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 tons 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 Gabon – 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 Health 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 noisily 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 border crossing reports and travel guides for strange stories and sage advice.

The post Crossing the border from Cameroon (Kye-Ossi) to Gabon (Bitam) appeared first on WhirledAway.

There are a couple of open border crossings between Gabon and Republic of Congo (RoC). There’s one in the west of Gabon going from Franceville via Leconi to a very small town in RoC called Okoyo (I think). Apparently the road conditions on that route are pretty good but transport is very very sporadic (not that there was much more on the route we took either, tbh).

We opted to go from Ndende in Gabon, to Dolisie in RoC, crossing at Doussala/Ngongo. This is supposedly the better-known route, and is partially on what’s called a ‘National Highway’ (but that doesn’t mean much). Plus, from Dolisie we’d have the option of easily picking up onward transport either to Pointe-Noire or to Brazzaville.

Traveling by road from Gabon to Republic of Congo requires some planning, a lot of patience (and time), and could possibly result in some severe headaches if things don’t go 100% according to plan (and, ah, they won’t). I’d have felt more confident about the trip myself if I could have actually read a first-hand account. Preferably one that didn’t make it seem too daunting, anyway – hence this post, in case you’re wondering.

This post isn’t a guide so much as an outline of our route and how it went. It’s supposed to encourage anyone else in two minds about taking it on, as we initially were. Remember that things change around here all the time. If you follow this route your experience will probably be similar to ours but not exactly the same. There could be more (or fewer, or different) police checkpoints, you may or may not stay a few hours or overnight at a checkpoint for your driver to sleep, your driver may or may not be recklessly intent on vehicular manslaughter, the police might be a huge pain – or not, and so on.

How smoothly you get through is just luck of the draw and will mainly depend on who you meet, how quickly your car fills up, who is in it, and all kinds of stuff like that.

The moral of the story is: it can be done. It’s an interesting and exciting journey that I honestly will not forget. Ever.

So, if you ever thought about crossing the border from Gabon (Ndende) and Republic of Congo (Dolisie) by road, then read on.

Before you go

You need to get your Congo visa in advance, either in your home country or a in neighboring one on your way. Visa requirements in this region are often obscure and subject to change. Don’t count on getting your visa in the country right next door, either. Make sure you can actually get the visa you need in the country where you’re planning to pick it up. Side note: Embassy/consulate locations change from time to time as well.

We picked up our RoC visas in Yaounde, Cameroon. Expedited, it took about three days. At the time, it was definitely possible to get the RoC visa in Libreville (Gabon), too.

Keep the weather in mind. We traveled in the dry season and the roads were a rutted, potholed mess – but passable. The car we were in was not robust, to understate its condition. I thought we’d would never make it in places, but we did, because there was no mud. We nearly choked to death on the dust since the car windows wouldn’t shut, but that was the worst of it. And on the bright side there was no chance of driving at high speeds, which is fine by me. In the rainy season the trip will most likely take a lot longer, probably a couple of days, and you’ll need to sleep in the villages along the way from the border to Dolisie.

In West and Central Africa the security situation can change, sometimes quickly. For example there was a coup in Gabon just weeks after we left. They shut the borders – no matter who was already inside (and while they were at it they changed their visa policy, twice). Check the latest travel advice from your government and make sure your insurance is up to it.

Make sure you have local currency and ideally USD in case you need more. You’re not going to find ATMs anywhere around here. These two countries use the same currency: Central African CFA (XAF). It’s the same value as West African CFA (XOF), but if you’re carrying West African CFA you will have to change it. There were money changers on the RoC side of the border in Ngongo.

Make sure your vaccines are up-to-date and you’ve got your International Vaccine Card with you to prove it. Otherwise you’re just opening yourself up to bribe-attempts from the police.

The border is open during regular daytime hours. As with any other border-crossing day, just try to get an early start. You can try as hard as you want, but likely you will be hindered every step of the way.

