I arrived in Congo Brazzaville quite late and was surprised by the airport. Filled with plants on either side of the corridors, with animal sounds laying as music. It was a little surreal and I'd definitely not experienced anything like it!! I was coming to ROC for the gorillas and I was super excited about that. I was met by a driver, French speaking guide and two other men. I immediately felt uncomfortable. Why were four men collecting me from the airport. The mobile stores were shut so I couldn't get a SIM card, which wasn’t helping the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. We drove for about 15 mins and stopped at the hotel. I got out to check in. “Miss are you sure you’re staying here?” The reception guy asked. “If this is the Olympic Palace hotel, then yes”. I responded. “Well it isn’t” he said. I turned to the “guide" kinda laughing “Why'd you bring me here?” He looked confused. This set the tone for the rest of the trip.
We eventually got to the hotel I had booked. Accommodation wasn’t included in my trip so I’d booked it myself and I still had no idea why the guide had picked me up from the airport for a briefing but didn’t speak English. I’d had to cancel my airport transfer (organised by the hotel) in order to accommodation this shit show. No briefing, hotel receptionist would only speak to the guide (despite me making the booking and it being nothing to do with the guide) and he didn’t know how much I had to pay, so it all ended up being a total mess.
I asked the guide to leave. He was interfering without cause. And his lack of English was problematic as he was speaking on my behalf (a real pet peeve of mine!) without any clue of what I wanted as he’d never asked.
Eventually, I got my key and the guide started to follow me to my room. Odd, I thought - and asked security to stop him from following me. I messaged Lydia who had helped me find the guide and asked her why four men had collected me from the airport and why the guide didn’t speak English? I was assured this would be fixed for the morning. I felt like I was hiding in my room. I didn’t want to see the four men again as I had no idea why they were there so I decided to forgo dinner and a swim in favour of an easy life.
The next day an English speaking guide turned up and apologised for the evening before. He had been unable to pick me up so the french speaker came instead. He asked for the money for the tour. I refused to give it to him on the basis that last night was so poor, I would pay at the end. We got in the car and again there were two additional men in the back of the truck. I immediately asked what was going on. I did not want to be put in this position of feeling uncomfortable and exposed for the whole trip and I sure as hell wasn’t paying for 4 people to escort me round ROC. He said “they are just here for the money”. I said “but I’ve told you I’ll pay at the end.” “You need to pay them.” I paid them half and they finally left. I did not have a good feeling about this trip.
We were heading to Lesio Louna National Park for the night. I already knew that food and drink wasn’t included but if I have to buy food to cook, it would generally be appropriate to make this known in Brazzaville - the capital (with the big supermarkets!). But then again that would require some common sense and some thought. We drove for around 90 mins before stopping in a small village. “You need to buy food” he said. “For what?” I asked. “There is no restaurant at the camp so you need to buy food!”. I was like, “dude, are you for real? Why didn’t you tell me this, first thing this morning?”. He stared blankly at me. I stared back at him - we were standing in a shop that had a whole wall full of shower gel, fridges full of nothing and bags of pasta and rice. “Ok”, I thought. “Pasta it is!”. I picked up a bag of pasta. Then went looking for sauce. No sauce. Just tins and tins of chopped tomatoes. No veggies, no meat. Ok, that’s lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch. How exciting. So glad I’m trying the local food! I mused.
We continued and stopped to get some bread and on my insistence - alcohol. There was no way I was getting through this disaster sober! I bought four beers called “Cuca mini” and there were indeed the smallest beers I’d ever seen!
I also asked if there was cheese I could grate on the chopped tomatoes. He came back pleased to have bought cheese - laughing cow triangle cheese. Oh well! At least it was something. I had also asked about the hike. “How long was it, was it flat or uphill? When was it?” His response “you’ll find out tomorrow”. I was not impressed. How much water did I need? Did I need snacks? Not that I’d seen anything resembling chocolate since we let Brazzaville. I guess I thought it must be a small hike - an hour max if he wasn’t giving me the info. How wrong could I have been?!
We continued driving - the itinerary for the day was the blue lake and a boat trip to see the gorillas and hippos. Not far from camp he announces there’s no gorillas and hippos today as we’re too late. I couldn’t understand how this was possible as he had set the timings, but hey, clearly he’d already shown he had the organisation skills of….
We stopped at the blue lake - he’d told me there was a boat trip. When we got there, I asked “where is the boat?”. He replied, “there’s no boat.” I asked him why he’d said there was a boat when clearly there wasn’t. He said it must be a misunderstanding. Of which there had been countless that day. The blue lake was stunning and I really wanted to jump in and swim. But as I'd discovered was common in Central Africa - it rained a lot.
It was rainy season, something I'd never really considered happened in Africa given you constantly hear about the continent being in drought. But Central Africa was so different - it was lush and green and incredibly rainy and I was very glad I had my rain jacket with me - I just wished I was wearing it!
We got to camp in torrential rain and walked for around 10 mins to the main dining room. It was 2pm, I was starving, soaking wet and feeling pretty drained from the massive communicaition barrier that there seemed to be with another English speaker. He asked the chef to come and cook my lunch which he did and I felt better after eating.
There were two gorillas that they had in captivity. The younger one, who was 16 was called Kili (like the mountain) and the older one who was 37 was called Sid. Sid looked exhausted and only came down from the ledge at the top of his cage to eat. Kili on the other hand was running around his cage beating his chest and showing us he was boss! The park ranger gave me some bananas so I could feed Kili thru the fence. At first he took them with his hand, then later he took them with his mouth. His fingers were huge and I’m pretty sure he could have broken my hand or fingers if I’d had them on the bars. But he was calm and relaxed and didn’t feel threatening. Sid was in a cage because of his age. Kili was in a cage because he needed to be re-homes because of how many large male gorillas there were in the park that had pushed him out of his area.
