Gabon was resuming normal activities after the disputed elections and there was a football match in the afternoon. The only train to Lopé and Franceville had left the night before and the local travel agent said there were no flights to anywhere I needed to go.
I had a morning meeting with the dynamic Michael Adande, Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism and National Parks. Then we were joined by Omar Ntougou, who I’d last seen at the Entebbe workshop on ape health. He’d said he would help and he did by kindly offering to drive to Lopé with me in the afternoon.
Given that most of the population was settling down to watch the big match, this seemed above and beyond the call of duty, but we made some preparations, bought a few supplies and set off, with the car radio tuned to the commentary. Cameroon won 2:0, but that didn’t seem to dampen the spirits in the car, where Omar and Joel sang and played air guitar (and keyboards and brass section) to keep awake.
It was after midnight when we pulled up outside the warden’s house. I would have quietly found our accommodation but Omar knocked on the door until the warden emerged rubbing his face sleepily. “Do you know it is the UN Year of the Gorilla?” asked Omar enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’ve seen the T-shirt!” came the laconic reply.
My host for the night was agronomist Michael Allan, who served us all a delicious midnight feast and chatted over a whiskey into the early hours. He had been hired by ECOFAC, an EU-funded programme that is developing selected protected areas across Central Africa, and had been wrestling with the difficulties of keeping local road repairing contractors on schedule. Gabon’s National Park network is still in its infancy, having been created only in 2002, but Lopé has been receiving ECOFAC support and attracting visitors for years.
Hey Ian,
I enjoy reading about your time in Gabon. Send me an email the next time that you’re in Gabon and need air transport. We’re bringing in an 8 seat Cessna aircraft to Gabon, hopefully here by the end of October. We’ll be partnering with the Bongolo Hospital which is in the south of the country. The hope is to slowly start to offer the country air evacuation flights as well as doing mobile clinics to remote villages.
Keep up the good work.
My wife runs a 5 bedroom guest house in Libreville if you need a place to stay up here with wifi and A/C. We’re just up the street and around a corner or two from the WCS offices.
Take care,
Steve
Hi Ian, Great post. Any chance you can get some video footage or some guest posts from the guys you are meeting. I hope they are seeing the blog – thanks for keeping up the posting
Ian has been collecting video and audio interviews and other material all along. The problem was uploading and sending all these large files.
The upside is that we will have a LOT of material to follow up Ian’s trip after he returns to the UK. I’m sure there will be some real jewels among the interviews, so there’s more to look forward to!
So sorry to hear about the passing of Titus…the 35 year old silverback…I read it on the Dianne Fossey Gorilla news for September……at least he got to live a long life and seems he died peacefully and not at the hands of man! RIP Titus!
Thanks for your thoughts on the passing of Titus, Annie. I agree with you – the death of any individual who plays such an important role in his community is a sad occasion. All who knew Titus will mourn his passing in their own way – whether gorilla or human. For me it is like losing an old friend – he was the first gorilla I saw when beginning my work as Dian Fossey’s research assistant in 1976. He was then a playful two-year-old and I was a newly graduated biologist, so we both had a lot to learn. But Titus’s death from natural causes at 35 is also a triumph for conservation – how wonderful that we humans have been able to leave him the space to flourish and become the most successful silverback on record, then grow old and die surrounded by his family. The King is dead, yes, but long live the King – his son Kuryama.
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You summed it up beautifully Ian! You are so lucky to do the work you do and work so close to these precious beings! Thank you!
By the way, what a handsome fellow this one is in the picture! Love it!