Having seen photos from Werner of road conditions via the
southern route, while we were in Lambarene, and repeated advice that the mud
ponds on that road were too deep for the Enterprise, we decided to ‘strike out
east’. We met the Oasis truck en route back to the Lope turn-off and Steve,
their driver confirmed we had made the right decision to backtrack and go east.
When we got off the tarmac of the RN2 towards Lope the dirt road was like a lot
we had travelled on before, reasonable sections where we could go along at
20km/hr, bad sections of corrugations where we were down to 10km/hr and fairly
short muddy sections where we pulled a small beer delivery truck out twice but were
no problem for us in 4WD. We spent a lot of time scanning the jungle for
animals as there were elephant droppings every 50m in places. Lope was smaller
than expected and although they had a tap to fill our main water tank, we were
unable to buy any bottled drinking water. A local shopkeeper told us it would
take 2-3 days to get to Franceville and that there were bad sections in the
road ahead but would be no worse than the road we had just driven. Just after
leaving Lope we stopped a pickup with a European driving it who told us it
should take 7-10 hours to Franceville and that there had been 2 trucks that had
come from that direction that morning. So, we set off with some confidence that
we should be able to manage the conditions ahead. The scenery was stunning with
rolling hills and savannah, just the place to have our own safari.
We were a little short on drinking water but had plenty of
wash water we could chemically sterilize. We passed a Chinese logging camp
towards the end of the second day and
they seemed very friendly so we overnighted there. They were very busy into the
early hours loading the grumier trucks with huge logs and kept us awake until
after 2am with the noise of roaring machinery. We left at daybreak in the hope
of seeing forest elephants or monkeys still on the road. We saw lots of
elephant footprints and the tracks in the mud of a very big cat, possibly a
leopard. 33kms and 4 hours later we came
to another muddy patch with a clear best route with to the right side of the
road. The left hand part of this route was through a pool of water that
appeared to be relatively shallow and no problem. As we were ¾ of the way
through the wet patch, the back of the Enterprise slid sideways and the rear
wheels slid into a deep hole with the entire back end hung up on the box. To
start with we got the spade out and did some digging and jacking up the front
wheels to get a waffle board and steel sandplate underneath for grip. It was
impossible to get to the rear wheels to jack them up because of soft mud with
the consistency of double cream. There were no big trees to winch off but we
did attach the winch cable and a ratchet strap to the nearest flimsy ‘windmill
tree’ sapling. The ground that the vehicle was resting on at the back was rock
hard so we were unable to reverse out and in trying to do so made it worse. The
drain pipe to our full water tank was dislodged and we rapidly lost all the
contents apart from about 3 ½ litres which Sue managed to fill from the kitchen
tap before it all ran out. This became quite worrying as we did not have a good
supply of bottled water. On the third
day we were considering filtering water from the ruts, containing frogspawn and
other wildlife.
On the second day we started digging in earnest and baling
water from underneath the rear passenger side wheel. It was hard work actually
getting at the concrete hard laterite to make much progress. Chris jacked the
Enterprise forward slowly by positioning the jack against the tow bar which
succeeded in temporarily raising the rear wheel. We were impeded greatly by the
fact that there were millions of little black flies which got into our eyes,
noses and mouths and swarms of sweat bees and a few wasps. We ended up wearing
full body armour: netted hats like beekeepers, long sleeved shirts, old jeans,
socks, Sue in her Ghana striped wellies and yellow rubber gloves and Chris in a
pair of trainers but no gloves. On the first day Sue was stung on the arm which
swelled up badly. In total Chris suffered 22 bee stings but fortunately he was
little affected by them. He had to suffer his worst fear of claustrophobia by
crawling into the confined space under the Enterprise, lying full length on his
back in a pool of mud and scrabbling at the stony earth with his bare hands at
full arm’s length.
