The first question posed in the blog title was asked by nearly all colleagues, friends and family, soon followed by the second question, when I mentioned my wife and I traveling to Gabon. Our 2008 visit to the African equatorial country of Gabon was inspired by the Megatransect of Mike Fay initiated in 1999, sometimes with photographer Nick Nichols, to hike nearly 2000 miles across the Congo Basin to the Atlantic Ocean traveling entirely through areas that have no humans. Gabon has a low population, and most people living there are on the coast. A few years later, Fay with Nichols’ help influenced President Bongo of Gabon to establish 13 national parks. National Geographic subsequently published three articles about the Megatransect that stimulated me to figure out a way to see part of it myself. There was minimal infrastructure to go to some of these places, but it was still possible by staying in research facilities (especially those of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Nature Conservancy), being picked up by plane in a clearing in the jungle, taking motorboats on small rivers, and having rough paths cleared with a chainsaw for our 4WD to pass.

One of the places Fay found where the animals were naïve, i.e., had never before seen a human, was in Langoué Bai which he encountered in 2001. It is located in Ivindo National Park, which was founded subsequent to Fay’s Megatransect. Langoué Bai is an opening in the forest with a small stream and waterhole in which the mud has some essential minerals for animals. Bai is a pygmy word meaning forest opening. We stayed three nights at a Wildlife Conservation Society research camp a couple of miles from Langoué Bai. The hike from the four-wheel-drive truck to camp with my backpack was tiring, with one section being a steep muddy climb pulling myself up by grabbing tree roots. Further on, we had to quickly backtrack and make a detour as there were millions of army ants marching towards us; such a swarm of army ants can kill small animals and make thousands of painful stinging bites, often bloody, on humans.

Each of the three days, we hiked from camp to Langoué Bai to observe animals. Forest elephants, in particular, were prevalent. Forest elephants are a little smaller than the elephants seen on the savannah, and they have other physical differences from savannah elephants, e.g., more toe(nail)s. They also have a tendency to be more aggressive towards humans; that is a constant concern when hiking in the forest. At Langoué Bai, I made a note one day that “we have a constant stream of elephants today, with a maximum of 28 in view at one time and never less than 14.” We learned much about elephant behavior, as Langoué Bai seems to serve as a place for elephants to socialize as much as to pick up essential minerals. For one thing, it was apparent that elephants are just as individualistic as humans – some are quite mellow, some are aggressive, many seemingly greet others happily, and some hang back from interactions with others.

Langoué Bai also proved to be an attraction for red river hogs, West African forest buffalo, sitatunga, chimpanzees, lowland gorillas, and many species of birds.

We were fortunate in being able to see some of the other newly created national parks in Gabon as well with few or no other visitors, as infrastructure was in the early stages of being created for visitors. The only places we saw visitors were a small National Geographic tour group (apparently British and Americans) at a lodge in Lopé National Park one evening, a couple Spanish guys there one other day, and a few different South Africans staying at Loango Lodge in Loango National Park. We were the only guests in most of the places we stayed. Whenever we went out hiking, in boats or vehicles in any national park, we never saw any foreign visitors – and rarely even local Gabonese. 

We did enjoy our stay in Loango, where the lodge was well-developed with scattered bungalows and even had a small swimming pool for a refreshing swim after being out all day. From the porch of our bungalow, we savored the sunsets over the river/lagoon gently flowing just beneath us. 

In Loango, we also spent a couple days at more remote Tassi Camp, which was near a beach and had more animals in close proximity. In fact, we saw buffalo in shallow surf nearby. In the original Fay Megatransect, a short video was taken of a hippo surfing someplace in the vicinity. It was described in National Geographic, so I found the video on YouTube. I put other photos taken near Tassi Camp in the Photography Section of this website.

In short, we found Gabon to be an incredible place to visit, but very few people seem to know that. Increased tourism could be important for maintenance of such pristine wilderness, as we could already see that logging, at least some by Chinese, was starting to make inroads (literally) into that wilderness; oil companies have been well entrenched, especially at places along the coast, for some time.