By Francois-Xavier Paradis-Garneau
Solo trip overland from Angola to Uganda through the DRC: August 24th-November 17th 2022
My goal was to visit the DRC far and wide. I was particularly interested in the Congo basin (not the Congo river itself but rather the jungle areas, tropical rainforest and tributaries of the main river). I like adventure and I wanted to see if I could explore the DRC jungle South-West to North-East without ever taking an airplane, to see as much “on the ground” as possible.
This report will read like a very very long blogpost. Buckle up. It will hopefully provide those who want to visit interior DRC with valuable information. It will give them a sense of what to expect would they ever follow a similar itinerary. If it ends up helping even just one of you, it will have been worth it.
Editor’s Note: Francois-Xavier, the author of this story, is one of the post-COVID era’s most epic solo travelers. He was the first foreign traveler in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. And that trip was relatively easy compared to the one in this story. Check these links to learn more about Francois-Xavier:
- His new travel company: https://www.travelcamels.com/
- His email: fxpg1999@gmail.com
- His facebook profile
- The BBC video on his Afghanistan trip
- His Nomadmania interview
VISA:
I got my DRC visa in Bujumbura, Burundi. It’s not normally possible to get it there as a non-resident. They initially outright refused to process my application. I insisted and asked to speak to higher ups. Eventually I got invited into someone’s office and spoke to the right guy who sympathized with me. Speaking French helps, we got friendly. I told him I didn’t want to go back to Canada to get the visa when I was so close to the DRC. He said that I could get a visa if I had a letter of invitation “prise en charge”. I got it for 150$ from Jean Paul (Whatsapp +243 990 622 714). I then came back to the embassy a few days later with the “prise en charge” document and got my DRC visa in less than an hour. 250$, three months multi entry from the day of entry (200$ for single entry 3 months). I had a 3 month window to enter the country.
From Angola to Kinshasa
After getting my DRC visa in Burundi (June) I carried on travelling through Africa and got to the the town of Maqela do Zombo in northern Angola in late August. From there I got a motorbike taxi that agreed to take me to the remote Congolese border of Kimdupulu for about 7 usd. The road there is a sand/dirt track. I was stamped out of Angola (the stamp had barely any ink on it anymore and the old Portuguese building looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in 50 years).
Once on the Congolese side I met the Kimdupulu immigration agent who works for the DGM, Jean Claud. DGM means Direction Générale de Migration. Jean Claude’s office was a wooden cabin. His colleagues from the secret police (ANR) and regular police wanted to investigate me and make issues for me. They asked me to come in their office and to see my passport but Jean-Claude said “passports are the business of DGM, hands off”. He was extremely friendly and invited me to stay in his house for the night. To my surprise he gave me his own bed to sleep in! He even gave me a meal, a SIM card and a beer and didn’t ask me a single dollar. He rarely if ever sees foreigners crossing here so he wanted to celebrate with royal hospitality.
The next day I paid a motorbike to get me to Nsangi (20000 francs, 2000 francs= 1 usd) and another one to Kisantu (20k). The Kisantu DGM chief told me I had forgotten to pay money for my entrance stamp and should pay him (bribe) but I befriended him and managed to escape his clutches. I hitchhiked on possibly the only “good” road of the country with a truck to go to Kinshasa. On the way a truck full of cement bags dropped some merchandise and the road was blocked for 3 hours. People around helped to clear out the mess in exchange for payments from the truck driver. I eventually reached Kinshasa at night where my couchsurfing host was waiting for me.
Kinshasa
I didn’t stay long in Kinshasa as I was eager to carry on deeper into the country and worried about time constraints. I visited the memorial of the defunct president Laurent Kabila. The memorial is nominally free to visit but my host had to pay a bribe to the guards to let us take pictures… Kinshasa’s driving is the most insane I have ever seen, even by African standards. Drivers don’t care about pedestrians at all. There’s an uneasiness in the air in Kinshasa. Interesting fact, people dress super well (suit and tie!) yet live in shantytowns. It’s called “la culture des sapeurs”.
From Kinshasa to Banduduville
I hitchhiked out of Kinshasa with motorbikes and trucks on a good tarmac road until the town of Mongata. I slept there for the night in a villager’s barn with his approval to avoid getting harassed by DGM. The road north of Mongata is not tarmac anymore, it’s a sandy road large enough for trucks to pass but they can only go at 10-15 km/h.
The next morning when I told the inhabitants that I was going to Banduduville they warned me that there was fighting/killings in the area on the way there and that buses had stopped going in the last few days. The information was blurry so I just decided to try my luck and walk, stopping the occasional motorbike that was going in my direction and hopping on board (giving them money whenever asked).
There was one army/police checkpoint on the way that was quite nasty and wanted cash “20$ for registration”. He harassed me so much that my motorbike driver left me there because it was too much trouble for him. I tried to leave the barrier on foot (I’d already written down my ID for them) but the guy followed me for 1 km. I turned back and got one inch from his face and said “look man, I know powerful people in Kinshasa near the president. I’ll get you fired from your job if you don’t leave me alone”. It worked like magic and he ran away. Still no trucks coming in my direction (a few in the other direction). Eventually I got a motorbike lift to Machambio who hosted me.
The next morning when I woke up I realized there was the Red Cross (local workers) in town and everybody was on alert. I walked out of Machambio and someone tried to stop me and explain to me the situation. Long story short, this was a full blown tribal war between the Teke and the Yaka. In that area north of Machambio the Yaka were ethnically cleansing it from Teke people, slaughtering villagers, burning houses etc. It was basically genocidal warfare from what they were saying. He told me that I shouldn’t continue or I’d get killed. I pondered on his advice, knowing that I was not related to the conflict and had nothing to do with it therefore in theory I shouldn’t be a target. Some refugees on foot coming from the red zone passed by me and we chatted. They told me it should be fine for me since I wasn’t a Teke the Yaka had no motive to kill me. This was the only road to Banduduville anyway so I decided to continue walking and see how things would turn out.
5 km north of Machambio I stopped at a village. Still no traffic northward despite waiting the whole day… I got stuck and slept over at the village, being fed half ripe mangoes from the trees. The villagers were incredibly nice, brought me some manioc to eat for dinner and things seemed normal and I wondered what was the fuss the people in Machambio had been talking about? I brought up the topic and one of the guys eating with me bursted out and started ranting. He told me he had been part of a Yaka raiding party the day before which had killed 4 Tekes (2 grandparents and 2 grandkids). I politely asked him what was the point of killing innocent children but soon realized it wasn’t a fruitful conversation.
The next morning there was still no vehicle so I just carried on walking, getting food and water on the way in the occasional hamlets. Eventually as I walked I soon saw burned houses and signs of destruction in one village. Those villages were previously Teke inhabited and had been completely abandoned. At one point I finally saw a truck going north and begged him to take me with him but he refused, blaming “Belgian colonialism and hand cutting”. I told him I was Canadian and we’d never had colonies but he didn’t seem to care.
I kept walking and saw another truck coming. He didn’t stop. Luckily I’m a good runner and I was desperate so I ran in the sand tracks for 10 minutes keeping pace with the truck who was going at 10-15 km/h. Eventually the girlfriend of the driver had pity on me and convinced him to let me climb on the roof of the truck where the merchandise is loaded and attached with ropes. They told me they’d been afraid to take me because there were Yaka barriers (roadbloacks) ahead.
The first one was before the village of Mibe. The guy didn’t notice me, he was too focused asking the driver money to pay for bullets (literally). Then came the real deal. Right after Mibe we got stopped by fifteen Yaka rebels with carbines (hunting rifles) and machetes. They had red turbans tied around their heads and what looked like black paint all over their face (the truck driver later told me it’s allegedly part of a magical ritual where they mix it with the blood of victims to gain superhuman powers, they call this magic “fétichisme”).
They asked everyone in the truck to get down (including two hitchhikers on the roof with me) to check their ID and inspect them to find any potential Teke. I realized these guys were not sober by looking at their eyes. They were 100% high on drugs. One guy saw me and asked me to come down and give him money, I politely ignored him and stayed on the roof of the truck where I felt safer. I locked gaze with another rebel, the only one that seemed sober. He immediately made me feel comfortable with sign language and gestured for me to stay where I was and that everything would be alright. This man gave me the most reassuring look I’ve ever witnessed in my whole life, it basically meant “don’t worry, it’s not you we are after, relax you’ll be fine”. After minutes that felt like eternity due to my nervous state some of the genocidal Yakas climbed with their machetes and weapons on the roof of the truck where I was… to hitch a lift to their next roadblock. This was straight out of a Hollywood movie. We dropped the militiamen at the roadblock a few kilometers down and then got to Bethanie.
