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| Congo |
Congo: Pointe Noire, At Sea, Gabon: Libreville
April 3-5, 2012
Aboard National
Geographic Explorer
Tuesday, April 3 in the Congo, everything was still going
very well. We were staying healthy and the seas had been quite calm. The
weather got much warmer and more muggy the farther north we went.
We had a
couple of lectures in the morning because we did not arrive in Pointe Noire,
Republic of Congo, until after lunch. Now we had traveled from countries,
colonized by the Portuguese, where they spoke that language, to the Republic of
Congo, which was colonized by the French. They speak French. We visited a
canyon area, the Diosso Gorge, which is their version of the Grand Canyon.
There was also a stop at a local Artisan’s Market where nothing reached out and
said I must buy it. I didn’t even take any people pictures because they were
very fussy and required permission before taking pictures. Paul is very good at
that, but I’m a little shy about it.
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| Paul and Grace at Diosso Gorge |
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| Dolphins riding the bow |
After dinner we went to a concert by a local group. It was
probably not our favorite African music; I’ll just leave it at that.
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| King Neptune Ceremony |
Wednesday, April 4 was a full day at sea. There were a
couple of lectures and they handed out snorkeling gear, which was for use at
Principé. In the afternoon they had the official “Equator Crossing” ritual.
King Neptune visited on the back deck and those who had not crossed the equator
on a ship were initiated. Actually, they picked representative people from the
crew, staff and passengers. It was very messy. Passengers later had a chance to
submit a few of their pictures to the photo team and then after dinner we went
to the lounge where the pictures were critiqued. Next time I’ll submit some. We
passed over the equator close to midnight.
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| Gabon |
The US Ambassador to Gabon, who is from Oregon, greeted us. He
talked about the function of the embassy and how it helps Americans and
American companies in Gabon. He also told us that they have just formed a partnership
with the University of Oregon that will host student exchanges and provide environment
and conservation studies. Gabon has set aside 10% of its land for national
parks and is working toward a growing tourist industry. The US Ambassador to
Cameroon was also there as was a representative from the State Department in
Washington, DC. They were in Gabon for an Environmental Conference, which
included a number of the neighboring counties. Its purpose was to address the
poaching and trafficking problems in the area. Evidently the Sudanese had
killed hundreds of elephants recently for their ivory. After lunch we were in
the group that “got to” see the American Embassy. When we signed up, we didn’t
realize that we would be taking a walking tour around the construction site for
the new embassy, which is scheduled to open in August. That was a
disappointment as we thought we would see a working embassy.
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| US Ambassador to Gabon |
Over the next two days we were on the islands of the small
island nation of Sao Tomé and then Principé where they speak Portuguese. These
islands played a huge role in the staging of Africans for the slave trade.
There will be more about that in my next message.
We enjoyed getting to know and spending time with a lot
of interesting people. In my free time I was busy trying to stay on top of
picture downloading and editing.
That's it for now. Grace and Paul
Great post, I really like the one of your photos and will port it (with credit of course) on our Facebook Page "J'aime Libreville'.
ReplyDeleteWe'd love if you could be one our members, so join us to see how people react to your shot.
John,
www.facebook.com/jaimelbv