| Email Us |
| Change language |
| When available |
| NEWS & STORIES |
| nude |
| naked |
| Contact Us Get Answers Inquire availability |
"The World's Most Expensive City" - ALEX PERRY
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1599163,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1599163,00.html
| When you book with Easyticket Ltd. you are buying total peace of mind. From the moment you step abroad the plane it only gets better from them on. |
| NUDE, NAKED AFRICA (GABON) |
|
Published Aug 30, 2007
Port Gentil is no ordinary town.
That much is clear from the moment you touch down in the small coastal city in the West
African nation of Gabon. Next to the airport exit, a gaggle of shrieking, minimally dressed
women dance to loud rock on the terrace of a bar called Le Aero Club. "Come fly me!" one
shouts down. Instead, I accept a taxi driver's offer of a ride into town — a 10-minute drive
that costs $30. We drive past another bar, A Qui La Tour? — which roughly translates as
"Whose round is it?" although the driver insists it means "Who am I having sex with
next?" There are also several ads for premier banking services, a weather-beaten, 1970s-
era hotel offering rooms at $600 a night and a billboard hawking a new model Peugeot
($40,000) behind the slogan: "Don't think about it. Just buy it."
Improbable as it may seem, this unprepossessing town of moldy red-tiled villas
surrounded by virgin tropical forest and white-sand beaches was named, a few years ago,
as the world's most expensive city. With a bunch of carrots selling for $10, a box of eggs
fetching $13 and rent on a medium-sized house touching $6,000 a month, it's still
comfortably in the top 10. The reason? Port Gentil is a "ville petrolier", an oil town that has
drawn rig workers and executives from places as far away as Texas, Aberdeen and
Caracas to earn fortunes pumping Gabon's oil reserves — and spend it like there's no
tomorrow.
The sheer volume of cash sloshing around Port Gentil's streets lends them an unreal
atmosphere. At the dump on the edge of town, Gabonese boys sort through trash in
search of something to eat. But walk into any downtown cafe, and $400 will get you a
bottle of 1999 St Emilion Premier Cru Bordeaux. The handful of paved streets are scarred
with potholes the size of small swimming pools, but they are jammed with new top-of-the-
range SUVs. Excursions on offer include tours of the jungle on giant-engine trail bikes or
tours of the coast in giant-engine speedboats. And money and hydrocarbons meet in
delicious symphony at one of Port Gentil's smartest restaurants, San Lorenzo, whose $30
special is currently "fresh tuna in oil." The manager, Ludovic, a trim 25-year-old Frenchman
who was born in Port Gentil and returned to open a restaurant after cleaning up as a
model in Paris, is candid about the effect his home town can have on your sanity. "Almost
everything costs in Port Gentil," he grins. "But madness — that comes gratuit."
That's view is shared by Emile Gorayeb, whose family owns half the town's restaurants,
hotels, casinos and nightclubs. Born in Madagascar, Gorayeb was once a petrolier himself,
at a refinery in France. But what brought him to Port Gentil was not oil. Instead, at the
edge of town, he built a sanctuary for gorillas, chimpanzees, wild pigs, deer and other
animals rescued from hunter traps or injured on the roads. His self-financed foundation is
part scientific institute, part environmental lobby, part zoo. His latest project is to have
Port Gentil's schoolchildren plant thousands of palm trees around town. If his oil industry
friends thought he was crazy before, he confides, they now openly refer to him as Deng
Deng, a term from the local Fang language that loosely translates as "Hot Brains."
Gorayeb certainly becomes quite feverish when he talks of how robbers broke into his
cages and slaughtered his animals. ("I cried, oh, I cried."). He's just as animated
discussing Port Gentil's future. "If there's a big sea or even a lot of rain today, Port Gentil
floods for days," he says. "This town is built on sand — there's no soil — and it's almost
underwater already. I used to have a bungalow on the beach. Today, the sea has taken
the beach, all 200 meters of it, and the bungalow. If we get hit by a hurricane, it's bye-bye
Port Gentil." He has relayed his concerns to the petroliers, "and they know full well that
some of the blame for global warming, disturbed weather patterns and rising sea levels is
theirs." But except for a single firm funding a study of Gabon's environment, they confine
themselves to hearing out Hot Brains, then politely showing him the door. "This town is
being eaten by the sea," says Gorayeb. "Just saying 'Hello, bye-bye' is not enough any
more."
