Libreville Travel Guide

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Libreville has flowered since independence in 1960 from a trading post of 31,000 to a city by the sea of almost 600,000. Business has flourished under President Bongo's policy of welcoming foreign investors to export raw materials from the equatorial jungle such as lumber, rubber and cocoa.

The pearl of central Africa, Libreville is a paradox that one doesn't know whether to love or hate. In scenery, it is reminiscent of a city on the California coastline. Its wealth is apparent in the glamorous nightclubs, weekend cruises, overflowing champagne glasses and expensive hotel rooms. Libreville is home to almost as many foreigners as it is to local Gabonese, which makes it wholly unrepresentative of Gabon as a country. Visit Libreville if you miss champagne, not if you want to see a city representative of the continent.

Libreville is named for the same romantic reason as Freetown, for the slaves that were freed there from the European trading ships. But this sense of freedom is not apparent for all the inhabitants of town. Especially, the young women who flock here from all over Central Africa in the hope of making money and end up dancing in the many nightclubs of town and selling sex to the Lebanese businessmen, the French soldiers and German investors.

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