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Kyoto in autumn | Bay Area Reflections | Kool Korea | Stendhalismo in Italia, 2007 | Our grand Alaska Adventure | Japan 2006 | Marco Polo revisited - China 2006 | Pacific NorthWest 2005 | Gabon 2005 | Hawaii 2005 | Florida 2005 | Japan 2004 | France June 2003 | Alaska 2002 | Japan 2001 | Finland 2000 | Alaska 2000 | Barrow, AK 2000 | Norway 2000 | London 2000 | Italy 2000 | Denmark 2000 | Fairbanks, AK 2000

Gabon 2005

Gabon - a nation in central Africa, included among the Congo Basin states, participant in the Central Africa Franc (CFA) monetary system, and blessed with extraordinary riches and advantages. Located on the Atlantic coast of west-central Africa, smack dab on the equator, festooned with large swaths of rainforest (nonetheless heavily logged by all of us), replete with charismatic megafauna (which you shall not see here, because we didn't see any, since they're all being shot at incessantly), Gabon has abundant sources of oil, gas, gold, platinum and many other minerals, all in an area the size of Colorado, with but 1.2 million people, perhaps a legacy of the depeopling that the European slave trade bequeathed to the land. And they have the French language, crusty French bread and the French colonial legacy (i.e., an ongoing military presence) to spice up the tropical environs.

Never thought that I would return to this reasonably prosperous central African nation a second time, but far stranger things can happen to a poli sci major from NYC than this...
Betsy-Gabon_5053 butterfly_5281 chimp_5431 CNPN HQ 5095 cnpn_5021
cnpn_5075 cnpn_5022 commuters_5116 foliage 848 food 828
future_5137 Gabon map1 Gabon_5246 jerry-rudy_4690 ladies_5084
lbv_4679 lbv_4696 lbv_4698 lbv_5018.JPG lbv_5085.JPG
vote_5113.JPG young scholar_5133.JPG map_5610.JPG Mondah 814.JPG mantis_4857.JPG
portableIMG_5127.JPG Monts Cristal 887.JPG Monts Cristal  899.JPG seeg_5288.JPG spider_4849.JPG
team_5074.JPG timber_5159.JPG