The route

We started this trip in Ndende, Gabon. There is a police post there where we did the formalities and got stamped out of Gabon.

In Ndende, we found shared transport to the frontier town on Gabon’s side, called Doussala. The same ride drove us right across the border (it’s not noticeable, other than the checkpoints) and dropped us in Ngongo which is simply the frontier town on RoC’s side of the border.

In Ngongo, we did the bureaucracy, stamped in to RoC, and picked up onward transport to Dolisie. From there it’s a long trip mostly through forest and a few smaller villages. Besides one other car that left the border shortly after ours, there was no other traffic.

The whole thing took a bit less than 24 hours, in the dry season. It’s not that far (about 280 kms) but there’s an incredible amount of waiting around, all the checkpoints, and general shenanigans to take into account.

Ndende to the border (Doussala)

Coming from Lambarene it took a while to reach Ndende, so when we did we stayed the night. There’s a guesthouse called Divine that ‘everyone’ stays at but when we were in town it was full, of police for some reason. So, we went to another one called Nilson (or else that was the manager’s name and the hotel itself was actually called Eden).

The Nilson/Eden appeared to be abandoned and I think it really was. Yet Nilson, once we located him by calling the number on a piece of paper stuck to the window, and his inexplicably large staff, put us in a room and scrounged up bedding and even a lightbulb. It’s well on the outside edge of town so take care about walking after dark if you’re going back and forth.

Ndende is a small town but there are a few places to get some chicken and rice. It’s friendly. We wandered around to the road sign for Congo 48 (km), and sat in a little streetside bar for a beer. There are no ATMS.

From Ndende we set about organizing our ride to Doussala. Transport runs from next to the Total petrol station near the market. Nilson and his friend who I’ll call the Driving Instructor, since he was driving a car with a sign on the door and an extra brake pedal on the front passenger side, helped us find transport going to the border the next day.

The police station is marked on Maps.me. We went over early the next morning. The Driving Instructor told us it opened at 8 am but no officer appeared until around 8.30. This officer took our documents and filled out the details in his giant ledger, but it seemed he did not have the authority to actually stamp our passports. We had to wait another half hour or so until ‘Mon Commandant’ as everyone called him (he was The Stamper to us), turned up with the stamp and took care of business.

From immigration it’s a short walk to the garage next to the Total petrol station. Then we waited for Josef, the driver we’d met the previous day, to load (and by that I actually mean drastically overload) a pickup truck with passengers and their luggage. Seven passengers in the double cab, to be exact, and six more on the truckbed.

We set off around 10.45 am, which was much later than Josef had originally promised we’d leave. A piece of advice: on the way to the border, make friends with your fellow passengers. These are the people whose laps you’ll wind up sitting on who you’ll be traveling with in a small car for hours to Dolisie. We found it helpful to be able to communicate at least a bit, with some of them, since otherwise we had no idea what was going on half the time. They also knew how much the transport from the border should cost, and it’s good to know that ahead of time before the drivers have you.

Crossing the border

The share taxi/pickup went through three checkpoints on the way to Doussala. At each checkpoint the police wrote and rewrote every passenger’s details down in huge ledgers. It took around two and half hours from Ndende to reach Doussala and so the border. The same ride took us across no man’s land to Ngongo on the RoC side, where everyone climbed out and Josef drove his truck straight back to Gabon.

The Republic of Congo border is a bit of a spectacle. Before even reaching Immigration we had to register twice with two different police, then the army, and then the gendarmerie. Each office was nothing more than a room in the small clutch of buildings in a clearing in the forest with police, money changers, and potential drivers milling around. At one point a friendly and reasonable police officer (rare, in these parts) called her English-speaking son in Brazzaville and brought him into the fray on WhatsApp. Finally they sent us to Immigration for stamps, and then a customs check where they partially unpacked our backpacks. The actual border crossing took around one and a half hours.

It’s an interesting border to cross and an adventurous journey to Dolisie awaits. Start as you mean to go on, I always say.