From that area onwards the area was under Teke control but we were told there’d be no rebel roadbloacks since it was closer to Banduduville the congolese army had more muscle to enforce law in that area. Indeed I saw FARDC (DRC army) personel in Bethanie so it made sense. FINALLY we reached Ngadambo at night. Across the Kwilu river was Banduduville. Unfortunately we couldn’t cross with boats at night because the authorities didn’t allow it (some VIP local man drowned at night last year and they don’t allow night crossings anymore).
BANDUDUVILLE TO KIRI
I tried to board a boat the next morning to Banduduville but was harassed by different branches of police who threatened to physically remove me from the boat if I didn’t report to their office. I complied. A lot of shouting and two hours later, I was on the other side meeting with Father Franek, a polish missionary who’s been in the DRC since 2002. Through a common friend he’d invited me to stay with him for free at the Saint Paul catholic mission in town. I just recharged the batteries staying with him. As you can imagine he has fascinating stories to share. If ever you go to Banduduville please go to the St Paul mission, Franek feels lonely and wants to meet more foreigners. Greet him on my behalf.
From now on the sandy tracks wouldn’t be large enough for trucks, only for bikes. I paid a bike 15000 francs to take me to Bendela. At the river crossing before Bendela the DGM guy thought I was a missionary (my visa category said “ordinary” not “tourist” and he thought it was for missionaries haha). He asked me money but overall wasn’t too much trouble. It was nighttime, I tried to walk out of Bendela to avoid getting seen by the authorities but they caught me and wasted my time as usual. There was a football game on TV so they didn’t want to miss it. Therefore they forcefully put me in a hotel and told me that they’d meet me in the morning and that I wasn’t allowed to continue my journey. 30 minutes after they left I pretended to want to go get a bite outside and just fled into the darkness of the savannah.
Luckily there’s so little electricity in that area that at night it’s pitch black so I knew they wouldn’t find me let alone spend money on fuel to chase me. I walked to Keshu then paid a guy to get me to Cefa where I spent the night in a villager’s home (I had a sleeping bag and I don’t mind sleeping on the floor). Next day I paid a bike 25 000 to get me to Isaka. In Isaka there’s a DGM guy at the river but he was super friendly, only asked me if had “something for him” but didn’t push it, even gave me a fruit I’d never seen before. The DRC has indigenous fruits not seen anywhere else (check the pictures). The river crossing to Nyoki was only 3000 francs.
In Nyoki I was checked by the DGM right as I arrived at the port. No bribes asked, surprisingly. ANR wanted to check me too so I used the line that the friendly border guy had used: “passports are the business of the DGM, not theirs” and it worked (I basically played them against each other, the different services are in competition and dislike each other). I asked about boats “baleinières” to Inongo and was told there’d be one tomorrow. I crashed at the Saint-Michel Catholic mission for the night. People were very kind in Nyoki, I liked the vibe of the town.
Tip: in the DRC when people are looking for a way to go somewhere they say “chercher une occasion vers XYZ” that’s the phrase you want to use. It means “looking for an opportunity towards XYZ”. Yes, they use the word “opportunity” for transport because it’s so unreliable and unpredictable here… if you say “je cherche une occasion” people will understand you and help you.
The next day I bought a ticket for 15000 francs to go to Inongo. We left around 2pm. I chilled on the top deck and read my Kindle ebook, looking at the horizon. The toilet facility on baleinieres is on the top deck at the back. It’s a plank of wood with a hole in it and the Mai Ndombe lake directly underneath it. Your stools go straight to feed the fish in the lake. Some passengers cook rice on the boat with the dirty lake water and sell it for 2000 francs. I ate that. People were incredibly kind on the boat, surprised to have a white fellow passenger.
We got shipwrecked on a sandbank at night and caught under a terrible tropical thunderstorm. It was raining cats and dogs. Stuck in the storm all the passengers went in the cave of the boat but it was too crowded and I felt suffocating so I stood in the “toilet” for hours waiting for the rain to eventually stop. The next day a lot of guys jumped in the water and tried to push the boat out of the sand, no success. We had to unload the boat onto other nearby fishing boats (thank God those fishermen were there!), then guys jumped back into the water, pushed the boat and then we reloaded the ship. We carried on with our journey and anchored at night near the lakeshore. The next morning we arrived in Inongo.
In Inongo I was again bothered by the DGM minions who wanted to bring me to their boss to show off their “catch”. I was apprehensive… but the boss turned out to be an educated man who’d studied in France and was super friendly, even gave me his number in case I had any issues. I asked at the port which ships were going further inland and boarded a baleiniere going to Kiri for 10 000 francs. We were packed to the brim with people, like sardines, all sleeping on the top deck against each other on the floor. Good thing it didn’t rain that night or we would have all been soaked!
My advice: stay near the “toilet” at the back, you’ll likely have tummy issues by that point in your trip and having to walk over countless human bodies in the dark at night to relieve yourself is not fun. Luckily we didn’t shipwreck this time around and arrived in Kiri without any issues.
INTO THE JUNGLE: KIRI TO MONKONTO
Up until that point the landscape was mostly savannah. Kiri is when the jungle really started in my journey. DGM guy wasn’t too bad in Kiri. I was invited to eat caterpillar soup at the house of a fellow boat passenger. I then went to the catholic mission to stay for the night (free of cost, they have plenty of spare rooms, be prepared for spider webs, molded mattresses and rooms not cleaned since the Belgians left though!). A hunter tried to sell me a captured alligator for 50 000 francs.
The next day I went with a fellow boat passenger to Pendjua, about 60km north of Kiri. We paid 30 000 francs because fuel is expensive in that area of the DRC. The road was terrible with broken wooden bridges and swamps. He hosted me in his home there. I was harassed by the ANR (secret police) in their office, the officer telling me I had a ‘’fake passport that couldn’t be authenticated”. I used the “I know powerful people in Kinshasa who know your boss, behave or I’ll get you fired” line and suddenly my passport was perfectly valid in his eyes. I was let go.
The next day I decided to go visit Salonga National Park further east which would force me to walk 90km to Boyera because the “trail” between Pendjua and Boyera was not passable by bike according to locals. I set out on foot the next day. The issue is that certain sections of the trail had been totally flooded and I was walking in water, sometimes up to my knees Indiana Jones style. This meant either soaking my sneakers or walking barefoot, getting exposed to parasites and worms in the mud. I chose the latter. The locals put up with such horrible conditions in this part of the world it’s insane. I have a lot of respect for how tough they are. On the way I would see pygmies on hunting journeys with bows and arrows looking for game. I later learned that the Bantus call them “semi-bantus” because they are heavily mixed with the Bantus, they are taller than “pure pygmies”.
I spent the first night 27km into the trail. It was getting dark (sunset) and a local Branamist pastor (Christian sect) spontaneously invited me to stay over at his home. His house got surrounded with literally hundreds of villagers wanting to see me. According to the pastor I was the first white person to visit them since the Belgians left. Most of the people there have never left their village so a white person is a novelty. If you ever find yourself in that area of the world, be prepared, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced elsewhere in Africa. They will stay for HOURS just staring at you nonstop. Be prepared for two hundred people surrounding you. My host cooked some wild boar caught by pygmies. Unfortunately the meat was teeming with live worms. I asked my host about it, he said he was used to eating meat like that. I politely asked to boil the meat to kill the worms.
The next day I continued, the flooding was awful the trail turned into a lake at times and there were people with canoes offering to take people across for a fee. I managed to walk 32 km and stayed at someone’s home. One thing I found interesting is that bamboo is ubiquitous in that area of the DRC jungle and it makes for a very pleasant trekking environment. The third day I finally made it to Boyera on the Momboyo river.
In Boyera, I met Alain, the police commander. He had never seen a white person come of out this section of the jungle on foot and was understandably quite suspicious of me at first. After inspecting my documents and some friendly chatting, he hosted me in his house. He told me the people in the village were afraid of me because they aren’t used to outsiders. His wife made us delicious homemade food which we ate while discussing the law-and-order situation of the jungle.
