Biking in northern Congo: „We suffer in Africa“ and what everything do Chinese wrong….
Odzala-Kokoua national park gives me „goodbye“ with a pile of fresh elephant dung on the road. The elephant passed through the place few minutues ago and broke several trees in the background of the photo. By end of our (European) winter I took off and left the park towards north, heading to CAR and Cameroon. On my way I witnessed many forms of nature destruction in the area. I made some 500 km in northern Congo and suffered a lot with my bike because of mud, rain, and SWEATBEES!
Last common photo with the eco-monitors of Odzala not far from the saline Dzebe. From here untill I will reach another great park, Zakouma, in Chad, I will be travelling on my own and spending most of the time alone.
Between Etoumbi and Makoua (nearly 100 km) I met those brothers who were preparing themselves for a long ride towards Makoua as well. They put bags of pinaples on their old rusty bikes and wanted to go with me. At the beginning we were really riding together but soon I realized they can not climb some hills with on their terrible bikes and had to go down and push. I wished them safe journey and went faster, to be able to reach Makoua before evening.
Between Etoumbi and Makoua (nearly 100 km) I met those brothers who were preparing themselves for a long ride towards Makoua as well. They put bags of pinaples on their old rusty bikes and wanted to go with me. At the beginning we were really riding together but soon I realized they can not climb some hills with on their terrible bikes and had to go down and push. I wished them safe journey and went faster, to be able to reach Makoua before evening.
Next day I decided to reach the same village before then night like two years ago. I arrived late in the afternoon just few seconds before a massive rain started to pour from the sky. Everyone in the small village was happy to see me after such a long time and I gave them some printed photos from the last time. I noticed that the beautiful daughter of the chief, which brought me her T-shirt pile of oranges the last time, already has a young baby. The pale colour of the babies skin might make some readers think about my true relationship with this girls two years ago… but honestly, I all was only about oranges, nothing more: )
Successful raid of the ecoguards on their roadblock, just in the moment when I have been passing on the bike through. This woman travelled from northern town and port of Ouesso in the small bus and smuggled smoked elephant meat and a living dwarf crocodile in her suitcase. I documented the arrest of this woman and her interrogation by my friends ecoquards and then moved on some 20 km further on my bike.
Since my previous trip through Congo, I noticed much more Chinese workers enhancing the state of the roads and building bridges. The whole trans-Congo road will soon be completely paved. In the background of this picture you can see the working site of one Chinese company. Just few days before I have been passing by, ecoguards from Odzala-Koukoua NP found tools to work ivory and ivory chips on the ground (CRDC = Chinese Road and Bridge Construction). Chinese workers who penetrate with road contructions deep into the elepahnt habitat often buy ivory and ship it back to China. There is nothing easier than to pay locals with some small cash and bribe officials to smuggle the ivory out of the country. I have informations that up to 80% of checked Chinese returning back to China through Charles de Gaulle Airoport, Paris, try to smuggle some illegal wildlife products or living animals in their luggage.
I remember also this family from my previous 2011 trip. Nothing in particular changed in their house, except of this new radio. All day long, only few tunes were repeatedly playing from it, including the 2012 smash hit from Koffi Olomide featuring Youssou N´Dour.
Balabala oyo ezalí makassi! This road is tough. It does not look so on the map but in reality the road is still up and down. Hills everywhere. It would have been nice condition ride without any luggage, but with 40 kg on the sides of the bike and additional 20+ kg on my back, I suffered a lot. Sometimes the road crossed some clear rivers so I always merged in for a short break and the villagers often invited me for palm-wine and groundnuts. Congolese were always very friendly to me!
Short break in the middle of the forest. I mixed my juice powder with the river water in the bottle and ate a dry piece of roasted plaintain which I got from my hosts last night.
Nightmare of all travellers in equatorial Africa. Crystalic evil! Sweatbees! Meliponini bees… These tiny creatures are everywhere, mainly on the sun, in open spaces, and are attracted mostly by „other than local people“, probably because of different body odour and sweat. They are stingless and they only lick the sweat. But there is nothing worse in the whole rainfores than this. They preferably enter eyes, ears, nose, mouth, lap…. and one can not get rid of them. When biking or moving fast, no problem, but it is impossible to stop. In few moments they start to gather on the face and the more of them you kill, the more new arrive. There is no other choise than to suffer. Local people very often say it to foreigners in different situations, basicly almost permanently: „On souffe en Afrique!“ (We suffer in Africa!)
„Mob“ of annoying sweatbees on my shorts. Few moments after taking this picture I lost my sense and got mad of this. I tried to get rid of them by rolling my body in the tall grass and putting some mud on my hair. It helped for few moments. Then they returned. So I took off for another 30 km of the ride till the dusk when the sweatbees disappeard for a night break. And next morning they came again…
Game is over! This is the next checkpoint around the national park and I again arrived at the moment of some seizure. You might recognize two of the men on roof from my second-last report – ecoguards Platini and Germain! They were wondering why someone was transporting bag of maniok flour (foufou) from a big town to countryside… – against the price and production flow. They opened the bag and starting to celebrate!
