Mt Bengoué, Gabon Highpoint

Mont Bengoué (3,510ft/1070m), highpoint of Gabon

Dec 29, 2022

Eric and Serge

Dec 26 fly to Libreville 
Dec 27 get Cameroon visa, drive to Ovan
Dec 28 drive to Boca Boca, secure permission from chief
Dec 29 climb Bengoué, drive to Ovan
Dec 30 drive to Libreville 
Dec 31 fly out

Back in Novembet Felix from Germany had emailed me asking if I had any beta for Mt Bengoué in Gabon. He was planning to go there in December. I hadn’t really looked into it much before other than noting that it was only a few km from a road so would probably be easy. 

But Felix sent me a report from polish peakbagger Robert Gondek that was the only beta available online about the peak. Robert had been unsuccessful in 2019 and the peak sounded much more difficult than expected. 

Often for African peaks you can expect to drive to the village closest to the peak, get permission from the local chief, and climb. But the chief would not give Robert permission. Apparently in 1998 a group of canadian birders had been near Mt Bengoué and one older member of the group went missing. He was never found and the chief of the village briefly went to prison for this.

 

Since then the chief has refused to give permission to climb Mt Bengoué without authorization from a higher authority. Understandably the chief doesn’t want to be held responsible if another similar incident happens again.  

Robert didn’t have authorization and wasn’t able to obtain it, so didn’t get the peak. 

I decided to look a little deeper to help Felix out. I found that there is one other peak, Mt Iboundji, that used to be considered the highpoint of Gabon based on a flawed French survey 50 years ago. But it’s clearly lower. SRTM shows Iboundji at 980m, and Bengoue 1070m, well outside the error bounds of SRTM. Bengoue is definitely the highpoint.   I knew two people who had for sure climbed the peak since 1998 – Ginge Fullen around 2000 and Francis Tapon in 2018. 

I had a video call with Francis and he sent me a trip report from his trip. He said he showed up without the authorization but eventually after a complicated negotiation was able to get permission. Francis recommended getting authorization in advance by contacting the tourism office in Libreville. 

Ginge said he had no problem securing permission when he went, though it seems things have since changed. 

I passed this information on to Felix and wished him good luck. I figured eventually some year in the future I would head there and could ask Felix how it went for him. 

But as fate would have it I would actually find myself in Gabon at the same time as Felix. 

I had originally planned a three week trip in Chad in December with Serge. But after a week waiting for permits for our objectives with no luck we changed plans to go to neighboring Cameroon for our remaining two weeks to bag the highpoints of CAR, Nigeria, and Cameroon.

Midway through that trip we were making better time than anticipated and it looked like we would have an extra four or five days. The nearest countries to tag another highpoint were Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, and Gabon. 

Equatorial Guinea was too logistically complicated on short notice with permit requirements far in advance, covid restrictions, visas, and infrequent flights. 

Sao Tome had unfavorable flights that were super expensive. But Gabon looked like it could work. I read that there were no covid requirements and we could get visas on arrival. There were relatively frequent and cheap direct flights from Douala, Cameroon. 

I emailed Felix and he had done a lot of work and eventually the tourism office in Libreville put him in contact with a guide that said he could get permission for the peak. The guide could provide a 4×4 and would get the necessary authorization in advance. 

This sounded perfect. It would be especially nice to be able to split the cost five ways with me, Serge, Felix, and his two friends. 

The guide said it would take three or four days, which just barely worked with our schedule. It seemed like all the puzzle pieces were fitting together to make it happen. 

One wrinkle was we would need to return to Cameroon to catch our flight home from Douala. But we’d only gotten single-entry visas to get into Cameroon from Chad.

We called up the embassy in Libreville and they said they would be open Dec 27 and could issue a same day visa for Cameroon. 

To cut costs I asked a friend in Gabon if he could drive, but it turned out he only had a 2wd vehicle which sounded like it wouldn’t work. (In hindsight it turned out the roads in Gabon were generally in good enough shape for a 2wd car). 

I was doing all this research and planning while in the car driving between Mt Ngaoui, Chappal Waddi, and Mt Cameroon. I would generally get internet for about two minutes at a time while passing through a village with a cell tower, then I’d go another 20 minutes before the next service. 

Felix and his friends would arrive the night of Dec 25 and we could arrive the evening of Dec 26. We would need to get a Cameroon visa the morning of the 27th but then would have 3.5 days for the peak, which should work. 

For flights there was one potential wrinkle. The only available flight Dec 26, when we needed to fly, had a connection in Malabo. Equatorial Guinea currently requires a covid test to enter or transit. I suspected this was the only reason why that flight was still available. 

However, the flight details showed the same plane on each leg and it was only on the ground for one hour. In my experience this means transiting passengers stay on the plane. If we stayed on the plane I expected we wouldn’t be subject to the covid test requirement.