The next morning, I had to find a way to continue my journey. The problem is that from Boyera onwards there was no road, only the Momboyo river. I hired the local pastor and his son to take me to Nkassa for 15000 francs in their fishing pirogue, canoe. The canoe was very unstable so I just lied down to help balance it out while they paddled. I didn’t want to risk capsizing and losing my 2000 dollars in cash and my passport in the river. Water leaked inside and I’d scoop it out to pass time. The two guys were very professional and did a great job.
We reached Nkassa after about 6 hours and they turned back (average speed going upriver seems to be 4-5 km/h). In Nkassa I met the police commander there. He was drunk (he is a very aggressive alcoholic). He started pestering and screaming at me but luckily the local chief came to fetch me, alerted by the locals. He told me that the population hates this drunken government-appointed commander, that he terrorizes the people and that they’ve been trying to get rid of him for years. What a contrast with Alain, the previous commander! The chief said ‘’please help us get him fired, do something”. Unfortunately I don’t think I have much power on who the DRC government appoints, but if anyone of you has contacts let him know about the Nkassa situation. I stayed over at the pastor’s house for the night.
The next morning he helped me find two fishermen to take me to Imbongo for 10 000 francs. A few hours into the journey, the most unexpected thing happened: a motorized canoe came out of nowhere, pulled over beside us and a guy told me to jump in. It turned out that it was a priest going back to his church in Wafanya, close to Salonga national park. He’d stopped to resupply at Nkassa and the amazingly friendly pastor asked him to give me a lift if possible. My first-time boat hitchhiking! This man saved me, because otherwise I would have had to take a dozen manpowered canoes over 10 days to get to my destination.
The trip with the motorized canoe took about 24 hours. We slept on the boat and stopped along the way in remote villages that still have beautiful colonial churches from the Belgian era. In Wafania I hung out with the priests for a few days. They eat a lot of monkey in that area. One day a pygmy hunter brought a freshly killed monkey to the priests. They boiled it and gave me the head and brain to eat. It’s a sign of respect in their culture. The brain tasted like tofu and the meat tasted like elk (gamy). I then got a bike to Monkonto (the priest actually gifted the oil from his own reserve because he wanted to give me a good impression of his parish and I paid his driver 20 000 francs).
MONKONTO, SALONGA NATIONAL PARK: TO THE BONOBOS
After arriving in Monkonto my first surprise was that the phone network didn’t work in the town even though I had been told that it would work. Luckily there is a local NGO worker near the catholic mission who has an office with satellite Wi-Fi. I connected with my loved ones to give them news of my whereabouts (it had been 2 weeks without signal). I was then summoned to the police headquarters and harassed by the police and DGM, all the typical bs. 10 guys angrily shouting at me. They aggressively told me that I didn’t have the right documents to be here, that I was a spy, blablabla. Luckily, I had a voice recording of the priest from Wafania in lingala, the local language, explaining who I was. When I played the recording the adjunct commander (prefet) told me he’d looked into the situation and allowed me to leave his office (apparently his big boss was a friend of the Wafania priest).
I then went to the Salonga National Park headquarters to enquire about touristic activities and the possibility to see wildlife with them. To my utter dismay I was told that they had 0 touristic infrastructure. They told me they I was the first tourist they’d seen show up at the park headquarters. They sometimes give nature walks to government kleptocrats flying in from Kinshasa from what one of the park representatives told me, but that was about it… They mainly focus on training park rangers and fending off poachers. They do a bit of biomonitoring of animals as well.
I asked the biomonitor in chief called Dieu-Merci “if I pay you, can you take me on a nature walk to see some wildlife?” His response was “the park is not ready to accommodate tourists. We have no experience doing such things. I would need to ask my bosses to see what can be done and plan something. Moreover, the bonobos here run away from humans due to poachers so you won’t see them. If we somehow manage to get permission to take you on a nature walk, the best we could do is spot some forest elephants at night but that will be costly for you since it’s tailored for government officials…
-“Are there some scientists that I could meet in the jungle? Any researchers habitualizing bonobos to humans and studying them?” I asked him. “Yes”. And that’s how I learned about scientists studying bonobos deep in the jungle near Luikotale. The problem was that there was no way to contact them since they had no phone signal and we only had satellite WiFi. Moreover, I probably wouldn’t even be allowed to visit if I asked them because ‘’protocol’’.
I figured my best bet was to do the massive detour deep into the forest and somehow find a way to get there, and ask permission on the spot. I figured I’d have a better chance to sell myself that way. I was prepared to pay them money, and if they turned me down at least I would have tried. The biomonitor told me “I don’t know how you are going to get there since we normally get our ICCN park rangers into that zone with a small plane and the next flight is not scheduled yet. I’ve never gone overland. You’d need to go back to Wafanya and to Boleko, then south from there”.
Not wanting to waste time, I hired a bike back to Wafanya. I hate to backtrack on trips but the thought of seeing wild apes was too alluring. I decided to keep only about 400 dollars on me for this detour expedition and leave the rest of my money hidden in my main bag under the priest’s bed in Wafania (1600$). In case a canoe capsized on the way I wouldn’t lose everything!
The next day the doctor in Wafanya, ‘’monsieur Taylor” lent me his bike for about 35 000 francs including oil and a young teenager as the driver to get me to Boleko. The bike broke down multiple times on the way and I often had to get off because it couldn’t carry us both through swamps. Once in Boleko I asked to cross to Bompombo and luckily some people were prepared to go there with a ‘’passeur d’eau’’, the French name the Congolese give to people who take you on their canoe for a fee. This one was very curious about me, he was an albino and had clearly suffered a lot from it from what I gathered. I felt bad for him. Albinos are called “blancs rates” in the DRC, which translates to “failed whitemen”. It took about an hour to get to Bompombo by canoe through thick swamplands (river flooding).
I got to Bompombo and nightfall came quickly but I didn’t want to waste time. Once there I walked about 17km to Bolanda. (note: if you ever find yourself here, bring powerbanks, you’ll need to use your phone as a flashlight because the moonlight doesn’t penetrate the thick canopy, it’s as dark as having your eyes shut!). Nightwalking alone the jungle is fun, bring some music on to lighten up your mood if you feel scared. Leopards are said not to attack humans, you should be fine. I finally reached Bolanda, which is a hamlet. I asked around if someone spoke French and I was taken to the school director’s hut for the night.
Tip: good protein sources can be hard to find in interior DRC if you’re not fond of their insects, but people raise poultry and you can get someone to kill a chicken and boil it for 5000 francs (2.5 USD). Boiled Cassava is also a good source of carbohydrates and I like it. But don’t expect a very diverse menu!
The next morning, I went to the shore of the Loso river to get a fisherman to take me across to Bokongombolo (about 15 km away). Other people wanted to go as well so after hard negotiations I got a good price of 5000 francs. Just as we were about to leave I go summoned back to the hamlet! Be careful, there’s a small army outpost in Bokongombolo. The soldier was livid, telling me I hadn’t reported my presence to him the night before and he was threatening me. I called him out and told him I knew he was looking for a bribe and I was in a rush to leave on the river. The tension escalated as I didn’t back down because I was in a hurry to get to the boat and didn’t want to miss my transport! Soon enough he was trying to intimidate me by punching his fists one inch from my face telling me “I’m a black belt Karate fighter, do you want to fight me?” at which point I got into a fight or flight mode and said “you want to fight!?” and instinctively chokeholded him for a few seconds. He immediately asked me to release him and his mood drastically improved thereafter (I had called out his bluff). He was like a completely different person and went from very hostile to very agreeable. He didn’t even ask to see my physical passport and just let me go after I wrote down my passport number and my name on a bogus piece of paper so he wouldn’t lose face. I eagerly went back to the canoe and set off. In hindsight I would not have acted that way, but in the heat of the moment with adrenaline pumping through your body you never know how you will react.
It took about two hours to get to Bokongombolo (going upstream). From there I walked 5 km to a village called Bolongoweitchi. I had been told there would be motorbikes here, but there were none! I didn’t want to walk 150+km to Luikotale… I asked around if I could rent someone’s bicycle because there were no motorbikes in the area. Unfortunately this is where I made the biggest mistake of my trip! I found someone who told me I could rent his bicycle for 5000 francs and drop it at his cousin’s in the village of Bisenge Batwa, about 60km away. He said there might be motorbikes there to continue onwards. So I rented his bicycle and set off.
