Our man in Cape Town, Giles Knights (peddler of all things healthy) helps us plan much of this trip by tracking swells on the AfricanSurfer Surf Report. Between the swells which he predicts, we often have some time to kill… For example, the waves were mediocre in Limbe last weekend but we could see the [...]
3 CommentsEtisah Beach with “Petit Mount Cameroon” in the background. The real Mt Cameroon is hidden somewhere in the ever-present clouds behind it. We spent last weekend in the town of Limbe, about an hour and a half north of Douala on the part of Cameroon’s road network that looks like the N2 (with a couple [...]
2 CommentsBooyakasha ! Take a look at what’s heading your way….. ! Some monster swell hitting the Southern Cape that in 4 or 5 days time hits middle corners of Africa with a period of up to 20 secs ! Expect looooooong lines of beautifully groomed long period swell at all points in the vicinity. Make [...]
0 CommentsLast left Libreville last week Wednesday, said goodbye to Charles for the 3rd time (each previous time we ended up back at his place!) and headed north on the logging road to Cameroon. The first night we camped in the bush and Stone got hammered by insects. Its not all sunsets and perfect waves up [...]
0 CommentsBefore this trip we would probably have laughed at a surfer whose home break is in the Mediterranean. But our encounter in Libreville (Gabon) with the energetic Marseillen, Clement Vidal, swiftly destroyed this prejudice. (In fact, the destruction of prejudice has become almost a daily occurrence on the AfricanSurfer trip, but that’s another blog post [...]
0 CommentsStone left Port Gentil this morning on “jump seat” flight with a helpful Brazilian pilot named Leare. Lurks and Tim had one last surf at Cap Lopez this morning and are now preparing to get on Leare’s second flight to Libreville. (Yes, there was another enormous game of Ching-Chong-Cha last night – almost as big [...]
1 CommentDirk du Toit is an ex-Marine, diver, lifesaver and competitive surfer from Blouberg who works in the oil industry in Port Gentil. He has a large mini-mal, which he’s not afraid of throwing around at Cap Lopez, and three spare rooms in his large house – which he’s happy to host feral South African overlanders [...]
1 CommentWhen we got the truck back from the mechanic in Libreville we were elated to find that they had given it a little wash. In our excitement we decided to finally get around to branding it properly. After a few tweaks of our logo (designed, along with our site, by Andy & Greg at Greenteabag [...]
0 CommentsThe ferry from Libreville to Port Gentile was one of the more bizarre public transport experiences of our lives. It wasn’t the fact that it was 2 hours late, or that the head of security demanded a bite of our lunch sandwiches, or that our standby tickets meant that we had to wait till last [...]
0 CommentsWe keep finding things here that work really well and should definitely be in South Africa. Here are two to begin the series: Solar-powered Street Lights: This idea speaks for itself. Genius. Why don’t we do this? Good-value, flat-fee, sedan taxis: Congo and Gabon (presumably, and many other Central African countries) have very efficient personal [...]
2 CommentsSome of you may remember this choice we had to make. Since then, both Port Gentile and Sao Tome have proven difficult to get to. The former required a long ferry ride and the latter a R3000 flight. Until last night, that is… Here’s what happened: On Monday night we had a ‘final’ dinner with [...]
0 CommentsA week ago we were camping in the car park of the Hotel Atlantique. It was a little weird (“Why on earth are you doing that, ey?” – a Canadian we met in the lobby of the hotel asked), but awesome of the staff to tolerate us. One of the bonusses of staying there was [...]
0 CommentsThis morning we woke up super early and packed to catch the ferry to Port Denis and hike the 12km to Ngombe Point – where we were going to try to catch the end of this swell – and back. This is when we still thought we were going surfing. So happy. So wrong… Unfortunately [...]
2 CommentsThe Hotel Atlantique in Libreville is a fine establishment, located close to the airport, and right on the edge of the ocean. It also happens to have an excellent car park where you may be lucky enough to find some feral overlanders camping for free within a stone’s throw of the hotel pool, bar and [...]
1 CommentWe are now in Libreville – but more about that in the next post. On our way out of Mayumba on Thursday last week we stopped in at the “Beninnoise” village to pick up a bottle of Cai Cai. The Beninnoise are immigrants from Benin who make up the entire fishing population of Mayumba and, [...]
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