Often mistaken for its larger and conflict-stricken neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo is quietly gaining attention as one of Africa’s most remarkable — yet least explored — wildlife destinations, boasting pristine rainforests and rich biodiversity that remain largely untouched.
According to telegraph.co.uk, often mixed up with its neighbour the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo – also known as Congo-Brazzaville – is worlds apart, if only a few kilometres away.
There are, of course, some similarities: French is the official language; natural resources are widespread; and large tracts of dense, humid forest cover the land.
Since colonial rule ended in 1960, however, the two independent nations have taken divergent pathways. While the DRC has been embroiled in decades of bloody civil war, around 90 per cent of Congo-Brazzaville is deemed safe for travel according to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). Unknown to many, it’s Africa’s big wildlife secret.
I started my own journey of discovery in the international gateway Brazzaville, connected to the UK via Paris.
Grinning beneath a cobalt-blue top hat, the stem of a wooden smoking pipe gripped between his teeth, 91-year-old Gregoire Sila tapped his feet to the groovy melodies of Congolese rumba pumping through loudspeakers.
Around him, equally suited and booted dandies strutted through run-down backstreets, striking poses to show off their tailored designer threads.
Emerging in the 1920s as a resistance movement in defiance of colonial rule, the sapeurs have since evolved into a fashionable sub-culture.
Sharp smoking jackets and polished brogues once worn to emulate a French and Belgian ruling elite are now synonymous with a statement-making sense of self-expression.
“Dressing is like a medicine,” explained Gregoire, a sapeur for more than seven decades, when we met at one of the society’s informal weekly gatherings.
READ: Africa: Endangered Antelope Photographed for the First Time in the Wild in DR Congo
“We are from all walks of life – rich and poor – but when you dress well, there’s a feeling of glory and pride.”
Identity is everything in a country few people can correctly pinpoint on a map.
A laid-back city with broad boulevards and a pleasant riverside promenade, Brazzaville sits across the water from chaotic, overcrowded Kinshasa in the DRC.
Spanning 4,500km, the Congo River forms a watery divide between the two capitals and is the lifeblood for the “lungs of Africa” – the largest carbon sink in the world.
Although smaller than the Amazon and much younger, the rainforests of the Congo Basin – which spread across six countries – are more intact, despite patches of insecurity and conflict.
One of the few accessible areas is Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the north-western corner of Congo-Brazzaville, sandwiched between vast, untouched swathes of jungle spreading into Gabon and Cameroon.
An extraordinary mosaic of ecosystems fostering a large number of species and one of the last big populations of forest elephants, it was awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 2003.
“We need to create awareness that these places exist,” said Kristina Plattner, managing director of Kamba African Rainforest Experiences, as we boarded a two-hour charter flight from Brazzaville – the fastest and most comfortable way to reach the park currently managed by non-government organisation African Parks.
A former primary school teacher married to a billionaire IT entrepreneur, Kristina’s German-born mother Sabine fell in love with the forest when she visited with a conservation organisation in 2007 and immediately knew she needed to protect it.
Since 2011, the Plattner family have managed the park’s only private concessions and now operate three of four camps servicing an area half the size of Rwanda.
In the midst of gorillas
Hundreds of termite mounds cover the savanna grasslands surrounding the Mboko airstrip, a two-hour drive from Ngaga Camp, set within the Ndzehi Concession on the border of the park. Passing through Mbomo village – a reminder that local communities are still a fundamental part of this forest – we entered thicker tunnels of foliage.
Knotted together by coiling liana vines, plants of all shapes and sizes danced together in a tangled emerald mass as the wings of white lady butterflies flickered like disco strobes in the darkness. Pockmarking pathways, tracks from buffaloes, bushbucks and even the rare bongo sparked curiosity.
However, Odzala’s wildlife highlight is undoubtedly the western lowland gorilla.
“Gorillas teach us how to be in the forest,” explained Spanish primatologist Magda Bermejo later that evening while we sat around a campfire on a platform wrapped by jungle. Congo’s answer to Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, she has spent the past three decades studying populations and was responsible for habituating three troops for tourism at the community’s request.
Her approach, however, was very different to her better-known peers.
“There was never any feeding,” she stressed, pointing out she is the only researcher who has managed to habituate primates without anyone getting bitten. “The gorillas tolerate us and do what they do. We collect more accurate data by observing from a distance.”
