Last night at Sangha lodge. An overnight adventure, a walking safari. Into the jungle with our own spotlight. It’s haunted. A new challenging world. We don’t feel comfortable in the dark. At any moment it looks like a five-ton trunked animal might storm forward from the bushes. We illuminate the trees, which reach to the clouds like cathedrals and form great shadows. We see Potto, beautiful eyes. Awesome! Minutes later a “palm civet,” an omnivore that hunts anything that moves. Very active above our heads.
The next day, out of bed early. Our “boatman” arrives punctually at 5H30, we leave 2 minutes later for a very adventurous eight-hour trip to Ouesso on a beautiful tributary of the Congo Basin. Untamed, an adventure of a lifetime.
Nothing is familiar, everything is new. We are children, feeling the tension, goose bumps, no people, lots of life. The feeling creeps up on me that we are being spied on by many eyes. Unbelievable, I find this so hard to describe. Beautiful trees, what a planet, the earth, where we all live! Everyone should experience this.
This is worth far more than any digital brainstorming class! This is reality. BACK TO BASICS! The river is constantly changing. Wide, rough… Suddenly spaceships emerge from the fog. Small islands, high in vegetation. They look like alien ships, resting on the water. Avatar… thousands of images on our retinas … how beautiful, exciting, mythical, unfamiliar sounds, hornbills fly overhead. At a distance, the late call of a “vermiculated fishing owl”. Everything moves but you see nothing.
After a long 8H trip on this beautiful river in the Congo Basin, we reach Ouesso. A hole, in the north of Congo Brazzaville. Vehicles that would fit right into the story of the Flinstones, banks that don’t take money, we are roasted but what a trip and experience. Military, bushmeat market, Mauritanians, adept businessmen with stores where one can buy almost anything to have a great weekend, especially if you shake off the green blanket. Ouesso delicious, just great to drink a 33 (Trentetrois) on one of the ramshackle terraces. Our hotel has electricity as of 4pm. We arrive from our stroll down the main street looking for a vehicle. Our plan; a nice shower and early to bed. Tomorrow to Oyo and Brazzaville, the capital!
Chime, 16H30 boom, no more power. No shower, it’s hot, 40°, the air conditioning doesn’t work either. I fell asleep. No way to open windows, mosquitoes are everywhere. Next morning, slept well, vehicle arranged. 5H00 we leave. First three hundred kilometers through the rainforest. Chinese everywhere. How long will the roads last here. The rainforest gobbles up everything and everyone. Maybe we are just in time before everything is looted. I look at it positively, the jungle has withstood many attacks, it is great and aggressive. Another factor, corruption holds everything, in an iron grip. Progress is very difficult.
The glow of Brazzaville, another spaceship? I can only welcome it. Brazzaville a colonial gem on the mighty Congo River. On the other side, the skyscrapers of Kinshasa. We have reached our goal. The 1950s atmosphere with some gems of hotels and the nicest terrace Mami Watta, overlooking the Congo River, still a ray of Sangha greeting us?
What a journey, an adrenaline experience.
It’s party time, gin and tonic, our first night at Mickaels, one of the capital’s classic hotels, old time charm … and the waiter asking ” Mr. le cocktail special d’aujourdhui, une avatar”?
