After a lot of admin in Yaoundé rounding up visas, we got underway and travelled from Cameroon to Gabon. Six decrepit share taxis, a twelve hour bus trip, fifteen police checkpoints, and an allegedly high-speed ferry (it’s not fast at all, but the other one sank so it is what it is) – brought us…to a standstill. In what seems to be a tradition for us, we then got stranded in yet another random town waiting for a boat.
But enough about that. First, how did we get from Cameroon to Gabon?
We didn’t find a lot of information about traveling by road from Cameroon to Gabon. But the few reports we read all mentioned a ‘man with glasses’ throwing his weight around at the border. So I’m giving him a mention here, too, although we didn’t end up encountering him when we crossed the Kye-Ossi border from Cameroon to Gabon. Actually we were kind of disappointed about that. Since we spent about a week in Yaoundé sorting out our onward visas, we had a lot of time to speculate about his antics and started looking forward to meeting him IRL.
We also came across a story where an officer swept up a dead bat and threw it at a traveler, but that was at a whole other border so we weren’t worried about him.
The Kye-Ossi border crossing is not an adventurous one but it is not straightforward either. You have to string together a lot of transport and there are plenty of checkpoints on the way, particularly on Gabon’s side. Anyway, if you’re heading onwards from Gabon to Republic of Congo via Ndende, plenty of adventure awaits you on that border crossing and you can read about that here.
There are two crossings between Cameroon and Gabon very close together: Woleu Ntem and Kye-Ossi. As far as we know, Kye-Ossi is more convenient and you can find more onward transport on Gabon’s side. So that’s the one we went for.
This post is about our experience crossing from Cameroon (Kye-Ossi) to Gabon (Bitam).
Before you go
You most likely will need a visa for both these countries (check that, according to your nationality). Keep in mind that visa policies around here tend to change, and so do the places and ways you can get them.
Since we started our trip in Cameroon, we needed to get that visa before leaving home. We confirmed everything with our local Embassy and a few days later were on the brink of mailing in the applications and our passports, when they changed the policy and an introduced an e-Visa. The e-Visa portal actually worked, but it was insanely expensive and (at the time anyway) the only way to apply.
We picked up our visas for Gabon in Yaoundé, Cameroon. At the time it was unclear, but it seemed nationals of G20 countries didn’t need a visa. That changed also, shortly after we left the country – there was a coup (and that’s a whole other issue). All this to say, I don’t know who does or doesn’t require a visa at the moment.
Either way, we weren’t visa-free so off we went to the Gabon Embassy in Yaoundé. Getting the visa there was really efficient, issued on the spot. They had a camera so we didn’t need to bring passport photos. It cost 75 USD each.
There are money-changers in Kye-Ossi and some right on Gabon’s side of the border, so you can change money on the way. You should definitely be carrying cash (USD) to change as needed since ATMs can be scarce outside big cities.
Bring a lot of copies of your passport. You will have to hand these over at every checkpoint, particularly in Gabon.
At Gabon immigration you’ll have to present at least one hotel reservation, and it should be a real one because there is a good chance they’ll call to confirm it. We made a booking at Benedicta hotel in Bitam. They also asked about bookings for Libreville. As all of us traveling on public transport know, booking ahead can be tricky since you never really know when you’ll actually get there (if at all, tbh). Plus, Libreville’s hotels that you find online are notoriously expensive. So make sure your booking is cancellable. As for Bitam, I don’t think you can even reach any hotels there ahead of time besides Benedicta, which is expensive but will take (cancellable) bookings over email. Print your reservations out before leaving Yaoundé or Ebolowa.
Bring your yellow fever certificate, they ask to see it entering Gabon.
The border is open during day time hours. Get going early.
The route
Our route, on public transport, went like this: Yaoundé > Ebolowa > Ambam > Kye-Ossi (border) > Bitam
With a very early start you can probably get all the way from Yaoundé to Bitam in a day. If that sounds intense, and it does to me, you can go to Ebolowa first and stay the night there.
From Ebolowa you carry on to Ambam by minibus and then in Ambam, get a taxi to Kye-Ossi.
In Kye-Ossi you’ll do the exit formalities for Cameroon and then get your ride to drop you at the border which is just on the edge of town.
You’ll walk across the border and enter Gabon. On that side of the border, you can pick up a share taxi to Bitam. You get your passport stamped once you’re in town.
From Ebolowa to Bitam took us almost six hours. This is including waiting around on passport-stuff, and for rides – mainly on Gabon’s side.
