Gandalf Around The World: Cap Esterias, Gabon

2019-09-17/23: Chez Mado, La Maison Bleue. 5 days of relaxation in the north of Libreville with old travel companions.

We were very surprised when, still at Lopé, Luc and Pascale answer a WhatsApp message and inform us that they are in Libreville. Me who though they were already in Namibia ! So we decided to join them in Libreville. They landed "Chez Mado" at the end of Cap Estérias north of Libreville.

The road towards Cap Estérias takes us along the Sibang arboretum, a forest with interesting hiking trails, according to our information. We fully intend to come back for a visit in the coming days.

September 19, on the parking of the arboretum

September 19. Nice walk in the arboretum.

Our target, "Chez Mado" restaurant, is easy to find as it is located at the very end of the Cape Road. At 5:55 pm, no doubt, we arrived well: Luc and Pascale's Renault truck confirms it.

Gandalf has found his place next to Luc and Pascale's truck.

We park in reverse on the lawn in front of the restaurant next to the truck. The owner, Mado, welcomes us. She was waiting for us, warned by Pascale.
Luc and Pascale are quick to arrive with their quad. Today was their first official working day. Luc is in fact a lifeguard by training and profession. Having found great opportunities in Libreville, he decided to embark on the adventure. It offers courses in two hotels in Libreville, one to the north in the vicinity and another a little further south of Libreville. He rents their swimming pool there for his lessons. Pascale assists him in this project by serving as his secretary and accountant.

Luc and Pascale leaving on a quad

We discuss all of this at the restaurant in front of chilled bottles of Régab, Gabonese beer, and tasting delicious dishes of stuffed crabs and stuffed sword razor that Mado has prepared for us with rice and plantain.

Pascale and Thierry

Thierry and Luc

Pascale et Mado

The "Rouge"

For those who did not follow, we had met Luc and Pascale with their TRM 400 in January in Ziguinchor in Senegal. They had then taken a few weeks ahead by visiting Guinea and Ivory Coast while we waited for our windshield in Senegal. We also planned to cross Nigeria together but they preferred to speed up the pace to get through before the rainy season with "les Marioles", a young French couple in a van, they met in Côte d'Ivoire. They had suddenly passed Ghana, Togo and Benin in a gust of wind, which they regret a little today.

They have not given up on their plan to travel around the world which they intend to continue after this break in Gabon. They just got their residence permits for two years, that's how long they give themselves for this break.
One of the motivations that certainly influenced them a lot in their decision was the accumulation of technical problems on their 30-year-old truck. After repeated clutch cable breaks in Cameroon, the loss of the exhaust pipe, the fuel tank stalled, two belt breaks and a few other small problems, they broke the front axle at the exit of Ndjolé in the month of May. They had replaced the front tires of the truck in Abidjan, for lack of anything better with tires of smaller diameter than those of the rear, which with a permanent 4 x 4 is not without consequences, neither for the tires nor for the axles. Luckily they managed to find a second hand in Libreville to replace him.

Christine, Pascale and Luc in our camper.

Mado is the diminutive of Madeleine. She is Cameroonian. She has just passed 40 and must have been around 25 years old when, with a friend, 17 years ago, she decided to leave her hometown in Douala to go and try her luck in Europe by entrusting her four-year-old daughter to her older grand-mother. With 180,000 CFA in their pocket, the equivalent of € 270, the two young women set off south and land in Ebolowa. They must then decide: Equatorial Guinea or Gabon. They choose Guinea, but first they need passports. Because they left without. They get them done very quickly in Ebolowa and soon find themselves in Guinea, with a serious language problem since Spanish is spoken there. She stayed there for two years doing odd jobs, mainly in shops in the economic capital, Bata. Two years after which Mado decides to go and try his luck in a French-speaking country because the Spaniard does not want to get into his little head enough. It is by plane that she arrives in Libreville. Her friend stays in Guinea where she will eventually find a Spaniard who will bring her back to Spain where she still lives.

Christine and Mado.

As Mado does not know anyone in Libreville and does not know where to go, she hangs around the airport for several hours. An immigration woman, a certain Laetitia, takes pity on her and goes to put her up for a while. She is still extremely grateful to her today. It was thanks to her that she ended up finding a job as manager of a restaurant run by a Franco-Gabonese couple. She earned 50,000 CFA (approx. € 75) per month, fed and housed. One day a man offered her a job for 250,000 CFA, she thought it was a joke at first. She went to the office and got the job, waitress in the airport cafe. A golden job, well paid, social benefits and paid vacation ... For 7 years until the 2008/2009 crisis and the establishment of an employment policy prioritizing the Gabonese. She loses her job but goes to find something else, open a bar, then another, until she has put aside enough to invest in this small restaurant in Cap Esterias.

With Mado on the terrace of his restaurant.

Mado is a rather unusual woman, coming from a wealthy family she could have led a carefree life in Douala but she decided to do something with her life and set off on an adventure.
She seems to be handling her boat well because it is not always easy for a foreigner to find his place in Gabon, especially when you are a woman and you are not white. She manages her restaurant on her own, she has four employees who work mainly on weekends because during the week there are very few customers. She is raising her daughter on her own and her income is barely enough to pay her a private school at almost € 5,000 per year.