Blog #10: Where is Gabon? Why?

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 persuaded 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, especially Languoé Bai where I took the picture above. 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.