € 60 for 10 minutes’ work – immigration on both sides was handled by armed officials reclining in tiny huts at the waters’ edge.

border crossing cameroon to central africa republic

Once across, and apparently eager to claim the bags of vegetables we had been instructed to procure at Libongo’s tiny market, our lodge had dispatched “the chainsaw man” to collect us for the onward journey. The bumpy 3-hour trip along a rutted and overgrown jungle track might have taken somewhat less time had our vehicle not required its axle to be removed en-route so that the universal joint could be replaced.

From a tourist’s perspective, the Central African Republic is one of the most remote, difficult and unpredictable countries in Africa. Infrastructure is minimal, security can change rapidly, and travel is often complicated by fuel shortages, poor roads and vast tracts of empty country. Yet, at its southwestern tip lies a genuine gem: the Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve, a vast protected rainforest that supports some of the most remarkably intact wildlife populations left on the continent.

Entry to the park by boat and overland from neighbouring Cameroon or the Republic of Congo is made possible by a special permit issued on arrival. This conveniently removes the need for a full CAR visa, though it also rather firmly restricts your movements to the reserve itself. On arrival accommodation options are limited to a couple of eco-lodges where prices reflect less luxury than the sheer logistical achievement of operating in such isolation.

roadside repairs

Sangha Lodge had clearly seen better days though one has to admire anyone who has managed to establish functioning accommodation in the middle of a rainforest. The South African owner was absent during our visit, but had left us in capable hands: cheerful staff, an attentive English-speaking, French guide, and a safari vehicle entirely at our disposal.

The reserve’s most celebrated feature is Dzanga Bai, a natural forest clearing where animals congregate to feed on mineral-rich soils and water. A large wooden observation platform overlooks the bai, and the scene awaiting us at the top is one we will never forget. Ian counted more than 130 forest elephants simply going about their business: socializing, child-minding, squabbling over the best mineral pits and, in the case of several amorous bulls, attempting to score.

Clearings like this, monitored with support from the World Wide Fund for Nature, have proved invaluable for reducing poaching and tracking elephant populations.

The reserve’s other flagship project is its Primate Habituation Programme, established in the mid-1990s to study and protect western lowland gorillas. It has also created one of the few opportunities on earth to spend time with a habituated family group.

After an hour of sweating through dense rainforest, our guides abruptly signalled for silence and directed us down a slippery slope into a narrow gulley of shallow water. On the opposite bank, no more than 5 metres away and partially obscured by foliage, sat a female gorilla. She was one of six belonging to the group of the large silverback, Limo.

As our eyes adjusted, more shapes gradually materialized: several females and four juveniles scattered among the undergrowth. When the group moved higher up the slope, we followed, surprised at how completely our presence failed to distract them from the pressing business of settling down for a midday snooze.

Freed from adult supervision, the juveniles took the opportunity to engage in a vigorous display of acrobatics and general showing off until one exasperated female intervened, reprimanding the youngsters. This didn’t go down too well with the other females who promptly added their opinion. The resulting commotion was short-lived. Limo, roused from his own slumber, intervened with the resigned authority of a weary patriarch who had defused this exact dispute far too many times before.

We spent an hour with Limo and his family before it was time to leave. The parallels with human family dynamics were impossible to ignore, and it was an extraordinary privilege made possible only through years of careful habituation, during which the gorillas gradually become accustomed to human observers.

When initially contacted, our absent lodge owner had assured us that we could continue south from Libongo and ferry across the narrow Ngoko river border to Ouesso, Republic of Congo. This may once have been true, but with the completion of a tarmac road from Yaounde all the way to Congo’s capital, Brazaville, traffic is now expected to cross at the main Ntam border. In the absence of any ferries, our anticipated 250km journey now looked to include balancing Bob atop two narrow planks balanced across two adjacent pirogues. Technically possible but then so is juggling chainsaws. There also remained the minor issue of whether immigration officials would approve.

Reluctant to risk Bob receiving an unscheduled baptism, we resigned ourselves to retracing our tracks - 750km back to Yaounde followed by another 810km to Ouesso. It is a peculiar overlanding state of mind in which adding well over 1,500 km to the route registers merely as a minor adjustment.