We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. - Jawaharlal Nehru

25 July 2019, Mouila to Fougamou, 104.7km
Auberge du Rond Point 15,500CFA (R390)

We had originally planned to break today into two sections, stopping for the night in Guidouma, but decided last night to push through to Fougamou rather. We were not particularly well-prepared for a long day on the road, and by the time we reached Guidouma, we were hoping to find somewhere to have a meal, or at least buy some bread. We spied a woman sitting at a table inside a wooden structure, and a man at the window. More because we hoped it was a restaurant than because it looked particularly like one, we approached the hut and I asked the man, in my one-word French: “Restaurant? Manger (eat)?” “Oui” said he, waving for us to enter. He took us over to introduce us to an elderly woman seated on a low stool beside a stove in the corner of the room that made up the kitchen. She was eager to shake our hands. The niceties completed, I asked again: “Manger?” and she gestured to the dining table, the most handsome piece of furniture in a very modest room at which the other woman we had seen through the open door was seated. We joined their guest there, sitting on straight-backed chairs with padded seats. And waited… It soon became clear that we were in fact in a private home with people perhaps as confused by our presence there as we were. We tried to make conversation, telling them where we had come from and where we were going, and ascertaining from them that there is accommodation in Fougamou, something we had not known before. The walls of their home were constructed of wood planks, the roof of corrugated tin without a ceiling. The floor was stamped earth and very lumpy, the furniture perched on bits of wood to make it sit evenly. Aside from the dining table and chairs, complete with a vase of artificial flowers, in the main room was a stove and place for pots and pans, and four very ancient arm chairs standing in a row against one wall. It was in one of these the old man sat, mending radios. On the wall behind him, carefully arranged, were pictures of political figures, a small poster exhorting a vote, and two clocks, each stilled at a different time of day. I could see down a passage leading from the room, four doors, all closed, but presumably bedrooms. In time, we said our goodbyes and departed, unfed, but enriched by our peek into private lives.
Our road undulated past grassland and forest, deep and green and damp and filled with the calls of birds. We passed through villages named Elonga and Mandji and Yombi, most unexpectedly devoid of shops, and crossed numerous brown rivers. At a stop on the roadside to consume a tin of chicken luncheon meat and the last of our grapefruit softdrink, we met a man from Burkina Faso, growing peppers in Gabon, where, he said, the money is.
At one point we looked up to discover a distant mountain, pale and large and daunting, seemingly directly in our path. We watched it uneasily as we approached, but our road veered right and left, putting the small range to the west where we could admire it without having to conquer it. And the mountains were still there as we entered Fougamou, tired and so ready to call it a day we stopped at the first and more expensive auberge in town. Aircon in our room, and a hot water shower, such bliss. The Christmas decorations are still on the table in the dining room! And our dinner was served, each of the four dishes individually wrapped in cling-film.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…