The problem was that the rusty bike had no speed gear, no brakes, the tires weren’t sufficiently inflated and the seat was dilapidated. At the time I thought it would be faster to use a bicycle than to walk. I was wrong. Unless you are a Congolese who grew up in the jungle and is used to cycling in that type of environment with shitty bicycles, DON’T TRY IT!! It took me two days to reach Bisenge Batwa (slept halfway) and I got cyclist palsy (UIvar nerve injury) on my right hand for months after that and couldn’t eat with my right hand. Walking here is better than cycling, unless you have a special all terrain bicycle with brakes.
In Bisenge Batwa I recovered from the harrowing journey at a man’s home called Rambo and gave him the bicycle that I had rented. Rambo is a nurse and he is the most educated man of the hamlet, he speaks fluent French. The bad news was that his motorbike was broken and he didn’t have enough fuel to take me where I wanted. Fuel is a rare commodity in this part of the jungle. The good news is that the only other person in the hamlet with a motorbike agreed to lend it to him so he could take me further. He took me 16km farther to Nkopo, where he passed me to one of his friends who had a bike with a bit more fuel.
The friend agreed to take me to Mundja (about 76km away) for 50 000 francs all expenses included. He’d never been there before. The trip was very tough. We constantly had to lift the motorbike over fallen trees and other jungle obstacles. Whenever we came to a hamlet dogs would chase us and try to bite our ankles because they aren’t used to motorbikes and thought we were some strange animal. On the way we found only ONE village that had a bit of gasoline. They didn’t have much but my driver refueled anyway because he didn’t have enough in his tank. While he was refueling a local tribal chief ‘’chef de groupement’’ gifted me a piece of leopard skin.
5 km before Mundja we ran out of fuel (we hadn’t refueled enough and the tough terrain made the bike burn more than we’d expected). We asked some locals to keep the bike safe while we walked to Mundja. I hoped that we could get fuel there from the ICCN park rangers so that my driver could safely return home. As we arrived they were quite surprised to see us. The biomonitor in Monkonto had told the Mundja head park ranger, commander Sendi, that a white tourist had wanted to come, but none of them thought I was seriously going to make it.
Luckily they had a fuel reserve. He agreed to sell fuel at 6000 francs a liter and my driver brought the gasoline with him and went off, after being fed a nice meal by the ICCN rangers. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the ICCN Mundja station has satellite internet, so I could connect with loved ones. I then enquired about the scientists and commander Sendi confirmed their presence, telling me I would need to go to a hamlet called Ipope 15 km away. He kindly lent me a headtorch as I set off at nighttime. I reached Ipope, gave the headtorch to the local doctor there who is friends with Sendi and pitched up for the night. The next day I made it to Lumpole, 3 km away, where I met a man called Mara who works with the scientists.
Mara explained to me that he was the Congolese man in charge of maintaining a good relationship between the scientists and the local population. He also told me that I was extremely lucky because some scientists were going to come out of the jungle that day to fly out in a few days from Ipope and I could meet them and explain to them my project. Sure enough, a group of white people came out of the jungle at night and we had dinner at Mara’s home. They were very curious as to how I had managed to get there. We got friendly. Barbara, the leading scientist and head of the project, agreed to let me visit the camp and the bonobos in the forest, FOR FREE! I was delighted and thankful. She felt pity for me to have come all the way there and didn’t want to turn me down I think. She clearly explained it’s normally forbidden to visit the site unless you are part of the project. I’d be considered a “volunteer” for a few days.
In the next few days I got to know the scientists better and some of them left by airplane from Ipope (the ‘’airport’’ is a cleared field in the jungle where a tiny aircraft company that caters to Christian missionaries flies in and out once every 2-3 months. There are no scheduled flights, it all depends on when new scientists arrive or leave). Some scientists left and newcomers arrived.
We started the trek from Lumpole to Luikotale. It’s a 25 km distance. There’s a river to cross, the Lokoro. We finally reached Luikotale where I met the other scientists there. I really enjoyed my time there. Be careful, they have no anti-poison snake medicines or any anti-venom. Lethal snakes are ubiquitous in that area. Before being allowed on the site everyone has to sign a paper saying that they are responsible if they die, etc. The wildlife was surreal. I got to see flying squirrels, all kinds of butterflies and birds, small monkeys. There are local workers there that cook for the scientists and others that help them with the bonobos. The rations are small; everyone who stays there told me they lost weight. I slept in one of the huts.
After a few days I set off to see the bonobos with two local workers. The bonobos roam around and were about a 10 km trek from the main camp that day. It was a delight to see them eat, play and copulate live in the forest in their natural environment. Beware! You will be walking in wild forest with no tracks, you can easily get lost if you lose sight of the local workers! There are wild bees around, carnivorous ants and all kinds of dangers so just be smart. I kept getting my ankles caught in vines and it was difficult to walk without falling every 30 seconds. Now I understand why the pygmies are so short, it’s an evolutionary adaption to better thrive in the thick jungle!
FROM THE BONOBOS BACK TO WAFANYA
I started feeling sick and weak in Luikotale and wanted to get out before things got bad because it’s very remote. I bid farewell to the nice scientists and trekked back with a local worker to Lumpole. From there I made it to Ipope where I realized that all my money (more than 300$) in my wallet had been stolen! I think it must have happened when I stayed at Mara’s house in Lumpole. I would often leave my bag in my hut and go to the ‘’bathroom’’ (hole in the ground). A smart thief probably took advantage of my absence to go inside my hut and empty out the cash.
Luckily I had left about 15 000 francs in my jacket’s pocket… That would be just enough to cover the river crossings all the way to Boleko. But not enough for bikes or food… I trekked 15km to Mundja and explained the situation to commander Sendi. He said I looked sick and I felt terrible by that point (diarrhea, headache etc) so I did a rapid test and got diagnosed with malaria… Sendi told me to stay in his house to recover while we looked for a solution. I didn’t feel like walking 165km to Boleko with no money while being sick with malaria. Instead I rested in his house for three nights while getting terrible fevers.
He asked the village nurse to inject me with a needle because the oral medications weren’t powerful enough. The village nurse was a drunk and one night he came to check up on me while totally wasted. The commander got angry and chased him out of his house. I eventually refused to get needle injections from this guy because I felt like he didn’t know how to sting properly; Sendi later confessed he was an incompetent. I kept to the oral meds. At one point Sendi feared I was going to die and told me to send a message to my parents on whatsapp thanks to satellite Wi-Fi. I got better after a few days.
I came up with an idea. I told Sendi that his bike was the only bike around and I needed his personal motorbike driver to take me to Bokogombolo which is the farthest he could get me by motorbike before the Loso river. Since I had only enough money on me to pay for the river crossings I told him that as soon as I would get to Wafanya and retrieve my main bag under the priest’s bed I would take out whatever cash we’d agreed upon now and give it to the priest who would in turn give it to Sendi on his next trip to the area. It turned out that Sendi knew the priest in Wafania. Even better, I messaged the priest on Whatsapp who happened to have satellite Wi-Fi because he was in Monkonto that day at the catholic mission. It was a miracle!
Sendi spoke to him. When he realized that the priest was indeed his old friend and would make sure I paid him back with my bag hidden at his place, he agreed to a plan. I would pay him 150 000 to rent his motorbike driver to bring me to Bokogombolo (146km north), the farthest the bike could take me before a major river crossing. Sendi was quite nervous because it was his only functional bike and he needed his driver, so if something happened to either he would be screwed.
We set out the next morning at dawn. It was a grueling ride as I was still weak and had to help him lift the motorbike over tree trunks. Since I had just enough money left (after being robbed) for the river crossings ahead AND I also needed to keep a buffer of 5000 francs because nothing guaranteed that I would cross for the same price as I previously had (it’s all up to negotiations and how the fishermen feel that day); I had to beg villagers for coconuts, bananas, papayas, pineapples and oranges to feed myself and the biker. Luckily these fruits are plentiful in the area and the villagers were happy to give some away. Congolese hospitality is beautiful. In fact I later learned that these fruits are so ubiquitous in that area that they normally are given for free among people. We slept halfway the first night and carried on the next day. We were now in the area that I had previously covered on foot and bicycle. In some sections the driver had to cut open detours in the forest with a machete. His motorbike was too heavy to carry over certain fallen logs. After a second day that felt like eternity we arrived at sunset in Bokogombolo where I thanked the driver and promised to give the money to the priest once arrived in Wafanya.
