Gabon OVERVIEW
So you made arrangements for the adventure trip of a lifetime, you fidget throughout the flight with your mind set on gorilla safaris and your legs getting ready for strenuous hikes into the unknown. Then you land in Libreville and could swear you boarded a wrong plane. The oceanfront capital has a distinctly metropolitan feel with its chic cafes, slick boutiques, beaches thick with high-rise hotels, and all sorts of attractions at prices that make Paris seem cheap. Hold your horses though. Beyond the glitzy éclat, you'll soon detect a resplendent tapestry of nature and tribal life. In fact, you might be surprised how venturesome Gabon comes out.
With infrastructure not even close to budding, half the fun of traveling here is the travel itself, and if you can afford to hire a 4x4 and put up with some discomfort, gorgeous palm-fringed bays, verdant forests, undulating savannas, gaping estuaries, and Bantu villages brimming with crafts are all for the taking ... somewhere at the end of a potholed road. Cross the creepy liana bridges that span the torrential rivers of Bateke Plateau, track the primates in Lopé-Okanda Reserve, go fishing at the mouth of the River Ogooué, and sock away a couple of francs to enter Loango National Park and watch surfing hippos (sic!) in action.
With 10% of the country's area designated as national parks and close encounters with forest elephants as commonplace as the sunrise, Gabon provides ample opportunities for explores and daredevils to banish the blues of mundane routine and break free from the constraints of civilization. And if you get weary at any point of your primeval trek, Libreville will all too happily soothe your fatigue with its bevy of comforts.
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