I leave Gorayeb and take the short drive to the airport. In the main hall, a series of
departure boards list oil company charters arriving and leaving every five minutes during
the morning and evening rush hour. Hello, bye-bye.
Port Gentil is no ordinary town.
That much is clear from the moment you touch down in the small coastal city in the West
African nation of Gabon. Next to the airport exit, a gaggle of shrieking, minimally dressed
women dance to loud rock on the terrace of a bar called Le Aero Club. "Come fly me!" one
shouts down. Instead, I accept a taxi driver's offer of a ride into town — a 10-minute drive
that costs $30. We drive past another bar, A Qui La Tour? — which roughly translates as
"Whose round is it?" although the driver insists it means "Who am I having sex with
next?" There are also several ads for premier banking services, a weather-beaten, 1970s-
era hotel offering rooms at $600 a night and a billboard hawking a new model Peugeot
($40,000) behind the slogan: "Don't think about it. Just buy it."
Improbable as it may seem, this unprepossessing town of moldy red-tiled villas
surrounded by virgin tropical forest and white-sand beaches was named, a few years ago,
as the world's most expensive city. With a bunch of carrots selling for $10, a box of eggs
fetching $13 and rent on a medium-sized house touching $6,000 a month, it's still
comfortably in the top 10. The reason? Port Gentil is a "ville petrolier", an oil town that has
drawn rig workers and executives from places as far away as Texas, Aberdeen and
Caracas to earn fortunes pumping Gabon's oil reserves — and spend it like there's no
tomorrow.
The sheer volume of cash sloshing around Port Gentil's streets lends them an unreal
atmosphere. At the dump on the edge of town, Gabonese boys sort through trash in
search of something to eat. But walk into any downtown cafe, and $400 will get you a
bottle of 1999 St Emilion Premier Cru Bordeaux. The handful of paved streets are scarred
with potholes the size of small swimming pools, but they are jammed with new top-of-the-
range SUVs. Excursions on offer include tours of the jungle on giant-engine trail bikes or
tours of the coast in giant-engine speedboats. And money and hydrocarbons meet in
delicious symphony at one of Port Gentil's smartest restaurants, San Lorenzo, whose $30
special is currently "fresh tuna in oil." The manager, Ludovic, a trim 25-year-old Frenchman
who was born in Port Gentil and returned to open a restaurant after cleaning up as a
model in Paris, is candid about the effect his home town can have on your sanity. "Almost
everything costs in Port Gentil," he grins. "But madness — that comes gratuit."
That's view is shared by Emile Gorayeb, whose family owns half the town's restaurants,
hotels, casinos and nightclubs. Born in Madagascar, Gorayeb was once a petrolier himself,
at a refinery in France. But what brought him to Port Gentil was not oil. Instead, at the
edge of town, he built a sanctuary for gorillas, chimpanzees, wild pigs, deer and other
animals rescued from hunter traps or injured on the roads. His self-financed foundation is
part scientific institute, part environmental lobby, part zoo. His latest project is to have
Port Gentil's schoolchildren plant thousands of palm trees around town. If his oil industry
friends thought he was crazy before, he confides, they now openly refer to him as Deng
Deng, a term from the local Fang language that loosely translates as "Hot Brains."
Gorayeb certainly becomes quite feverish when he talks of how robbers broke into his
cages and slaughtered his animals. ("I cried, oh, I cried."). He's just as animated
discussing Port Gentil's future. "If there's a big sea or even a lot of rain today, Port Gentil
floods for days," he says. "This town is built on sand — there's no soil — and it's almost
underwater already. I used to have a bungalow on the beach. Today, the sea has taken
the beach, all 200 meters of it, and the bungalow. If we get hit by a hurricane, it's bye-bye
Port Gentil." He has relayed his concerns to the petroliers, "and they know full well that
some of the blame for global warming, disturbed weather patterns and rising sea levels is
theirs." But except for a single firm funding a study of Gabon's environment, they confine
themselves to hearing out Hot Brains, then politely showing him the door. "This town is
being eaten by the sea," says Gorayeb. "Just saying 'Hello, bye-bye' is not enough any
more."
I leave Gorayeb and take the short drive to the airport. In the main hall, a series of
departure boards list oil company charters arriving and leaving every five minutes during
the morning and evening rush hour. Hello, bye-bye.