I slept in Bokogombolo. The next morning I got a canoe ride back to Bolanda for 5000 francs after tough negotiations. From there I walked to Bompombo. On the way some villagers let me taste some smoked boa snake that they’d caught. I wasn’t a fan, it smelled rotten. I managed to get a friendly fisherman to take me to Boleko for 3000 francs. The man was very kind and as we spoke about Congo’s past he gave me as a gift a Belgian colonial coin from 1925! He’d found it in his garden I think.
I arrived in Boleko and explained my situation to the locals. I still had 60km to get to Wafanya and my diarrhea was getting worst (I got tested for giardia later on, at the time I didn’t know I was carrying a parasite). Someone let me crash at their place for the night. The next day a guy going to Wafanya by motorbike agreed to take me along for 30 000 francs, I told him I didn’t have the money on me but would get it from my hidden bag and pay him, to which he agreed. I finally made it to Wafanya, retrieved my bag under the priest’s bed, paid him 150 000 for the ICCN rangers, gave 30 000 to the mototaxi and collapsed on the bed exhausted and sick.
FROM WAFANYA TO BOENDE
I was quite sick and had a lot of blisters and skin infections (besides major bowel issues) and got treated by doctor Taylor in Wafanya. One of my blisters under my toe was so infected that I couldn’t walk and had to limp. He skillfully cut it out with a scalpel to let the pus out and help me walk again. I also got a lot of antibiotics to treat my other infections.
After a few days of recovery I asked around Wafanya for a bike to take me to Boende 216 km north. I found one disabled man working for the Ministry of disabled people who could rent me his bike and driver for about 200 000 francs, or 100 usd. We shook hands on the deal, I paid him and I left with his bike & driver. Unfortunately after 76 km the bike broke down. A villager hosted us for the night and the next morning the driver told me that he couldn’t repair the bike and that I would need to find another bike to continue.
Luckily two guys who were passing by happened to be going to Boende. They were overloaded already but in the DRC there’s always more room for money so they somehow managed to squeeze me in with the luggage. Since they were already going to Boende, I got a deal for 20 000 francs. A real bargain (too bad I’d already paid the other guy full price). The road was difficult at times and the bike slipped a lot in the mud. We fell off the bike a few times but luckily no one got injured.
I arrived in Boende and stayed with the guys who’d taken me. Boende is the capital of Tshuapa province. The phone network barely works and you can only get internet by going to the local hospital and asking the doctors there to use Wi-Fi. Nonetheless, they have more food options than in the remote jungle so you can treat yourself to some canned tuna or beans.
FROM BOENDE TO IKELA
I did my best in Boende to avoid being seen by the authorities, and it somehow worked. It was the only major town in the DRC where I managed to do so and thus avoid unnecessary drama. My strategy to get to Kisangani was to simply stand on the side of the road and hail passing motorbikes, and then agree on a price. I knew that would be cheaper than renting a driver. A guy brought me 80 km eastward for 5000 francs. Then I stopped two motorbikes travelling together. They were both high ranked Tshuapa civil servants going to Ikela, 326 km east. One of them agreed to take me with them for 60 000 francs all the way! Unfortunately it rained a lot and the road was wrecked so it took us 3 nights and 4 days to reach Ikela. On the way we would stop at villagers’ homes to sleep (it’s a custom in interior DRC that you should host travelers passing by). A few times locals made illegal barriers of wood on the way to block incoming traffic and force them to pay a tax.
At one particular barrier we were swarmed by 50 villagers who aggressively told us that we wouldn’t pass unless we paid them a very high fee. They vaguely claimed it was because they had worked on the road, but we couldn’t see any evidence of that whatsoever. They seemed prepared to attack us. My two friends got quite angry at them for behaving so aggressively and told them that they were not going to pay and would report their behavior to the governor of Tshuapa, their friend. There was a tense standoff for 30 minutes with a lot of shouting but eventually we were let through without paying anything (my friends had to show their government ID cards to add muscle to their threat).
There were other similar instances along the way. One time a drunken barrier man said I was a mercenary and my friends had to help me out of his clutches. About 54 km before Ikela there’s a village run by a man whose father was a Belgian colonial agent but ran away after decolonization, leaving him to be raised by his Congolese single mom. He is a metis. He has interesting stories to share about his life.
When we arrived in Ikela I was super sick again and had high fever (40 degrees when I got tested). But of course the DGM and military had to come and bother me as soon as we arrived on the eastern shore of the Tshuapa river. They told me to go to the office of the administrator of Ikela but he wasn’t there. So instead they just wasted 45 minutes looking at my passport and treating me like a criminal just for existing. I asked them “you just want to check my passport and register it, right? You’re not going to ask me money?” to which they initially said yes, and then said “we’ll see about that” with a nasty look.
After an hour I saw that they weren’t keen on giving me my passport back I snapped it by force from the hands of the DGM guy and told him “stop playing games, you had an hour to write down my ID info on a piece of paper and you didn’t do anything. I’m done with you, I need to go to the hospital, I’m terribly sick”. The army guy was furious and demented, he seemed possessed by a demon and threatened me verbally so I opened my arms wide open and told him “Ok, what are you going to do? The worst thing you could do to me is to shoot me and throw my body in the river. Do you think it’s going to go well for you once it makes worldwide news and your government investigates? Everyone here (including my two friends) is a witness of the situation.” I took a picture of the DGM guy’s ID and added “My powerful friends in Kinshasa will find out about you.” I just walked away and went to the hospital that evening. They didn’t follow me. Got some meds then rested at my friend’s home for a few days. They had a lot of stories to share, including one having his cousins cooked and eaten by Rwandan cannibalistic soldiers in the Second Congo War.
IKELA TO KISANGANI
When I was ready to leave Ikela, I walked out and did my usual technique. I got a bike going to Opala 144 km away for 30 000 francs. On the way we bumped into two FARDC soldiers on a bike around a corner of the jungle near a clearing with some huts. They were both armed with machine guns but didn’t seem too aggressive. They approached us and asked if I had something for them. ‘’I don’t, sorry” was my reply. They seemed satisfied and we quickly sped off.
About 30km later at nightfall we ran into a hamlet with a wooden barrier with a drunken police commander (alcoholism is a big problem in the DRC). He checked my ID and started ranting about nonsense, that I didn’t have the right documentation to be here etc, “you are before me in front of the state, I am the state”. I didn’t argue with him and just played audio recordings in Lingala of the Boyera commander Alain and the Wafanya priest. Everyone around heard the recording out loud. He let us go (having lingala recordings is very helpful!).
On the way later on my motorbike driver asked me “have you ever raped anyone?” “No”, I replied, surprised. “Why do you ask?” I said. He proudly told me that he’d raped a woman before (I’ll spare you the details) and that it was very common in the DRC… I guess you learn something new every day… He dropped me off a bit before Opala on the main road to Kisangani where there was a village with some huts. I was welcomed in one hut where I spent a few days to “recharge the batteries”.
Later on I stopped a bike going to Kisangani, 240km away. It was a young man who had bought a goat and was going to sell it in Kisangani where he lives. The goat was loaded on the bike but like I said before there’s always space for extra cash in the DRC. We agreed on 25 000 francs. He managed to make me sit on his bike with my backpack separating me from the goat but even then she tried to bite my hand.
There was a DGM control on the eastern shore of the Lomami river, but it wasn’t too bad. About 20km after the Lomami crossing we ran into some local villagers that were actually working on improving the road in the forest. They asked us for money in a polite way and I happily gave some to them because they were the only locals I’d seen actually work on any stretch of the road. I was happy contributing to their work effort.
Unfortunately before the Lobaye river crossing we ran into a nasty checkpoint run by different government agencies and the army. They asked me for money. I declined. They harassed my driver because his license had expired (very common, not a big deal in the DRC, most people drive and don’t even have a license). They eventually let us go after I got friendly with the military captain there. We got badly ripped off crossing the Lobaye river, as the guys doing it have a monopoly and act like a mafia. Everyone else crossing was also furious at how much they charge but I can’t remember the exact figure.
We slept at his cousin’s at Yatolema just after the river and carried on the next day in tough sandy terrain. At one point we slipped off and a local made fun of us, saying “haha, if you whiteman came here and built the road for us, you wouldn’t suffer like that”. My driver was ashamed and explained to me that many Congolese don’t have a sense of responsibility about their own country and expect outsiders to fix it for them (his words!). I found that unfortunate.