I tried to contact Afrijet to clarify this, but couldn’t get an answer. We decided it was most likely we wouldn’t need the test, so that flight should work. 

When it looked like all the puzzle pieces would work I pulled the trigger and bought us flights to Libreville. 

Unfortunately Felix said his group was not happy with the price, even when split five ways. They had much more time in Gabon than we did so they would try to take buses there and hope to figure out permission with the chief like Francis had. 

I didn’t think this had a high probability of success, but going with the guide from Libreville did have a high chance of success. Given our limited time and the fact that needing to return would be even more expensive overall, I was ok just splitting the cost two ways between me and Serge. Having the rental 4×4 with driver would give us the maximum flexibility to get the job done if things didn’t work out as planned. And in Africa things rarely go according to plan.

So I started  coordinating directly with the guide over WhatsApp and sorted out the remaining logistics on the drive from Chappal Waddi to Mt Cameroon. 

After coming down from Mt Cameroon Dec 25 we flew out of Douala to Libreville Dec 26. When checking in the agents in Douala agreed with us that we could get a visa on arrival in Libreville.

After landing in Libreville went into the airport to the visa counter, but they said a visa on arrival was not possible. We were supposed to get an e-visa in advance. I was aware of this option, but it took three days for the e-visa to be approved and our trip was planned without that much lead time. 

We negotiated for a while and I called up our driver Carl on WhatsApp to come help. 

It turned out that in fact it was possible to get a visa on arrival, but very uncommon. We just needed confirmation of a hotel reservation and a letter of invitation. I quickly booked the Hibiscus Hotel on booking.com and showed them the screenshot. This was the closest hotel to the Cameroon embassy. Luckily I had Google Fi on my pixel phone and it worked for internet access (it works in most but not all places, which is why I usually also get a local sim card in my other phone).

Carl vouched for us as guide to count for the letter of invitation. Then we each paid 100usd and got the visas. For reference, it would be much easier and cheaper to just apply for the e-visa in advance, if you know your plans at least three days in advance. 

We finally made it out of the airport, then got local sim cards, withdrew cash, and Carl drove us to the hotel. We negotiated to pay half up front and half at the end, then went to bed. 

The next morning we went to the embassy for me to drop off my passport, then we bought supplies at he local Mbolo, which is like a Costco. We noticed the standard of living in Gabon is much higher than in Chad or Cameroon. In general the roads are in great shape, there’s minimal trash around, beaches are nice and clean, and stores have anything you would want. Though, like most other west african countries, nearly all the ATMs were still broken or empty.  

By shortly after noon I’d picked up my visa and we started the drive. I did notice that they had misspelled my name on the visa, and I think this makes four for four on this Africa trip for embassies messing up my visas. But I decided to go with it and hope for the best to not further delay our drive. 

We picked up Stitch along the way to help with the drive, and were soon heading out of town. 

The roads were great and we made quick progress. Gabon appears to be the most forested country I’ve visited, and indeed over 85% of the country is supposedly forest. Along the drive we were mostly passing through jungle with few towns.

We crossed the equator after a few hours and stopped to take a picture of a sign on the side of the road. Carl pushed on through the night, easily passing through checkpoints. I think Gabon had the most casual checkpoints of any African country I’ve visited. Carl would leave the rap music blasting as he lowered the window halfway, said something brief to the officer, and was then waved through.

By 10pm we reached Ovan as planned and found a hotel for the night. 

We were moving by 6am the next morning and the road was a bit rougher. The pavement ends after Ovan but the dirt road is not too bad. A 2wd car would be sufficient. 

We drove through more jungle and reached Makokou by 9am. There we registered with the local police, telling them where we were going, and picked up Parfait. Parfait was actually the son-in-law of the chief of Boca Boca and he would hopefully be able to secure permission for us. 

We picked up some more food at the market and actually bumped into Felix and his crew there. They still wanted to go on their own with buses to cut costs. But we advised them to register with the police so they wouldn’t get turned around at future checkpoints. We said we could hopefully smooth things over in advance with the chief so they would have fewer problems.  

We soon headed out of town and drove a few more hours through the jungle. I’m not sure how necessary the police registration was, but we didn’t have any trouble at checkpoints. We wanted to make sure to take every precaution that might possibly be required to avoid the trouble we’d gotten into on Mt Ngaoui when we had just tried to show up and not get permission in advance. 

About 20km before Boca Boca we stopped at another village and Parfait said we needed to get permission from the chief there to proceeded. We walked out and were greeted warmly by the chief, a big man with a cowboy hat. He brought us inside and we sat down and explained what we wanted to do. He gave us permission and had an assistant write down our information from our passports. 

We then got back in the SUV and continued to Boca Boca. 

Chief Jean Robert was under a tree with other villagers and welcomed us when we arrived. He was wearing a red Barcelona soccer jacket and looked like the picture I had seen in Robert Gondek’s report. 

