Last night at Sangha lodge. A night adventure, a walking safari. With our own spotlight into the jungle. It’s haunted. A new challenging world. We don’t feel comfortable in the dark. It seems as if a five-ton trunk animal could storm forward from the bushes at any moment. We highlight the trees, which reach like cathedrals to the clouds and form large shadows. We see Potto, beautiful eyes. Great! Minutes later a ‘palm civet’, an omnivore who hunts everything that moves. Very active over our heads.
The next day, get out of bed early. Our ‘boatman’ arrives punctually at 5H30, we leave 2 minutes later for a very adventurous eight hour trip to Ouesso over a beautiful tributary of the Congo Basin. Untethered, an adventure of a lifetime.
Nothing is known, everything is new. We’re kids, we feel the tension, goosebumps, no people, a lot of life. The feeling creeps up that we are being spied on through many eyes. Unbelievable, I find this so hard to describe. Beautiful trees, what a planet, the earth, where we all live! Everyone should be going through this.
This is worth a lot more than any digital brainstorm class! This is reality. BACK TO BASICS! The river is constantly changing. Broad, rugged… Suddenly, spaceships emerge from the fog. Small islands, overgrown. They look like alien ships, resting on the water. Avatar… thousands of images on our retinas… some beautiful, exciting, mythical, unknown sounds, hornbills flying over. Remotely, the late call of a “vermiculated fishing owl”. Everything moves, but you can’t see anything.
After a long trek of 8H across this beautiful river in the Congo Basin, we reach Ouesso. A hole in northern Congo Brazzaville. Vehicles that fit the story of the Flinstones, banks that don’t take money, we’re ragged but what a journey and experience. Military, the market with bushmeat, Mauritanians, skilled businessmen with shops where one can buy almost anything to have a great weekend, especially if you shake off the green blanket. Ouesso tasty, just great to drink a 33 (Trentetrois) on one of the rickety terraces. Our hotel has electricity from 16H00. We arrive from our poaching tour of the main street, looking for a vehicle. Our plan; a nice shower and early in bed. Tomorrow to Oyo and Brazzaville, the capital!
16H30 boom, no more power. No shower, it’s hot, 40°, the air con doesn’t work either. Fallen asleep. Opening windows is not there, it is choking on mosquitoes. Next morning, well slept, vehicle arranged. 5H00 we leave. First three hundred kilometers through the rainforest. Chinese are widely represented. How long will the roads last here? The rainforest guzzles everything and everyone. Maybe we’ll be just in time for everything to be robbed. I look at it positively, the jungle has endured many attacks, it’s big and aggressive. Another factor, corruption holds everything, in an iron grip. Progress is very difficult.
The glow of Brazzaville, another spaceship? I can only applaud it. Brazzaville a colonial jewel to the mighty Congo stream. Across the street, the skyscrapers of Kinshasa. We’ve achieved our goal. The fifties atmosphere with some pearls of hotels and the nicest terrace Mami Watta, overlooking the Congo stream, surely another ray of Sangha that greets us?
What a journey, an adrenaline experience.
It’s party, gin and tonic, our first evening in Mickaels, one of the capital’s classic hotels, old time charm… and the waiter who asks “Mr le cocktail special d’aujourdhui, une avatar”?