About 52km before Kisangani there’s a checkpoint of the Direction Generale des Recettes Provinciales de la Tshopo (DGRPT). It’s like a provincial tax collection office and they harass locals for whatever reason. They didn’t bother me at all thankfully but made my driver wait many hours, he eventually had to give his motorbike torchlight as a bribe to one of the agents, otherwise he wouldn’t let us pass! They claimed it was because his license was expired, but then again they were bothering everyone in sight so I think they were just looking for an excuse to get cash.
Finally about 20km from Kisangani there was another major checkpoint. Here the DGRPT aggressively told me that I had to pay for a “foreigner’s tax”. I stayed strong and called out their bs. They harassed my driver again but eventually with time and persistence we were allowed to continue. You need either a lot of time or a lot of money to do the DRC…
The problem was that by that point it was pitch black on the track and we’d given the bike torchlight to the previous corrupt checkpoint. I had to use my phone as a flashlight as we rode super slowly on the slippery track to make sure we didn’t get injured. We finally made it to Kisangani, where I spent the first night at my mototaxi’s home.
KISANGANI
I crossed the Congo river the next day, it’s 500 francs (very cheap). Kisangani has no real supermarket (only some convenience stores) but it has a few restaurants that make up for it. You can get some nice Goma cheese and sausages, a real treat after a long time in the bush.
In one cheese shop I ended up meeting a former missionary in his 60s who’d been living in the DRC for 41 years (1981)! He’s originally Italian (Giampetro Valenti) but goes by the French name “Jean Pierre”. He kindly invited me to stay at his house (he doesn’t see foreign tourists often in Kisangani and was quite happy). He’s married to a local woman called Elizee and has the most crazy stories I’ve heard in all my life. He never left the DRC even during the worst parts of the wars and often had to hide for his life! He’s more entertaining than anything you’ve ever seen. If you ever find yourself in Kisangani, make sure to meet him. In my opinion he is the highlight of that city! He speaks Italian, French and Swahili (no English). Just ask around for “Jean Pierre Valenti” and people will know who that is. I hope he writes a book one day.
Unfortunately when I was there the electricity didn’t work in Kisangani. People had to use fuel generators a few hours per day. In the city center there are guys with generators that will let you charge your phone for a small fee (500 francs). The water supply doesn’t work normally, water only comes at night for a few hours so people have to store it in buckets (that’s what Jean Pierre does). Despite being in the top 3 cities of the DRC population wise, the city’s infrastructure is a total joke! No electricity, barely any running water! One time the water didn’t come for 48 hours… Make sure you shower while you can!
I went to see the Boyoma Falls and was assaulted by thirty delirious teenagers asking me for 50$ just to have a 5 second look at the falls. They were surrounding me and pushing against my chest and not letting me step forward despite me telling them that the price was ridiculous. Jean Pierre had told me the falls are nominally free for everyone and that these guys run a scam. There’s no ticket or anything, it’s just how much they can extort from you (pure realpolitik). As the crowd was getting dangerous, two high ranked ANR (secret police) officers that were sipping wine nearby on the river shore intervened and told me to come with them to see the falls for free. They escorted me (the crowd backed off) and I had a quick look at the falls, took some pictures.
Then they told me to get in their car which was suspicious. I didn’t want to but they ordered me to. That’s when things went south. They drove me to their base in the town hall and checked my papers/investigated me for ages. I got irritated. Then we all got back in the car and they asked me to give them money. At that point I just opened the door and walked away. My opinion is that the Boyoma falls are not worth seeing unless you want to pay the crowd money or you can go there with a local friend who can speak on your behalf. Going alone as a foreigner is a recipe for disaster (also if you pay 50$ next time they’ll ask the next visitor 60$ and so forth, so don’t do it please).
KISANGANI TO EPULU, OKAPI RESERVE
The good thing is that from Kisangani onwards, there is a dirt road large enough for trucks from Kenya to come deliver oil! This was the first time since I’d left Banduduville two months earlier that I could hitchhike with trucks and take a break from motorbikes! But first it wouldn’t be that easy.
About 28km east of Kisangani there’s a major checkpoint (army, police, DGM, etc). I approached it on foot. They turned me back and escorted me back to the DGM headquarters in Kisangani. The DGM guy in Kisangani claimed he’d spoken on the phone with his superior in Kinshasa. He told me I wasn’t allowed to continue my trip eastward because of security concerns citing “rebel activity and attacks”. He said I had to fly out.
I was cognizant of the risks in the East but still wanted to visit the Okapi Reserve and the Mbuti pygmies. I told the DGM guy I heeded his advice, got my passport back and hit the road again. A Jeep said they’d take me as far as checkpoint KM28 but not further because “you’re white, people will think you’re rich and bandits are known to attack on this road”. At the checkpoint I quickly moved with a hoodie and wasn’t spotted (probably because they were on dinner break). I then hitchhiked with a motorbike going to KM76 (from Kisangani).
On the way night fell and my driver told me that the area between KM50 and KM70 is dodgy and a lot of “coupeurs de route” operate (bandits). The reason is that 20km stretch is void of people, it’s just forest and is a perfect place for thieves to operate and hide. He told me he had encountered them a month earlier but had managed to outpace them with his bike (they did a fake checkpoint, then tried to steal his valuables). It was quite nerve wracking to pass there at night but thankfully nothing happened. He dropped me off and I got another bike for 5000 francs to KM96 where there’s a legit barrier. I slept there overnight. The guys at the barrier were quite friendly (this is near the area where the infamous incident with the Norwegians happened in 2009).
In the morning Kenyan (ethnic Somali) truckers who’d delivered oil in Kisangani stopped at the barrier. They were on the way to Uganda. I asked them for a ride. What a pleasure to get inside a truck cabin after so long on bikes! We passed through plenty of corrupt checkpoints where everyone’s hands needed to be greased by the Somali truckers. The checkpoint before Bafwasende was the worst by far. The trucks move by convoys of a dozen for a reason. When one truck is cleared to pass the barrier and the wooden branch is lifted, all the other ones hit the gas pedal to take advantage of the situation and leave the corrupt checkpoint behind before the branch is brought back down. It was quite amusing to see.
About 20km before Nya Nya we got stopped because a truck was stuck in a ditch. Not all truckers had a sleeping cabin so we slept under the stars on the dirt road with a mosquito net over us (tied between the trucks). The next morning the truck ahead of us was finally out of the ditch and we continued to Nyanya.
What the truckers told me is that between Mambasa (191km east of Nyanya) and Komanda (287km east of Nyanya) is where the ADF operates. Luckily Epulu is 120km east of Nyanya and 71 km west of Mambasa, so I would be okay. The ADF is a crazy Islamist rebel group that pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2019. They are known to attack the road and slaughter civilians. They burn vehicles, kidnap Somali truckers and ask for a ransom (even though they’re muslims, imagine what they would do to non-believers!).
From here the convoy split into two groups for the following reason. Some truckers’ insurance companies told their truckers to carry on the Mambasa route because it’s shorter thus cheaper in fuel and they prefer to take that risk. They pay 50-100$ per truck for a Congo army escort between Mambasa and Komanda. Other companies don’t want to take the risk anymore and tell their drivers to go north through Isiro then Aru (a much longer route but safer). The truckers made phone calls to their bosses, got different orders, and I went with those going East. I was dropped off at Epulu.
EPULU, OKAPI RESERVE: DISASTER STRIKES
I got a hotel for 10 000 francs/5$ a night in Epulu, I can’t remember the name but there’s only two hotels there I think. Basic room, outdoor toilet. They recently have gotten 3G internet in town (the engineer maintaining the towers was staying at my hotel). I immediately went to the Okapi Reserve headquarters to discuss my plan to spend time in the forest with the Mbuti pygmies.
On one side of the road is the ICCN station, on the other one is the Wildlife Worldwide Fun (WWF) people. I met a lady from Cameroon working for WWF who told me it should be no problem for me to visit there, that she was happy to have me visit etc. She was the one in charge of the relationship between the Reserve’s leadership and the pygmies. She said I should come back the next day to meet Maxime, a Frenchman in charge of the security at the Okapi Reserve. She assigned me a guide from the ICCN, Francois, from Goma. He told me it would be no problem to visit the pygmies and we’d go tomorrow morning to introduce myself to them and start the negotiation process.
