Lambarene

After Kango, Nic and I travelled to Lambarene, a larger town on the Ogooue River and the fishing capital of Gabon. South of Lambarene there’s a series of large lakes (if you scroll down to my Sept. 17 posting, you can see Lambarene, the river and the lakes near the top of the map). It’s a freshwater system; there isn’t much fishing in the ocean here. The market at Lambarene also always has bushmeat, and there have been many records of manatee meat showing up there. We walked around the market and saw bushmeat, but no manatee. People are suspicious of the presence of a white woman and we were asked several times if we were the police. So people would say “maybe tomorrow” or “only in the rainy season”.

Smoked fish and plantains for sale. There were also some beautiful fabrics in the market.

This photo is of small crocodiles (upper left), crocodile eggs and internal organs (on the pink bag) and antelope legs in the market. The guy selling this stuff was very angry at me for photographing it.

The Oguooe River at the end of the dry season. The water apparently comes up at least 3 meters during the rainy season, which gives manatees access to flooded forests to feed in.