Blogs from Libreville, West, Gabon, Africa

I'm happy to have found a country where very few of my fellow travelbloggers have blogged from. Imagine, I could find only nine blogs about Gabon on travelblog.org! This is not a small country, but they have only 2 millions inhabitants in the country, and a good 600,000 of them live in the capital, Libreville. This includes a serious amount of foreigners too, coming mainly from lower incomes neighboring countries. Everybody speak french here, or one of the many different dialects. The country has been mainly turn around the oil industry as well as the wood industry provided by the huge tropical forest. As you know, oil prices are nowhere where they used to be, and it shows here. The country had develop a model where a huge part of the population was working in one ... read more

This morning I went to the biggest market of Gabon: Marché Mont Bouet. After 20 minutes’ drive, I was driven to the Petit Paris. Comparing with the Chinese street market in the 1990s, this market is much more than disorder. So many people were around me that I worried about my security and, of course, my bag. I didn’t dare to take any photos. This market is really big. Many shops sell Chinese manufacturing products. It seemed the market in my hometown in my childhood. I just felt that I got in a time machine, but the faces were not the same. I bought a small gift for my friend, because it was her birthday. I knew her when we were in France. This friend gave me a lot of help when I was I Libreville. ... read more

I get started from Nancy, France. After two hours’ train, two hours’ transit, one hour’s late and several hours’ flight, finally I arrived at Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. Several things shocked me. Firstly is the color of people changed, I don’t mean white change to black, I mean that there were much more Asian faces at that airport. I can tell most of them were from China. Addis Ababa is an important transit point in Africa. The Chinese workers were sent to any corner of Arica. By chance, I took the same flight with several Chinese workers. They spoke neither French nor English. Secondly the airport had only one shabby toilet in the waiting area. I didn’t expect a luxury toilet, but at least clean and comfortable. There was only one for more than thousands ... read more