The next morning I went back to the Reserve headquarters and Francois, my guide, introduced me to Maxime. Maxime is a white Frenchman with death skull tattoos in charge of the security at the reserve. We chatted for a bit and he was quite friendly initially, albeit a bit cold and distant. He was clearly surprised to see me there, asking me “how the heck did you come here and who are you? you know this area is not safe, right?” to which I replied “I came from Kisangani to stay with the Mbuti pygmies in the forest for a few days, live and hunt with them. Is it possible?” He said “Yes, since you’re here it’ll be possible. Give me a photocopy of every page of your passport and go with Francois to talk with the pygmies about price. Then come back.”
We talked about the security of the area and I asked Maxime “I’ve been told the area is safe and only iffy past Mambasa, is that right?” to which he replied: “Yeah, I don’t see nor care about the nuances. For me all roads in this bloody country are unsafe and I only advise my staff to travel by plane. For me all you white people coming to do tourism in Africa are foolish, I don’t understand you all. You are unconscious of the danger and live in LaLaLand. I don’t understand why you people come to do tourism in Africa. You’re only seen as white meat (“viande blanche”) by the locals. You’re just prey for them. All this talk about visiting the world and discovering each other’s culture is bullshit. There was a guy from Australia who came here a few months ago and I told him the same thing because he was naive. You know, I fought in Afghanistan in the French army and we would always tell journalists not to go somewhere, then they’d go, get in trouble and we’d need to rescue them. People are oblivious to risks.”
Maxime was basically extremely arrogant, comparing apples to oranges. I found it weird that he’d chosen to work here yet he didn’t see the value of the place for visitors. “You chose to work here for the money, I guess?” He replied “Yeah, kinda, although the money could be much better. For the adventure mostly.” The irony of him wanting to work here but talking shit about people who wanted to visit was insane.
“Did you see any okapis lately? Is it still possible to see some?” I asked. “No, they’re too deep in the forest and hidden. There used to be a male Okapi a year ago that would come near Epulu and was spotted a few times, but not anymore. I think a villager got him” was his response. Wow, clearly those guys weren’t doing a great job at fending off poachers… I went to photocopy every page of my passport, handed it to Maxime and left with my guide Francois to meet the pygmies.
We walked for about 10 minutes on the outskirts of Epulu and sat down with a chief of a pygmy community. Francois acted as the translator. The deal we got was that I’d join them for 3 nights in the woods and see them hunt with spears and nets as well as collect honey from high up trees. The price would be 100 000 francs, everything included and I’d pay 20$ (40 000) for Francois. So 70$ total for 3 days. Francois said I’d also have to pay for two rangers for our security and that I’d negotiate the cost with Maxime back at the HQs, probably 10$ per day for both so 30$ extra. Total 100$. I wanted to go that day but a pygmy had passed away. The chief had to mourn his death and the funeral was tomorrow morning. “Ok no problem, I’ll wait until tomorrow” I said. We agreed to leave around noon tomorrow. I was very excited. The whole process took about an hour.
I went back to the Okapi Reserve headquarters and that’s when all hell broke loose. Someone told me I had been summoned by the secret police, ANR, to go meet them. Maxime was nowhere to be seen. I thought that was strange, especially when a ranger eagerly offered to take me for free on his bike to the ANR office. It seemed like something was off.
I was interrogated for an hour by the ANR, the guy was writing a report on a piece of paper which was the first time I’d seen this in all my time in the DRC. Normally they try to subtly ask for cash and I could clearly see that this was something different and much more serious with the types of questions he was asking. He was writing down all my answers. There was no talk about “permission to be here” like usual, instead the questions were about my motives to be here. Eventually two men in military anti-terrorism gear showed up with two machine guns and told me I had to follow them.
The ANR guy told them to wait and then asked me “have you ever been arrested in Afghanistan?”. That’s when it all clicked. A year ago I’d been detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan for being the first western tourist there post takeover as they had no clue what a tourist was back then. They wanted to see if I was a christian missionary and there was a language problem so I’d been detained for a few days in remote Farah province. Unfortunately an Afghan news outlet had made the news about it, without mentioning the cause of the detention. Then Global News and lying Canadian journalist Jeff Semple spinned the story to make more views and published a video online where they claimed the Taliban were suspecting me of being ISIS (totally false, the Taliban never said that nor did the original Afghan article in Pajhwok media). Jeff had never bothered to take down the video ever since, even though it contained false information about my reputation. So now it all made sense. Add to that the fact that Maxime had served in Afghanistan (probably lost friends there) against the Taliban whom I’d hung out with and you had the perfect reason for him to hate my guts.
“Yes” I told the ANR guy. “Go online and google my name. You’ll see I appeared on a few podcasts, there’s a BBC video about my trip and a Nomadmania interview all confirming that I’m a tourist. There’s also a quebec article by La Presse that clarifies everything. I’m not linked to ISIS or the ADF at all, you guys are mistaken. I’m just an adventurous traveler.” I sent him some links and followed the two military men who wanted to inspect my bag.
They came to my hotel and asked me to unload my backpack on the bed so that they could check every belonging I had. They checked absolutely everything, from socks to toothbrushes. They treated every object as a suspicious weapon. I’d later learn from Francois that these guys had been told by Maxime that I was linked with the ADF/ISIS and so they were convinced I carried explosives or something dangerous in my backpack.
I was scared that they would find the piece of leopard skin that had been given to me by a local chief near Salonga as it would give them a reason to charge me for “poaching” or some bogus charge. They were definitely keen to find dirt on me. Luckily I’d preemptively wrapped the leopard skin inside an old underwear and they didn’t bother to look there. They were convinced that my electric razor was a bomb device (I think they’d never seen one before) and thought my padlock had something to do with setting explosives. In a different scenario this could have been hilarious, but my mood was not in the spirit of laughing. I literally had to show them how the padlock worked on the door. They still wanted to confiscate it along with my razor at which point I accused them of theft. The ANR guy, who’d followed us, was smarter and told them to take pictures of the “suspicious items” and let it go.
I thought the matter was over but later in the evening I learned that the investigation wasn’t over. I tried to go watch a football game that night in Epulu to change my mind but the two guys with machine guns came back and told me I couldn’t leave my hotel anymore, that I was under arrest. They first stood at the door of my hotel to make sure I wouldn’t leave. Then they brought chairs and sat outside my room’s door. They were assigned to watch me.
I asked them “What’s going on? Am I not allowed to leave without your permission? Am I under arrest? What is going on here?” but they didn’t reply and treated me like a suspected terrorist. I realized that this was getting serious and out of hand. Two guys with loaded guns were right outside my door, my movements were restricted, and they didn’t give me any information about what the hell was going on.
At that point I spoke to a friend who contacted the Canadian embassy for me and gave them my congolese number. It was nighttime in the DRC so I got a call from the emergency crisis response unit in Ottawa. It was a friendly anglophone woman on the other end of the line. I briefly explained to her the situation. She told me the Kinshasa embassy would contact me tomorrow, that they couldn’t help me if I’d broken a law overseas and that I should get a local lawyer if I was charged with anything. We hung up and I tried to sleep as best as I could, ignoring the music of my wardens outside the door.
The next morning I woke up. Francois, my guide, had been alerted and he came to my room. The two armed guys brought me and him to the police headquarters where I met the Officier de Police Judiciaire of Epulu (judiciary police officer), mister Leonard. Diego, the Congolese head of the ICCN in Epulu, was also present.
I tried to ask questions and figure out if I could still carry on with my plan with the pygmies. They just laughed at me and Diego told me that he’d received orders from Maxime (the real boss) to not let me enter any area of the Reserve. It made no sense to me. “Why would the ADF/ISIS send a white man from Canada with a big safari hat to go hunt antelopes with pygmies in the forest? WTF?”. I asked. “The orders are the orders. You’re no longer allowed to enter the Reserve, and you can’t even set foot in our headquarters anymore. You are persona non grata here” he replied before leaving the police building.
I asked the police chief if I could leave Epulu, but he said I couldn’t because the investigation was ongoing and the administrator of Mambasa had ordered that I stay in detention. He was going to come in a few days and wanted to meet me and bring me to Mambasa for God knows what reason. That was a massive red flag for me. Mambasa is actually in the dangerous zone near the ADF, so going there would put me at risk of kidnapping and I had no desire to get there. My plan was to hunt with pygmies in the Okapi Reserve, not to go to f*cking Mambasa!
