22 November, 2011
Well, I’m in Port Gentil again, and this time I got a day off with nothing to do so could do a little exploring and walking around town. I took a few more pics (not too many – locals don’t seem too thrilled about being photographed all the time) as I walked along the waterfront, and then back along the “main street”.
Annoyingly, a stray dog started following me as I walked along the waterfront. A fairly young puppy that was very boisterous and just wanted to play. I didn’t want to encourage him, so just walked, hoping he’d lose interest. But he followed me on what must have been a 2km walk. At one point three other dogs joined us. And then we walked past a traffic circle and four dogs lying around on the circle started barking. Hackles went up on mine and I thought I was going to be caught in a dog fight right in the middle of the street with a dog that must have looked to everyone else like mine. Fortunately the fighting didn’t erupt and instead I walked on with 8 dogs in tow – all heavily addicted to crack (their own, thankfully).
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| Port Gentil’s version of a “park”. A row of bushes | ..with a pathway of sand behind.. |
I walked past the President’s Residence. Whole block with his walled-in house in it. Very big, one giant block building, and painted the most revolting bright green and yellow. I didn’t know if taking photos of it was acceptable, so chickened out. Don’t need to end up in prison a few days before I leave! But I’ll get a pic of it from the air when I’m next out – really is quite a siff colour scheme.
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| A completed and painted pirogue | The guy in action with his axe |
Saw a guy chopping a massive tree log into the boats they use here (pirogues). Typical tropical island hollowed out tree trunk. Was quite impressive to see the separate compartments cut into it, presumable for strength.
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| Assemblage of three platforms in the bay. Helipads all over them! | Hmm, “Centre de Santé” |
I saw the massive logs they have chained together that stretch out into the bay in a wide circle, and are used to “fence” timber logs in before going into the mill. They must cut down trees seasonally, since I haven’t seen the “fences” with any trunks in them at all. This one pic shows how relatively close an oil platform is from the town. Its actually three platforms close together.
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| Maybe not quite so pretty… | This one looks quite acceptable |
Walked past a number of little eateries. Some very pleasant looking, that if I had money I might pop into. Some not quite so much…. I get CFA15000 credit for each meal (about USD30 – but things are very cheap here!) when I’m in town Apparently, however, they have to be used at the one restaurant, which is very nice but I wouldn’t mind mixing it up a little, especially today that I can. So I walked past the others, took a couple of pics, and then found myself back in my road.
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| Very pleasant restaurant | Ah, desert….! They don’t |
I’m now back in my room, and will shortly be searching my computer for a movie to watch this afternoon…. So tired of CNN news which never seems to change, and here they only have SKY, which is marginally better, but equally repetitive. Last night I watched Hugh Grant giving his evidence in the News Of the World case, and they’ve played it over and over….
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| Front entrance to my hotel Hirondele from the street | I forget I’m on the equator, and many of the satellites are almost directly overhead. I think the one angled one is probably pointing at a satellite over France |
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