Equatorial Guinea

At the end of Avenida Cosme Nsue Ondo in the southern part of town you will
find a large statue on the roundabout of a lady in traditional attire picking bananas.
Opposite here there is a tall column with a statue of Melchor Esono Edjo at the
base, holding an encyclopedia. He was born and grew up locally, and is a respected
economist and a former minister of finance and budgets. Ebebiyín also has a very
large and new Spanish-built cathedral.
The newly refurbished stadium, Nuevo Estadio de Ebebiyín, played host to
some of the group stage matches in the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament
in 2015, and also the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation Women’s league final
in 2014. It has a capacity of 8,000 spectators.
AROUND EBEBIYÍN There are a number of potential tourist sites tucked away
sites only a few kilometres from Ebebiyín, which make for good day hikes or short
drives. The countryside in this part of the nation rarely sees visitors, but you should
find a curious but warm welcome wherever you choose to wander. Given the lush
scenery around Ebebiyín, the majority of sites listed below are outdoor attractions.
Twenty kilometres west of Ebebiyín is the small village of Biyabiyan, right up
on the northern border with Cameroon. There is a small museum of Fang art here
run by local artists. Ask around and one of the residents will open it up and show
you around.
Almost equidistant between Micomeseng and Ebebiyín is the small village of
Afangui Obuc. They have a crafts house with traditional Fang goods for sale. This
area is famous from colonial times as a base for Basque big-game hunting legend
Basilio Olaechea Orruño, who sadly spent much of the 1950s shooting all the
gorillas in the area and the odd elephant. This hunter was legendary as a crack shot
with a rifle, able to hit a stone thrown in the air from more than 50m.
The Alen Angok Falls on the Kié River mark the de facto border between Gabon
and Equatorial Guinea in this area. The settlement here is marked on some maps as
‘Adyap (Angoc)’ although this is technically a village a few kilometres to the north.
Alen Angok is also home to a colonial school from 1936, a dispensary and medical
centre from 1937, and a military base built by the Spanish during World War II.
To the southwest of Ebebiyín is the picturesque Etetam-Ngon Lake. To get
here, trek to the village of Bifet (Efac), and you will find it on the route to nearby
Moyo village.
Right on the border of Kié-Ntem and Wele-Nzas provinces, around 17km north
of Mongomo on the border road, is the mysterious stone structure Trilith of
Mbam (Esaguong), featuring two upright columns of stone with a third balanced
horizontally between them. The location is sometimes also referred to as El Trilito
de Mibang locally. These are not the only triliths in the area and some locals talked
about another set near the village of Mosom Esandon, around 5km from Ebebiyín.
Until this area is more thoroughly surveyed by archaeologists (which is unlikely to
occur very soon) these structures will remain an intriguing mystery.
MICOMESENG
Halfway between Bata and Ebebiyín is Micomeseng, a small transit town with one
main road, a market, a military radar dish and an inexplicable amount of building
work happening on its periphery. Little more than a travellers’ rest stop to most
people, Micomeseng is located in the heart of coffee and cocoa country. It is still
home to a colonial-era leprosy treatment centre, which is maintained with the
help of Catholic Mission volunteers and Cuban medical experts, which hint at
Kié-Ntem Province MICOMESENG
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