Never allowing emotion to cloud her scientific judgements, she stopped visiting one family after they began showing her too much attention. “They presented me with a newborn baby; that was too much,” she admitted to us, shaking her head. “I’ve not trekked gorillas for some time.”
Lamenting the growing commercialisation of mountain gorilla tourism, she recommends no more than four visitors trek at one time: any more would “make them too curious”.
There are no naming ceremonies, dance shows or presentations of certificates. Fewer than 3,000 travellers trek each year – 8 per cent of the number recorded in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
“I want tourists to understand the privilege of being in this ecosystem,” she added as we made our final preparations for a trek the following day. “For me, it’s a cathedral; the silence, listening to a branch breaking, the colour, the light, the movements.”
A degree of devotion was certainly required for an early wake-up call. Leaving the lodge in darkness, we walked along a network of paths cut into a dense undergrowth of marantaceae plants – the great apes’ favourite food.
Ahead of us, local tracker Grace Lepale slashed through impassable sections using a machete almost as tall as his tiny five-foot frame. Any distracting leaves and branches were “salad-surfed” with a pair of garden secateurs.
“They can find their way around here like I can’t even find my way around my handbag,” Kristina had told me in praise of Odzala’s forest guardians.
Trekking for wildlife in these forests is an art form; there are no ranger teams at the end of a radio waiting to reveal the gorillas’ location.
We stopped where the gorillas had nested, but a herd of forest elephants had already scared them away. Loose soil surrounded a root mining site – a unique behaviour identified and documented by Magda.
The sweet, musty scent of sweat eventually led us to their feeding spot, high up in a cluster of fig trees. Briefly acknowledging our presence, the gorillas continued grooming, feasting and snoozing like any family on a lazy Sunday morning. Melting quietly into the forest, we were as invisible as Magda promised we would be.
“People come for the gorillas but leave having discovered this rainforest,” Kristina had insisted at the beginning of our trip.
Heading to my second stop – Lango Lodge in the south central section of the park – I began to understand why.
Small is beautiful
Carried by the current, we paddled along a tributary of the Congo River, listening to flocks of African grey parrots chattering overhead. Pulling up onto a bank of sands deposited by the Kalahari 3,000km away, we hiked through wetlands into one of the Congo’s trademark bais.
Shaped by elephants and buffalo digging for water and grazing on mineral-rich vegetation, these swampy forest clearings are a magnet for wildlife.
Wearing rubber reef shoes, I waded waist-deep through muddy channels, surrendering to silky sludge as if I were sinking in chocolate mousse.
In drier areas, we literally trekked in the footsteps of giants, following prints the size of dinner plates until we were able to study a herd of elephants foraging at a safe distance. Observations would continue at Lango Lodge that evening, where an infrared night vision scope exposed several bulls blowing bubbles in the bai below the camp’s elevated wooden deck.
Surprisingly, though, it was the smallest specimens that left the biggest impressions: the curved caps of turkey tail fungi serving as a water store for thirsty mice; head-banging termites sounding an alarm by thumping the ground like heavy summer raindrops; fluffy tufts of kapok falling like snowflakes in one of the hottest places on the planet.
Over dinner at the lodge, Glance Eloye-Nzoutani – the first Congolese graduate from Kamba’s new training academy – confessed that nature was a new discovery not only for tourists but for many people living in his country. Having never travelled north of Brazzaville before, he admitted he was “falling in the love with the forest day by day”.
But he hadn’t given up city life just yet. A proud sapeur, he still spent a portion of his salary on designer clothes, just like veteran trendsetter Gregoire Sila. Although it seemed that deep inside one of Africa’s last wilderness regions he was carving out a new identity. Eyes sparkling mischievously, he joked: “Women seem to like the ranger uniform here.”
Essentials
Natural World Safaris offers a nine-day Odzala Discovery itinerary with Kamba African Rainforest Experiences, with one night in Brazzaville, three nights at Ngaga Lodge, two nights at Lango Lodge and two nights at Mboko Lodge from £13,480 per person sharing, including international flights, scheduled charters to/from Brazzaville, road transfers, two gorilla tracking permits, a boat cruise, kayak safari, guided walks, all meals and alcohol, Brazzaville city tour, airport assistance, conservation and park fees and a letter of invitation for visas to the Republic of the Congo.
