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Click for more information about Bioko Island (Malabo)
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MTP Member Photos - Bioko Island (Malabo)
MTP Member Posts - Bioko Island (Malabo)
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2003 Sep by Jorge Sanchez |
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In 1992 I spent one week in Rio Muni, crossing it overland, entering from Cameroon and leaving through Gabon. The visa to Equatorial Guinea is hard to get for nationals of Spain, since there are not good diplomatic relations between these two countries. And that is a pity because Equatorial Guinea is the only African country speaking Spanish (apart from Saharawi Republic, where Spanish is second language, and the north of Morocco, where everybody speaks Spanish). At that time I had not enough money to fly to Malabo or to take the irregular boat. But in the year 2003 I flew twice to Malabo. In both cases I only spent about one hour at the airport because my airplane was in transit to Doula, in Cameroon, and could only visit its capital from the air. It is my intention, in the future, when the diplomatic relations between these two countries (Spain and Equatorial Guinea) will improve, to go back to Malabo to visit it properly, and then to Annobon Island. . Bioko, Puntland and Somalia (Mogadishu) are the only three places out of the 779 territories that I count in this list of MTP club, where I have only visited the airport. I am sorry. | |
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1990 Mar by Veikko Huhtala* |
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We got our Guinea Equatorial visas in Cameroon from where we flew to Malabo. We found a cheap hotel from the seaside. Only problem was that there was not water coming from the tap, but bath tub was full of water however. We were going to stay four days, but because Oili broke her leg we had to change our flight and leave back home as soon as we could. Anyway, I did not like Malabo very much, but it was pity that we had Sierra Leone visas ready on our passports, but it was not possible to use them. Sierra Leone is still one of these few countries where I never have been. Our emergency route to Helsinki was via Lagos, Madrid, and Frankfurt. | |
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1989 Jan by Peter Kuiper |
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We arrived in Malabo from Douala. What a relief! Cameroon is a nice country, but Douala is definitively an unpleasant city. Malabo is so different! As a whole, the city is still there like the Spanish left it in 1968, a beautiful, perfectly preserved colonial town. It was a big relief as well that we could take pictures freely without being harassed by the police. We made pics from all the mayor streets, the beautiful square with tiled covered benches and well groomed flower beds, the ford higher up with canons overlooking the harbor. The gothic style double spired church could be anywhere in Europe, but looks very special here in the middle of Africa. We stayed in the simple but clean Aparthotel Impala.
That Equatorial Guinea followed the glorious path of socialism after independence was clearly visible. Downtown was dead, the shops were empty, there was no new construction going on anywhere: nice for the tourists to see things unchanged.
A further detail that big brother Russia had its say on the development of the country was the almost total absence of traffic. But somehow we found a Russian Wolga taxi for the next day to drive us around the island.
For me Bioko is one of the most beautiful islands I have seen in the world. At the time of our visit in 1989 it was totally unspoiled, thinly populated and nature looked like the first day. A good road runs around the island. We encircled the island clockwise and made short stops in the little town of Luba and the villages further north. These places looked like how they must have looked during colonial times, except that the white walls hadn’t been repainted ever since and started turning black due to the humidity. Amazing was the total absence of economical activity. In these towns there was hardly anybody out on the street, or there were no people living here at all? Nature is spectacular here. Nature along the road was lush, the trees huge, our yellow Wolga looked totally dwarfed in comparison. We bought a drink on the way in a wooden shed - “33” beer from Cameroon - chilled by nature, the only article on sale. It took us almost the whole day to get around the island, back in Malabo we just had time for the last sunrays on the beach and a quick dip into the sea.
The next morning we flew to Bata on the mainland Rio Muni. | |
MTP Visitors to Bioko Island (Malabo)
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