Yaoundé to Ambam via Ebolowa (Cameroon)
We wanted to break up the journey from Yaoundé to Ambam, so we took a bus to Ebolowa and spent the night there.
Buses for Ebolowa leave from the Mvan area in southern Yaoundé . There are several bus offices. Get your taxi driver to drop you at one signed for Ebolowa. It takes around two and a half hours.
We stayed at Ndancy hotel. Ebolowa does not have heaps to offer but it’s nice to walk around and we ate big plates of Ndole and plantains, and liked it just fine.
The next morning we caught a minibus from the bus station in Ebolowa to Ambam, which takes around one and a half hours.
If you want to go directly from Yaoundé to Ambam, there are most likely shared taxis going from Mvan straight through to Ambam early in the morning.
Ambam to Kye-Ossi (Cameroon)
In Amban the minibus dropped us in the street where there was a share taxi waiting. We got in and it dropped us off in Kye-Ossi, about a thirty minute drive.
The border is a couple of kilometers away from Kye-Ossi itself, so from there we needed yet another ride. No worries, our helpful driver opened the trunk and hoisted our luggage into the next cab before we’d even got out of the first one.
The next taxi took us to the immigration office in Kye-Ossi, where we got stamped out of Cameroon. The office is a two story building and the guy with the stamp was on the second floor. We tried a few doors before we found the correct office – there were no signs and no people around.
Finished with that, we got back in the same taxi and it was just a short ride to the border where the driver left us at a small office. The Cameroonian officers registered all our details there. Get used to this, btw – it never stops.
The border
From the registration point in Cameroon you walk around five hundred meters across a bridge, over the river that divides Cameroon and Gabon.
The first stop is the Vaccine tent where you show your yellow fever certificate. After that it’s another short walk to a tiny immigration office. You wait there for a while. This is where there is apparently a decent chance of meeting the Man with Glasses, if you’re (un)lucky. He’s known to work at both the crossings nearby here, and likes to create a lot of drama by calling the hotels you’ve booked to confirm and hoping to trap you in a lie. But he wasn’t there that day and we got a friendly young officer who asked for our hotel reservations and registered us.
They do not stamp your passport at the border but give you a ‘Fiche de passage’, which you will need to present at the police office in Bitam. Take good care of this document.
After the immigration office it’s just a short walk to the tiny border village/bar.
The border to Bitam (Gabon)
After you exit the border there are a couple of little restaurant shacks on your right hand side. Here you find the shared taxis going to Bitam, and probably a money-changer or two.
We waited in the restaurant for about a half hour for our fellow passengers to finish drinking before we set off. It’s only thirty kilometers from the border to Bitam but it will take longer than you expect due to checkpoints – we counted five or six during the short ride. At the checkpoints you show your passport and your Fiche de passage which you should keep in pristine condition. You’ll also need to hand out a copy of your passport at every stop.
In Bitam the shared taxi dropped us close to the Brigade Gendarmerie. We went inside and showed our fiche and passports to a lot of staff who seemed angry we’d come, and eventually I took our passports into an office in the back where an even angrier officer stamped them.
In Bitam we stayed at Hotel des Voyageurs, which was clean and reasonably priced. The owner was very nice and helpful with information about bus tickets to Libreville. He sent his security guard to walk with us to the bus station in the early morning while it was still dark out.
The next day we took the bus to Libreville. Get tickets beforehand and show up early. It takes about twelve hours mainly thanks to a staggering number of police checkpoints where everyone has to show their ID. You might have to hand out passport copies here, too.
In Libreville we actually stayed at the bus station we arrived at – the bus company runs a hotel on the premises. While that would normally sound like a terrifying less-than-salubrious prospect, in this case it was pretty fine. The upstairs rooms along the back were somewhat grim (the ceiling was infested with something or other) but the downstairs ones were fine. It was convenient, cheap, and there’s a good Lebanese restaurant just up the road. It’s also walkable to the ferry port.
From Libreville we took the high-speed ferry to Port Gentil and then got stranded there waiting for a riverboat to Lambaréné, as I mentioned at the start of this post. But we got there eventually and that’s all that matters, right?
Read More
For more of our adventures (and misadventures) as we travel from Cameroon to Japan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.
Moving on from Gabon to Republic of the Congo? You guessed it…we’ve got you covered.
We’ve crossed a lot of borders by all sorts of random transport. Have a look at our Africa border crossing reports for strange stories and sage advice, here.