More than 200 AK-47 bullets were hidden in the foufou. The ecoguards put the bus out of the road and continued in the examination. All passengers had to wait and at last even spend the night on the place. The individual (male) whose foufou bag contents bullets had been put into handcuffs. Of course he has been narrating fairytails about the bag. He stated it is not his bag, that he only transports it for his friend… and finally realized that he does not even know his friends name… : )
Here I witnessed for the second time that the roadblocks work well if properly managed by responsible and uncorrupted people. Reinforcing them with ivory- and bushmeat- and guns –sniffing dogs would help a lot in the anti-poaching and anti-trafficking fight!
Small display of hunted bushmeat when off loaded from one taxi cab near Ouesso, northern Congo. The duikers and monkeys were lying on the street only few minutes. Crowd of very noisy female street sellers approached the animals soon and started to buy them for their own businesses – preparing them in big pots above their fires in street restaurants.
Protected species on the plate. Smoked limbs and head of giant pangolin. This massive ground mammal has not only many kgs of good meat but unfortunately for him his body is covered by hard keratin scales. These are appreciated in the Chinese medicine. Again such a bullshit like rhino horns… In recent years, the price of pangolin scales on black market rises and Chinese nationals have been caught on local airports with bags full of scales, corresponding for hundreds of dead pangolins.
Visiting the street bar/restaurant in a remote neighbourhood. Beside of „sause d´arachies with dried fish“, and cassava, good palm wine has been served. The jerry can in the left corner are full of this drink.
I discovered these cool waterfalls not far from the road. In the moment I jumped into them to get rid of the sweatbees on my body.
Another time water was not desirable. Times to times it started to rain in the afternoon. Usually I ignored the fact and continued biking. In the rain I was slowed down, but still moving forward!
This is a very common view from the road near human settlements. A piece of freshly slashed and burned forest meant for local agricultural production. Villagers start planting their crops in between the fallen trees. Mainly cassava (maniok), maize, groundnuts (peanuts), makabo, beans and bananas. I did not witness any big scale logging in this part of Central Africa. The logging companies follow the lower-impact method of selective logging. Extraction of only valuable timber, while leaving the rest „untouched“. However, first this strategy alters the composition of the trees and second it creates vast network of logging roads which make the previously remote forest accesible to illegal logging, agrculture, mining and mainly hunting for bushmeat!
An African Grey Parrot imprisoned in the cage. I am always sad to see lone Grey Parrots in captivity, after so many sightnings of these social birds in the wild – always in couple and very often in huge flocks. This species is protected and the traffic should be controled. However, more and more living parrots are being smuggled out of Africa every year. There is growing demand both on black market in Asia and Europe. I would like to believe that in Europe and North America most of the parrots are from legal shipments and domectic breeds. Well, for sure it is not always the case and therefore be alert and try to figure out where are your future pets from. Do not buy imported parrots!
Young and growing town of Pokola on the Sangha river welcomes the visitor with a huge sign praising itself for being the „Ecologically friendliest town in Congo.“ Well, these guys are really jokers, I though to myself. Very successful propaganda of the logging companies extracting timber and life in a vast forested areas around Pokola. From a sleepy fishermens camping site, Pokola grew in recent years and more than 10 000 people are living here. There is no supply of meat to the local market from outside and locals do not seem to breed any domestic animals producing meat. No, all of the meat comes from the forest. 10 000+ people living on meat of primates, antelopes, reptiles, pangolins, rodents, elephants… and fish in Sangha of course. Everybody in Congo knows about what is happening in Pokola and settlements like this but the government does not want to really change status quo. They profit from the presence of foreign investments and timber is still good business. No matter that the forest in growing circles around Pokoloa is literally being wiped out of life. The market of the „environmentally friendliest town in Congo“ was full of bushmeat of all sorts. I decided to save from death on the plate at least one living animal which was for sale. I have chosen this small crocodile which was looking relatively healthy with a chance to survive back in the nature.
Ngoki (the dwarf crocodile) few moments before I released it and put into the dim water of the Sangha. Youth and children standing around could not believe their eyes – releasing a crocodile in Africa into the wild equals something like releasing rabbits or chicken into cereal field in Central Europe.
My trip against the current of the Sangha in a wooden piroque. The same river which I then half a year later paddled downstream in my own kayak. This time I got to go upstream towards the Nouabalé-Ndoki national park.
Focus your attention please. Something is weird on this photo. First guess who out of these two men is the paid driver and who is the passenger. Yes, the chap having a nap is our boatmen who was supposed to drive with us few hours upstream. Before this trip, however, he got totally drunk with strong palm wine and after few miles of uneven driving he almost hit the tree-covered bank. One of the passengers replaced the guy and continued up to the end of the journey. We let the boatman sleep. If you look well into the boys lap you will notice that the poor guy could not keep all the liters of palmwine in his belly and had to pee. No energy to stand up, he just opened the zipper and went ahead. Due to his tragicomic performance there was really good mood among the passengers of our boat.
My next adventures continued into the splendid Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and then I have been following track of ivory dealers and got involved into investigations and arrests. Read about it in my next report. Soon!