Ecotourism in gabon (Lopé, loango ...), Congo, São-Tomé and South Africa and Namibia, Mistral-Voyages, Libreville, Gabon

This eleven-day tour, with a possible extension of five days to include São Tomé, can be taken all year around. After your welcome at the Libreville airport, you will travel by train on the Transgabonese to the National Lopé Park. After spending one night at the Lopé Hotel, you will go to the Mikongo Camp in the heart of the forest. From Mikongo, you can go on paths to find the primates and also see the Bare-headed Rock-fowl nesting in the rocks.

Bare-headed Rock-fowl

Yellow-mantled Whydah

After your return to the Lopé Hotel where you will spend two nights, you can observe the birds along the Ogooué River: the Hadada Ibis, the Yellow-throated Leaflove, the Scarlet-spectacled Wattle-eye, the splendid Glossy Starling, the Green-headed Sunbird, the Tiny Sunbird, the Reichenbach’s Sunbird, the Violet-tailed Sunbird and the Orange Weaver. In the savannahs: the Yellow-throated Longclaw, the Long-legged Pipit, the Yellow-mantled Whydah, the White-cheeked Bee-eater, Swallows and Nightjars.

Then in the forest: Hornbills, Great Blue Touraco and Guinea Touraco, Trogon, Snowy-headed Robin-chat, the Grey-backed Camaroptera, the Lüdher’s Bush Shrike, the Fork-tailed Drongo, the Black Bee-eater and if you are lucky, the Dja River Warble and the Nkulengu Rail. The Transgabonese will then take you to Franceville, in the Southeast of the country, and you will then go near Lékoni to the Batéké plateaux to spend two days where you can discover numerous savannah birds: the Finsch’s Francolin, the Congo Moorchat, the Black-chinned Weaver, various species of Cisticolas, the Red-necked buzzard, the Black-breasted

Dja River Warbler

Blue-breasted Kingfisher

Snake Eagle, the African Eagle Owl, the Olive Long-tailed Cuckoo, the Fiery-breasted Bush Shrike, King-fishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers. When back to Libreville, you will take the plane for Omboué, and then the boat to the small island of Petit Evengué, a charming island where we have the reinsertion project for gorillas. The next day you will visit the St.Anne Mission, then go to Iguéla up the beautiful Mpivié River bordered by tall trees.
In the Loango National Park where you will spend two days, you will see among other bird species:

the Rosy Bee-eater and the Black Bee-eater, the Grey Pratincole, the Forbes’s Plover, the Slender-billed Weaver and the Loango Weaver.

Upon your return to Libreville, if you have requested the extension to Sao Tomé, a one-hour flight will take you to the archipelago. For five days you will visit the richest sites, and especially the Amélia Lagoon and the São João de Angolares region which have many endemic bird species.

Rosy Bee-eater

There you will see the Malachite Kingfisher, the Gulf of Guinea Thrush, the São Tomé Oriole, the Principe White-eye, the São Tomé Speirops, the Principe Seed-eater, the São Tomé Weaver, the Giant Weaver, the African Green Ibis, the São Tomé Green Pigeon, the Marron Pigeon, the Gulf of Guinea Bronze-naped Pigeon and the São Tomé Scops Owl. A last night spent on Rolas Island right on the Equator will be the prelude for the return to Libreville.

Visit the tourist sites in the tour:
São-tomé | Plateaux | Fernan Vaz | Loango

All the drawings of birds on this page and in

São Tomé Scops Owl

this website were given by Patrice Christy and William Clarke, the kind authors of the Bird Guide of Lopé Reserve and the Bird Guide of Sao-Tomé and Principé.