I got a call from the Kinshasa Canadian embassy. A local lady that works there was on the phone. I was disappointed that I couldn’t even speak to someone from my country on the ground in the DRC (she worked there but wasn’t Canadian). Nonetheless, I stayed cool and explained to her the situation. She was nonchalant, totally clueless and had no idea what to do. She was a low level secretary. I told her I didn’t want to go to Mambasa under any circumstance and I wanted to know why I wasn’t allowed to leave Epulu. They’d searched me already and found nothing. I wanted to know what were the charges against me, if any? Why was I being detained?
She was just clueless and said she didn’t know who to talk to. She was the textbook example of an incompetent bureaucrat. I said she should probably start with the Mambasa administrator since he was the one keeping me in detention. She asked me to get the number of the Mambasa administrator for her?! I was baffled that they didn’t have the will at the Embassy to find the number, since they surely had the resources for it. Clearly this wasn’t 1950 anymore when embassies would move heaven and earth to help their citizens in need. I hung up and told her I’d get it for her.
I spoke to the police commander of Epulu, got friendly with him, and cracked a few jokes. The mood lightened up. I eventually told him, bluffing “My embassy is extremely worried about me (they weren’t, and didn’t care at all) and they are threatening to alert the news media if I’m not released soon. Your face will be on television. You better give me the phone of the administrator before things get out of hand. Let’s sort this out together”. Sure enough he gave me the phone number of the Mambasa administrator (administrateur du territoire).
I called back the embassy secretary and gave the number to her. I needed to bluff to her as well (everyone knows how bureaucrats operate). I had to put pressure on her so I said “call this guy and try to figure things out. If it fails and he still wants to bring me to Mambasa, I’m going to alert the news media”. I didn’t actually plan to do it, but I knew that was the last thing she wanted. It was in her favor to solve the situation. I’d have to wait and see what would happen.
My bet, knowing how the congolese mindset worked, was that once the administrator would know that the Canadian government was aware of my detention, he’d panic and drop the case, thinking that they actually would do something for me/make trouble for him. His ignorance of the fact that my embassy couldn’t do shit for me was going to work in my favor. All he needed was one phone call from her in the name of the Canadian government and he’d probably be intimidated (total bluff). It was a paper tiger.
“Look bro, since you’re not letting me leave this place against my will and I want to leave, I’m not paying for my hotel tonight. I don’t want to stay here and you’re forcing me to” I told the police officer. The reason I said that is to make myself as much of a nuisance to him as possible, to hasten his desire to see me get out of Epulu. I wanted it to be a hassle for him to have me here, to see me as a burden so he wouldn’t want to have me around any longer. “Alright, the bill is on me, don’t worry” he said. The police chief actually felt bad for detaining me. I felt like he knew I was innocent. He moved me to the other hotel in Epulu, where the room was a bit better. I don’t think he actually paid for the room, he probably told the owner to let me in for free. Police commanders have a lot of power in the DRC.
Sure enough the next day around noon the police chief informed me that the Mambasa administrator had said that I was free to go. I later got a phone call from the Canadian embassy lady saying that she’d called him and had settled the matter. My plan had worked. I got a written proof of the investigation and my innocence from Leonard, the judiciary police officer.
I spent the rest of the day with my guide Francois trying to convince the Okapi Reserve people to let me do the trip I’d agreed on with the pygmies. They never allowed me to proceed. Maxime never agreed to meet me again. The pygmy chief really wanted me to come with him in the forest. He really needed the money. These scumbags told the pygmy chief they’d arrest him if he went in the forest with me. I have no respect for them.
EPULU TO UGANDA
I left Epulu hitchhiking back to Nya-Nya with Somali truck drivers going to deliver oil. There was a ditch 15 km west of Epulu where people had been sleeping for 2 days waiting for the truck to be freed. Luckily the day I passed we only had to wait a few hours before the truck got out. I slept at a 10 000 francs a night hotel in Nya-Nya (right near the central roundabout, you can’t miss it). The hotel was more of a brothel than anything else, there were pushy prostitutes coming to knock on my door and bother me.
I left the next morning on foot in the direction of Isiro. I got bothered by some police/army guys on the northern edge of Nya-Nya. Not wanting to waste time, I used the phone number of the Mambasa administrator and called him. I explained to him the situation and put him on speakers. He pressured the guys to let me go. I’ve never seen people that scared.
From there onwards I got a motorbike lift 50 km North and the mood changed. The atmosphere lightened up. I felt like I was entering a different country. The people became more relaxed, checkpoints became easier and more laid back. There was even a DGM woman 30km north of Nyanya who asked for my phone number. Officials were easier to deal with. Things were definitely getting easier. On top of that, the landscape changed. The thick jungle forest was giving way to a beautiful mix of forest and savannah, what the locals call “savane herbeuse”. And the road was overall much better than the one between Kisangani and Nyanya. I got a motorbike lift with a diamond trader going to Isiro. We slept overnight on the way in a hut hotel for 2000 francs per room (1$). If you happen to be in Isiro, go try their tiny bananas! They are smaller than normal bananas but much more sweet and tasty. They are the most delicious bananas I’ve ever tasted.
5 km east of Isiro there’s a barrier. The guys there were great and friendly, no one asked for money. I really wonder why the mood was so much better in the province of Haut Uele compared to all the other places I visited in the DRC. The guys even helped me find a lift eastward! I got a 4X4 Jeep with 4 VIP congolese to take me 218 km east to Gombari. They hosted me for the night. In the morning I asked them about the possibility of seeing pygmies in the area and they told me I could see some 26 km further east. I hitched a ride with a bike and got to the location they’d told me.
French wasn’t spoken much in that area but I spoke to some Bantu villagers and expressed my wish to go in the forest with a pygmy to learn about their lifestyle. They agreed to show me what I wanted for 5$. They spoke to a pygmy, we all hopped on a bike and went into the woods. It was amazing to see how he collects honey in the traditional way: climbing up a tree with his bare hands with a smoking backpack of leaves to scatter the bees away. Unfortunately his pygmy wife came in panic to fetch him because she was afraid of what a white man would do to her husband. She thought I’d eat him (that’s what the Bantus told me).
I carried on with a bike to the town of Watsa. I was briefly annoyed there by a drunken official accusing me of being a “mercenary” but it all worked out. I made it to the town of Durba. There’s a massive gold mine near Durba but unfortunately I couldn’t visit it. I stayed with a local for the night. The town is super dangerous at night according to locals, so watch out! They told me there are criminal gangs that patrol the streets. Income disparity breeds violence. From there it was 176 km to Aru on the Ugandan border! I could smell Uganda!
The next day I left for Aru. There weren’t that many vehicles on that road, traffic was lighter than I expected. Nonetheless I patiently waited and managed to get a Ugandan truck that brought me to Aru by nightfall. Cheap hotels are available for 10$ in Aru if you negotiate.
The next day I left to go to the border but I was turned back by the congolese officials and told that the exit stamp was issued in Aru city rather than on the border (congolese logic!). I went to the DGM office in Aru and got yelled at and threatened with arrest by the chief there for having gotten my visa in a country of non-residence (Burundi). He told me I was illegal and was under arrest. I stayed calm and chuckled, telling him I’d been in the country for almost 3 months and had overlanded all the way from Angola. Moreover, the visa was given by an official embassy of his government, so he was just looking for trouble!
I played some recordings in Lingala that I had from references. The officials eventually stamped me out. Their game is to see if you’re scared and apply more pressure on you. If you show that you are not scared they will back down. I made it to the border and had to register in a notebook my ID and name after having already been stamped out, there’s no logic to this country! Then they asked me to show my proof of yellow fever vaccination on the way OUT of the DRC, just to make sure they could get a bribe from me in case I’d lost it! As I walked to the Ugandan side I heaved a sigh of relief. I was greeted with warm smiles and friendly staff saying “Welcome to Uganda sir!” I was in another world.
CONCLUSION
If you read this whole blogpost, you now have a good idea of the challenges that await you if you travel through the DRC overland. It’s a beautiful country with amazing nature and wildlife. The local people are overall friendly and hospitable. Overall it was a tough journey with a lot of logistical issues, health problems, and general challenges. But the journey also showed me the best of mankind through the countless people who helped/hosted me. Don’t travel this country overland alone if you are a pushover. If you are easily intimidated by someone screaming at you, don’t do it. If you do travel overland here, there will be moments where you are afraid, don’t show it. If you find yourselves on the roads I took alone, all I can advise you is stay tough no matter what. That’s what the DRC teaches you. You will not be the same after crossing the DRC overland. Good luck and feel free to DM me if you have any questions, I will be happy to help you out!
