Travel Guide Ndjolé

Up to Ndjolé, one crosses some small villages located on both sides of the road. The traffic is fluid, especially on weekends, and the landscapes on this portion of the road are only forests of huge trees, such as the cheese trees and, a little less high, the parasol trees and bamboos above beds of ferns. The road, tarred until the end, is pleasant, the slightly steep relief breaks a little the monotony of the landscape. On the outskirts of Menguegne, at the top of the slopes, we appreciate a superb and clear view of the canopy.The arrival on Ndjolé starts by the high districts which look like mountain villages, then one regains the banks of the Ogooué. Founded in 1883, on the orders of Savorgnan de Brazza, Ndjolé, accessible from Port-Gentil in the rainy season by river, quickly became the base for expeditions and the centre for gathering goods collected in the basin upstream from the Ogooué. Samory Island, where the first post of the French administration was installed, was used as a penitentiary and received as a prisoner the great Malinke chief Samory Touré, deported to Gabon. The island was renamed in his honour.Today, Ndjolé has remained an important place of passage on the axis Libreville-Franceville in the south, to go to Makokou in the northeast, or to stop at Lopé, if only for its gas station! It can be a pleasant stop that will allow visitors to soak up the history of the region. When you come from Libreville, you enter the town through the market place. If you turn right, you pass the town hall and you reach the bank of the Ogooué. There are still logging sites above the town, and the logs transported by the river to Port-Gentil look, from the air, like amalgams of matches that are quietly arranged in the direction of the current. To go and see, especially during the week, the launching of the logs, you have to pass in front of the market and go along the bank in the direction of the "economic" road, but staying on the river bank. On this same route, the Catholic church of Ndjolé, in red brick, overlooks the road Ndjolé is located 215 km from Libreville: allow about 4 hours of travel on a road in good condition. It is also possible to get there by motorboat from Port-Gentil and Lambaréné. Ask the boatmen for information. From Owendo (around 15,000 FCFA) or from Franceville (around 30,000 FCFA), the train stops at the station of Ndjolé. From Ndjolé, one can access the various historical sites of the region built on the banks of the Ogooué.