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Travelling is for life
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Entering Angola
We rode along the road by the coast and entered Cabinda town. This is built on the hillside facing the coast and has a distinct Portuguese feel and character.
Pointe Noire
Today involved a lot of travelling and trust that there would be connections to get to Pointe Noire - a distance of 500+kms.
Brazzaville
I have made Class Hotel in the Embassy area of the city, my home. Brazzaville is very different from the other parts of Congo. The centre is dominated by large presidential buildings some still empty, incomplete or decaying.
Dolisie
The final leg of the day was a ride to Brazzaville in a shared car for 10,000CFA. This was very sedate compared to the last leg. Three women and a driver on a beautiful cambered road, all the way to the capital through rolling hills and shrub covered land. It reminded me of the M6 drive through Cumbria.
Entering the Republic of Congo
One thing that you learn when travelling is never to make assumptions. Today tested me yet again around trying to control an outcome without having all the information.
Libreville
On returning to La Baie des Tortues Luth to catch the boat, I met Jamal. She is the mother of Ahmed, the owner and manager of the resort. We sat chatting for while and I got to know all about her family and how they came to be in Gabon.
Libreville
A short taxi and minibus drive from Libreville, gets you to an area of forest known as the Arboretum Raponda Walker. It's a protected 28 hectares of natural forest full of species of trees, lianas, medicinal plants and orchids.
Libreville
It's Sunday so I took pictures of churches and mosques. People were dressed up today and many were walking and playing around the beach area. Eid-al Fitr was celebrated yesterday, so many families were continuing the festivities today.
Libreville
Libreville is a world away from the villages of the interior. It seems to have cleaner air than most African cities and enjoys an estuary location close to the sea. There are green areas amongst the houses giving each quartier an European feel.
Yaoundé
After returning to Douala yesterday, I booked the train from there to Yaoundé. It meant an early start at 5:30 to get to the station for a 6:30 departure. Douala was in darkness but stirring. I was able to get a taxi easily from the road side by the hotel and arrived to a quiet and orderly station.
Kribi
Boats were arriving into the harbour and being unloaded. Their catch was then laid out on the slabs in the market. It appeared that people then bartered for the amount they wanted and the totals were collated by one person sat close by. The array of fish was amazing; snapper, prawns, lobsters and various types of fish large and small.
Baham
Elisa took us on a wonderful walk through the fields towards the large rocks of the area, then on towards a waterfall before returning to her house to be shown her kitchen. This was a very special section of my trip. Elise is a wonderful person; generous, kind and informative. A treasured friend to Betina and a joyful soul.
Dschang
We drove up to the area on a hillside above Dschang town. This was where the German governors resided in the 1900s and their buildings and recreational areas still remain. This area was taken over by the French and kept exclusively for white colonial use until today when the buildings were turned into a hotel.