Bugs for breakfast

We camped at Lukolela last night - the first place (apart from Kisangani) where I have actually set foot on somewhere mentioned in Jack's letters from Congo Belge. A cocoa plantation was set up here in the 1920's and by the 1950's 2000 ha was under cultivation. It had its own clinic staffed by "infirmiers" (male nurses) but the owners wanted a Doctor from Bolobo to go up there and supervise the dispensaries from time to time. The clinic is still there - just (se...

30 seconds before sunset

As we tied up at Irebu (confluence of the outlet of Lac Ntumba and the Congo ) to go through the usual DGM rigmarole, the local soldiers were parading and raising the flag, so we went ashore to watch - pity that no photos are allowed because they also did some singing, which would have been worth recording. I was concentrating on the parade until I felt something bite my leg and looked down to find my right foot covered in large ants. A bit of undignified leaping...

This blog is about tall pygmies, dark horses and famous Belgians. We were told that the Lac Tumba side expedition was to visit a Pygmy village and environmental research station, but things are not always as they seem in the Congo. The reality is that having taken a day to travel across the Lac from the Congo River, we walked about a km from the boat and came to a village with the world's tallest pygmies. Then we went to the research station - where no research...