I enjoyed my interactions with the gorillas despite hating seeing them in cages. I was looking forward to seeing them wild which would now be the next day.
That evening, I again had pasta and tinned tomatoes, but this time reheated from lunch. I decided to drink my four miniatures beers before bed (which ended up being about 7pm) as it was dark and therefore nothing to do!
I slept well and was ready to leave at 6am as I’d been instructed. For a change, it wasn't raining and I could enjoy the walk back to the car and take in the landscape around me. There was a lot of water with wooden walkways to cross and it looked really serene in the early morning light.
The clouds were lower than us and it left the landscape looking so different to anything I'd seen before. We drove for nearly two hours including stopping at a town. I again asked if I needed anything and was told I didn’t. The scenery as the sun was rising was incredible.
We got to the park office where we would pick up the boat to see the gorillas. I was told to sit, so I did, waiting patiently for instructions but none came. Eventually I asked, “what are we waiting for?” The guide responded “we’re waiting for you”. I was baffled. “Ok let’s go and see the gorillas” I said. He responded “we have a hike”. I was starting to get annoyed as it seemed like he literally had no clue what he was doing but I stayed calm as he was the key to me doing what I wanted to do. I asked when is the hike, how far is it and is it flat. He now responds “it’s 3 hours up a mountain”. I again asked “do I need any snacks”. “Yes” he responded “but there is nowhere to buy any”. I wanted to punch him in the face. This guy was the most disorganised tour guide I think I’d ever had that would put peoples life in danger with his disorganisation. “When do we see the gorillas?” I asked. “We can go now” he said. “I thought we were going hiking?”. “Yes we are”. I was trying really hard not to lose my temper. “We’re going hiking on a boat?”
“No, we go on a boat, then we do the hike.”
“So we hike back here?”
“No we come back by boat”.
WTF!!!
In the end I just got on the boat. It seemed easier and I didn’t want to waste anymore time away from the gorillas - the highlight of the trip and the main reason for visiting ROC. They were of course as magical as I had anticipated. There were three. A solitary male called fubou, who was 24. This was the first one we saw as he sat calmly on the river bank.
The other two were together. Bonassa, a young orphan of 8 years old. Hadn’t got his adult colourings yet. And Joshua, 15, who was definitely the dominant male. They were so human like it was scary. Except for the hanging in trees but. Bomassa as the youngest, seemed most comfortable hanging off a tree branch and that was where he stayed most of the time!
After spending quite a while admiring these amazing creatures, we headed off down the river. I must admit I was totally confused by what we were doing now, but I love being on boats, so I wasn’t going to complain. We went past so many hippos it was incredible - only part of their huge face looking out of the water to show us they were there but making very aggressive noises. Turns out they had baby hippos with them (which I would have loved to see) but they were kept hidden away from our prying eyes!
We were on the water for around two hours and I was convinced we would get back to the start point soon enough. Instead we stopped, climbed on to the bank and the guide said, were climbing that, pointing up. I looked at him with raised eyebrows and my half a bottle of water, having not had breakfast and started laughing in frustration. By now it was about 11.30. A three hour hike up a mountain with half a bottle of water and no food! Is he for real? I asked him how he thought this was a good idea and why there was no planning as to how to do this safely. His response was “we should go back. There is no food here”. “Yes, I know” I raised this exact issue a few hours ago and you ignored me”. I left him to think about how his disorganisation - again, was affecting my trip. I walked off and up a small hill to get a view of the river from a little higher. I was really annoyed at this point. Looking at his footwear - he clearly wasn’t planning to do a hike in any case or if he was, his feet would be ripped to shreds in shoes a guy would usually wear to an office - not to climb a mountain. I guess he got his way…
We silently headed back to the boat, I, totally unaware that we’d run out of fuel… again - amazing planning! 😂😂😂😂
When we did manage to get fuel and head back it was still silently. I had really been looking forward to a good hike, after all the time in the car on horrendous African roads, but at least there was tomorrow where the plan was to hike to a waterfall.
I love waterfalls! And will always choose to go to a waterfall, as I love swimming in front of them in the rock pools. I again asked the guide, what is the hike tomorrow, “do you think we should get water and snacks before we leave Brazzaville so we are prepared?” He didn’t know the answers, so I asked him to call his boss to find out. It turns out we had a four hour drive to do a half hour hike and then a four hour drive back. Even worse when we eventually got there, 5 hours later due to torrential rain and the worst roads I think I’ve ever seen, the hike was around 80 metres. Our driver was one of the best drivers I think I'e ever met. So skilled and calm in some of the most awful driving conditions!
Luckily the falls were beautiful and magical but no hike, just more car time!
I was definitely looking g forward to leaving Congo Brazzaville. On top of the poor guiding, I’d got stuck in the elevator alone during a power cut the evening before (relieved I wasn’t with anyone else - especially someone who would panic!).
And I’d been attacked severely by bed bugs. Two nights running. I was so itchy, and trying not to scratch but it was soooo difficult! ROC was definitely the most challenging country so far on this Central Africa trip and the majority of it could have been totally avoided….
The next day was a city tour and then heading to the airport. Turns out the "guide" was just a random English speaker!! Which is actually quite hilarious!
I was looking forward to/hoping Cameroon would be better!!
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