GABON 2005

GABON 2005

Welcome to the website of our Gabon vacation. We are Jerry and Jacorien and our daughters Lucy and Suzie and in July 2005 we visited our friends in Gabon. This website is a photographic report of our vacation.

Our friend works for Shell and he and his family are positioned in Gabon for three years. They live in the Shell camp Yenzi, close to a Gabonese town called Gamba.

Since we didn't know anything about Gabon before our friends went there, I made a page with some general information about Gabon (location, weather, animals, etc): things that we learned about Gabon during the preparation of our trip and during our actual stay there.

The rest of this website consists of two parts, corresponding with the two parts of our vacation:

1. In and around Yenzi / Gamba:

In the first place we spent time with our friends around where they live:

	In the 'Yenzi and Gamba' page you can find some pictures of the Shell camp Yenzi and the town Gamba, including some pictures of the tailor who made some real African dresses for Lucy and Suzie. There are also pictures of Kingsley's farm where we got our fresh vegetables.
	On the 'Smithsonian' page are some pictures of our visit to the Biodiversity Center of the Smithsonian Institution's Gabon Research Program, where they are doing research on the impact of oil activities on the flora and fauna of Gabon
	The 'Elephant Hill' page shows pictures of our day trip to the plains of the inland near Gamba: to Elephant Hill and Hidden Valley
	The 'Beaches' page contains pictures of a picnic at Mike's Bay and an afternoon at Point Pedras (where we saw many crabs). We went camping for one night at Mike's Bay (where we found fresh hippo tracks) and in the early morning, at low tide, we drove over the beach to Sette Cama. This page also has some pictures of the off-road driving that we did, of the burning savanna, and of a gorilla that we saw in a far distance (or was it a chimpanzee? Check the video excerpt)
	On the 'flying' page you can see some nice pictures of Gabon from the air.

2. The Loango National Park

We spent a couple of days in the Loango National Park. We booked our trip through 'Operation Loango':

	We spent two wonderful days at Evengue, also known as the gorilla island. Part of the island is fenced off and that is where a couple of gorillas live as part of a gorilla rehabilitation program. We learned a lot about gorilla's from their great caregiver Lajie.
	From Evengue we went to Iguela via the Mpivie River: a beautiful trip. On the way we passed Mission St. Anne and on the river we saw several birds (tiger heron, kingfisher) and a slender snout crocodile.
	We spent three nights at the Iguela lodge (the park headquarters)
	At the Wildlife page you can see some pictures of the animals that we saw on our two boat trips, a game drive and bush walk (without kids). We saw two hippos, one elephant, buffalo, and several birds (hamercop, and palm nut vulture). We also visited the Tassi bush camp. All these trips were half-day trips from the Iguela Lodge.
	We also spent a leisure morning at the beach of St. Catharine, picking shells and writing in the sand.

This site also contains five video clips, which you can recognize by the video icon

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