A few villagers pulled up seats for us and we had a meeting under the tree. Parfait explained that we had registered with the police and the other chief and that we wanted to request permission to climb Mt Bengoué. 

The chief was friendly but he made a bunch of phone calls to double check. I’m not sure exactly who he was calling. But after the calls he said we would still need an “order of mission” document authorizing us to climb. 

He opened up a notebook and pulled out a photocopied picture of Francis Tapon’s passport. He explained that Francis had come and wanted to climb the peak but didn’t have the document. But then he went and got the document and the chief allowed him to climb. This sounded slightly different than Francis’s trip report. We told the chief we knew Francis and he was a little surprised. It sounded like we were the first ones there since Francis to ask to climb the peak. 

Th chief said we would need to go to Mekambo to get the authorization. But it turned out he was looking for a ride to Mekambo that day, so we could give him a ride and he could go to the magistrate with us. 

We removed our luggage to store in his house and he loaded a box he needed to bring to town. We offered him the front seat but he insisted on squeezing in the back. 

We made the half hour drive deeper into the jungle to Mekambo and stopped at the prefecture. 

The magistrate was not there, and I was a bit nervous we would have a repeat of our experience in Chad where the necessary person was out of town and we couldn’t get permission for our peak. 

But soon a white pickup pulled up and a tall man in a sports jacket got out. He shook all our hands and welcomed us into his office. 

Parfait explained the situation as an assistant took notes and the magistrate wrote on a notepad. The chief briefly explained some things, then Serge talked. Interestingly, in Boca Boca the chief had been very confident and definitely the authority figure, but now he was meekly looking down at the ground when the magistrate talked. It was clear that the magistrate had the final word on this situation. 

 Everything was in French so I didn’t complete follow with my rusty French, but the magistrate said the biggest concern was for our safety, and that we would be permitted to climb with a local guide who knew the way.

This was a big relief. We all shook hands, then went outside and took some pictures. The chief said he had business in town but we could return and climb the peak at 6am the next morning with guide Casar. He said we could camp on the ground in front of his house. 

We asked to verify if that was indeed ok to camp in front of his house and he responded “I’m the chief, if I say it is ok then of course it is ok.”

We hopped back in the SUV and made the drive back to Boca Boca. By then I felt almost as relieved as if we had already summitted. We had just done the vast majority of the work for climbing Mt Bengoué, and now we had finally reached the stage where it was just us versus the mountain. That would certainly be much easier than what we had already gone through. 

We told Casar the result of the negotiation  and he said he would also bring a second guide, Bengazi, to accompany us. That way there could be one guide in front and one in back so there was no way anyone would get lost. 

We spent the evening sitting under the tree chatting with the villagers, then set up camp. 

Lots of tiny bugs were pretty annoying biting my wrists, and they were like no-see-ums in the US. I just had a bivy sack, which was sufficient to keep the bugs out but was pretty hot and stuffy. A tent or hammock would have been much nicer. 

The next morning we were all up and moving by 6am. Carl and Stitch were also joining, so our group was seven total.

Casar led the way as we followed a trail behind some houses. We took off our shoes to wade through some deep mud and a small creek, then continued following a trail on the other side through the jungle. 

There was a maze of hunter trails back there and it would be tricky to follow the correct one without a guide. Some trails are also made by jungle elephants, though we didn’t see any. 

We followed mostly flat terrain and after a mile reached the remains of an old house. It was being devoured by the jungle and it was unclear how old it was. 

After the house we followed an old road grade that zig-zagged up the hill. There were a few mine tunnels along the side and they looked like they extended pretty far.  But I didn’t dare go inside.

Eventually the old road grade petered out and from there we bushwhacked directly up the ridge. We got pretty high up when Casar stopped and said we were on the summit.

Serge and I checked multiple gps units and we were not quite there yet, so we convinced Casar to go farther. 

We finally reached the summit when we were next to a small muddy bog near a small cleared area. It looked like a hunters camp, and this is probably the only highpoint I know of with a swamp on the summit. 

Casar hacked out a clearing and we all stopped to eat. Parfait passed out bread and sardines and Serge and I took a bunch of pictures. It appeared an elephant trail continued, but the terrain went downhill so we were on the summit, as verified by multiple gps units and topo map sources.

We soon headed back down. This time we bypassed the switchbacks and took a more direct trail straight down. Along the trail I saw some fresh poop that Bengazi said was from jungle elephants. They must have been pretty close, but unfortunately we didn’t see them.

We reached Boca Boca by 10:45am, about 4.5 hours after leaving. It was very hot by then in the sun, and the kids were all playing in the creek.

We hung out under the tree for a while eating lunch and resting. It felt very satisfying to have gotten through all the red tape and logistics to get Mt Bengoué finally in the bag. 

By noon we were all rested up and started the drive back. We stopped in Makokou to drop off Parfait, then continued to Ovan for the night. 

The next morning we got a flat tire patched, then continued back to Libreville for our flights home. 

 

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