Bienvenue a Congo!

The border (Ngongo) to Dolisie

There were several cars waiting at the border post, bound for Dolisie and the villages along the way. They leave when they are full – six passengers and the driver – and not a second before. We knew this and didn’t love it either, as getting going fast as possible to ideally get through by dark, is key. It’s also not gonna happen, but still, we wanted to leave sooner rather than later.

Two of the other passengers from our first ride out of Gabon, one from Mauritania and the other from Central African Republic, both named Mohammed, seemed to feel the same way. So after some discussion that included the friendly police officer and her iPad with her son it, we and the two Mohammeds agreed to split the two remaining places in one of the cars, and left pretty quickly. Splitting the ride made almost no difference in terms of getting to Dolisie in any kind of reasonable timeframe, but it did make the trip more comfortable since we didn’t have to put four people in the back and two up front with the driver.

We left Ngongo around 3 pm and finally arrived in Dolise at 3 am. In other words, 12 hours to cover 255 kilometers, mainly thanks to the police along the way, with a shout out to the terrible road conditions. And, our driver insisted on stopping here and there (well after dark, in the forest) to ‘hide’ from the police at upcoming checkpoints in the hope that they’d be too drunk to stop us by the time we passed by. That didn’t exactly help speed us on our way either.

During the course of the drive we stopped at around seven checkpoints. At each one, we all got out of the car and the police wrote down the same details – when they were capable of writing that is – more than one of the officers was drunk. Not to mention there was often no electricity and this was all carried out in the light of a lantern or a fire. I cannot overstate the pointlessness of these repeated registrations.

The police, who looked for any excuse to hassle our driver and fellow passengers, overlooked what I thought was a very obvious one: our driver had a little bottle of whiskey with him and helped himself from time to time throughout the journey. Once I saw him take a swig right in front of a whole group of gendarmerie. Nobody blinked. Surprisingly, none of the police tried to extract bribes from us – but our fellow African passengers had to pay a lot. Mohammed from Mauritania didn’t have a yellow vaccine card, for example, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because he’s an anti-vaxxer. He had to pay dearly for that.

Dolisie and moving on – Pointe-Noire or Brazzaville

Depending on when you arrive in Dolisie, in theory you could get a bus straight on to Pointe-Noire as it’s only a few hours away. We arrived in the middle of the night and were not just worn out, but also filthy so we stayed a couple of nights before getting a bus to Brazzaville. Dolisie is pretty chill, we liked it.

We stayed at La Glorette Hotel, recommended to us by Steven. Who’s Steven, you say? He’s an extra passenger we picked up in a village in the forest somewhere along the way. Steven rode on the roof of our car for quite some time, and then when the dust eventually got to him, he slithered in through the window and squeezed into the front seat with the driver, announcing ‘C’est le Congo’ as he did so.

The driver, Steven, and the Mohammeds kindly went out of their way to drop us off at La Glorette. We were happy, because that late at night the entire town was otherwise deserted and we’d have got stranded if they’d just left us at a garage. They even woke up the night guard and the receptionist for us, and stayed til we got sorted.

The rooms upstairs at La Glorette aren’t too bad (maybe avoid the downstairs rooms). It was also cheap, and friendly – the receptionist helped us get organised with our onward bus tickets and information, and kindly tolerated some pretty atrocious French.

Big buses run a couple of times throughout the day and it took nearly a day to get from Dolisie to Brazzaville what with roads, traffic, and checkpoints. The route goes through the Poole region and a lot of governments still warn their citizens to stay out of there (because of Ninja rebel activity), but as far as we’ve heard, it’s not such a big deal anymore.

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.

We’ve crossed a lot of borders by all sorts of random transport. Have a look at our border crossing reports and travel guides for strange stories and sage advice.

The post Crossing the border from Gabon (Ndende) to Republic of Congo (Dolisie) appeared first on WhirledAway.