We kept hoping for some other vehicle to pass in either
direction. It was too hot to work in the early afternoon, so we started at
daybreak on the 2nd and 3rd days, worked until it was
unbearable and then rested until late afternoon when it began to cool and the
bees and flies were less active. We were living inside the Enterprise in the
mud and flies which came in every time we opened the door, wearing just our
underwear. At night we had the frog chorus, which was so raucous and close by
that we were unable to sleep. We had monkeys the first night to tempt us that
we might get a glimpse, but apart from hearing a large animal crashing through
the undergrowth we saw nothing but lizards during the daytime. Sue was
suffering from the wasp/bee sting and on antihistamine tablets which caused
drowsiness and Chris was beginning to flag due to heat exhaustion and
dehydration. Luckily our supply of rehydration treatment helped a lot, but the
worry and lack of sleep was beginning to show on the morning of Tuesday, 7th
– Chris’s birthday. He was out early 0530 again digging and Sue preparing to face
the flies and bees, with the occasional attempt at moving the vehicle forward,
without success, when at 8am a pick-up with 2 large men appeared from behind
us. They had travelled from Libreville and overnighted at Lope. They said the
logging camp was deserted so the convoy of grumiers had already left. We had
pinned some hope on getting help from them via texts to our daughter, who was
doing all she could to pinpoint our position from the co-ordinates we had sent
her, and worrying how best to contact them. It gave her a worrying time. We
were lucky that Sue’s phone had a weak signal as none of the other phones we
are carrying had and we were not confident that the Satellite phone was working
as we received no reply to a test message we sent to Paul.
Chris’s birthday present of the arrival of the pick-up
couldn’t have been better. They were well prepared with shovels, pick-axes and
bags in which they could collect ballast. They easily drove around us using the
bank which the Enterprise was too heavy to attempt. After some shovelling of
gravel around the tyres we attached our ratchet strap to the pick-up and with a
couple of attempts they pulled us out. Without all the digging we had done they
would not have been able to do so. It took us another couple of hours to sort
ourselves out, reload the box with gas cylinders and everything we had taken
out to lighten the rear load, clean up the mud-caked waffle boards and get on
our way. While doing this, 3 grumiers came roaring through from the opposite
direction, accompanied by a Caterpillar digger and a Chinese man in a pick-up.
The grumiers had no trouble getting through the worst part of our waterlogged
track and the digger followed up to make a way through for the pick-up. They
told us that they had cleared the road ahead and that we should have no
problems from then on until we reached the tar road at the junction with the
RN4, 60kms ahead. That was mainly true, but we did have another ¾ hour delay further
on where a recently overturned truck was blocking our way through. Our rescuers
had inadvertently left a pick-axe behind, so Sue attacked the bank to try and
lower it enough for the Enterprise to squeeze past without tipping over too. In
the end, after surveying the depth of the puddles on the other side of the
road, Chris decided to roar through at speed and hope the momentum would carry
the Enterprise through any holes. It did, but we are hoping that the jolting
has not done too much damage to the fixings of the fridge, cooker and kitchen
sink.
We had some very heavy rainstorms before we reached the tar
road which made conditions difficult. While we were trapped we did have some
rain showers, which the frogs warned us were about to happen before the rain
actually came. We had put a bucket and washing up bowl outside to catch the
rainwater, but there was hardly anything in them. The bees loved the unwashed
dishes though!
We finally made it to the ‘metropolis’ of Lastoursville on
Tuesday evening after dark. It was so strange to be back into civilization and
a busy town after no contact with anyone for several days. We drove straight to
the Hotel Ngoombi, which Kirsty had researched on the internet as the best
option. It was not brilliant but luxury for us. We celebrated Chris’s birthday
with real Gordon’s gin and tonic, costing a fortune. The menu included sanglier
(wild boar), spicy pork, chicken, asparagus (the vegetarian option!), gazelle
and antelope. Chris’s antelope was tender and delicious and I wish I had opted
for that and not the gazelle which was very gamey and a tad on the tough side. It
came with so much rice we could have lasted on that for several days. The 2
night stay in the hotel on a very uncomfortable bed, gave us the opportunity
for Chris to refix the water tank tap and refill the tank, search
unsuccessfully for a cooking gas leak and many other things to get the
Enterprise along again, while I cleaned the inside, removed the piles of dead
flies and bees, did some washing and we both had showers. We ate out in town on
the second night and again were served enormous platefuls of food at a
restaurant recommended to us by a local Lebanese beer depot owner.
We also met a very friendly young lady cashier at the
supermarket who spoke no English when Chris asked, but she immediately
telephoned her brother in Franceville who spoke excellent English, so Chris was
able to quiz him about the condition of the roads in Congo from the border to
the main tar road at Oyo. He even came to see us before we left the hotel in
Lastoursville and met us again here in Hotel Le Masuko last night. However we
have even better advice about the road, and that it is all good ‘new’ Chinese
road all the way from Arno, the Hotel Manager here. We need to find the Customs
office to get our Carnet stamped and then after some shopping, and perhaps
coffee and breakfast with Arno, we set off for Lekoni and the Congo. We have
spent longer in Gabon than in all the other countries. We love it here.
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