Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Moanda, a weekend at the beach (and Mangrove Forest)

In Chapter 3 Voyage Down the Coast of Mary Kingsley‘s #Travels in West Africa, she describes arriving at the mouth of the Congo River in 1893. She saw the river as unique in its behavior, but spent much more of her time talking about the mangrove forests. Her description of the Congo as it eases on out into the Atlantic is delightful and I can’t hope to match it. I heartily recommend downloading it, especially since it is out of copyright and free on Kindle and perhaps other sources.

With her description in mind, I was delighted to find out on #googlemaps that there is a national park now. Created in 1992, the #Parc Marin des Mangroves looks like it takes up the lower half of bas Congo. I was mistaken in interpreting the map, but the important part was that you get there from Moanda which used to be a vacation spot for its beaches.

I looked on-line, consulted the extremely uninformative #bradt guide to Congo, asked a few friends and found very little other than my Congolese friends saying “yes, I went to the beach with my kids” with a total lack of enthusiasm. None of these sources tells you how to get to the park, what you see, what tours are availale and how they are organized. Now, other people might investigate further. Undaunted, I decided I would drive the 2 days from Kinshasa and 2 days back and see if I could see manatees, hippos and crocs as mentioned in the Wikipedia page. Having no idea what to expect in the way of security or water or housing, I loaded up a tent, one of my kayaks and clothing for all occasions in my #Toyota Rav4 and rushed off to go during the dry season when the road from boma to Moanda was probably in better condition.

The route is simple enough, you follow Route National 1 from Kinshasa to the end in Moanda. It’s easy enough to follow it between cities in a country with <3000 km of paved road. Googlemaps isn’t very helpful with trip times, but offers reassurance that you are on the right road as you go, thanks to GPS mode on my new #Galaxy 4 mini.

First stop was Matadi, 207 miles and half a tank of gas from my house near the Grand Hotel in Kinshasa. It takes an average of 5 hours to drive that. The road is paved the whole way but is a study in how many different ways a road can fall apart, with waves forming in the pavement, edges eroding ¼ - ½ way across the 2 lane road and potholes at random intervals. There is also the encroachment at every village of vendors who seem to need to sell their wares at stands practically on the pavement supplemented by people walking into the road at every speedhump (about 50), toll booth (4, I think), and town to sell to passing cars – customer service a la congolaise. The road is twisting and turning over many hills as it leaves Kinshasa to rise to the plain at Sona bata/Mbanza Ngunu (altitude 599 meters at Mb from 240m at Kinshasa) then back down again at Matadi (19m). It was also 10 degrees cooler in MB than in Kinshasa the day I drove the return.

Other than the vendors and dodging cars and trucks and potholes along the road, the road leads through 200 miles of bare hills interspersed with towns. It provokes reflection on 2 points. It took many years and many European and Congolese lives to find a way from Matadi to modern day Kinshasa and the accounts describe cutting through dense forest. Now, there is naught but the solitary tree along the road. The gallery forests nestled in the folds of the hills are pretty thin and usually have a plume of smoke rising from the production of charcoal. Charcoal for sale is stacked along the side of the road taller than any person. Deforestation is pretty close to complete. In Georgia, 100 years after total deforestation when the loggers moved on, the forest re-established itself. I suspect if ever charcoal production goes out of style, bush fires will slow or prevent the re-establishment of this forest.

The second thought comes from the large sign outside Matadi “Here passed the first railroad that opened the Congo basin to civilization.” I wonder how my Congolese friends feel about that. Personally, there is a point to it. If you consider that until they opened the railroad, the Europeans used forced labor to portage everything their little minds could imagine through those hills and valleys. Thousands are said to have died. Ending this carnage would indeed have been a step towards civilization, if not what the inscribers were thinking.

Matadi means “rock” in Kikongo and the city is indeed built thereupon. You enter the city through a gauntlet defined by rock, ruined road and dilapidated buildings in front of which vendors encroach on the passage. Expect delays entering the city as semis, uses, taxis, cars, motorcycles and people vie for position and passage with not a drop of compromise.

I recommend spending the night in Matadi. Trying to make the entire trip in one day means driving after dark which is not recommended by any sane organization for good reason. Mistakenly thinking I could find decent lodging in Mbanza Ngungu (do not be fooled by the lovely façade and name of the Auberge de something along RN1!), I ended up making the return trip to Kinshasa in the dark from MB.  Apparently, tail lights are among the most precious of commodities in Congo. But the strangest part came almost at the borders with Kinshasa when I felt like I was in a Transformers movie. Semis were lined up along the road. Another line of semis were pulling out to the left to pass those and quickly had me surrounded. After much stopping and starting, a mass of semis 3 across was moving in the direction of Kinshasa on the 2 lane road. I have no idea where cars coming in the other direction were hiding. And then, like a swarm of termites, they were gone and I was in Kinshasa. Another Congolese mystery.

Back to spending the night in Matadi. There are 2 “nice” hotels, Ledya and Vivi Palace where you can get a room for $100/night with some negotiating. In the Ledya nice means free Wifi, AC, running cold water.



They have several restaurants, all over priced and breakfast is included if a sorry excuse for breakfast. The lobby of the Vivi Palace looks new and nice, but they wouldn’t offer anything that night at $100. I’ve stayed in 2 other hotels in Matadi – the Formosa which has secure parking, but water and electricity are not likely and Amis Fideles which is quaint, has poor service but electricity and water. Not sure about parking. None of these shows up on googlemaps and there are several paved roads in Matadi going up and down and up and down, so you’ll have to ask directions when you get there.

Pont Marechal
From  the Ledya, you paradoxically go up hill to get to the famous #Pont Marechal across the Congo River as you begin the next leg of the journey. Mostly, I asked directions, about 15 times, to get out of town. There is a lovely old town with lovely colonial buildings in various states of decay. I’m not sure you have to go through that part of town to get to the bridge, but I did J. The bridge is lovely. Unless you have CD plates, the toll for a car is 3 700 FC (2014).

Then you weave uphill with the Congo and Matadi on your right for a magnificent beginning of the trip to the sea.
Congo River from Pont Marechal
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Congo River above Matadi, this way to the falls, rapids and Kin
It is 75.5 miles from Matadi to Boma and takes 2 hours 45 minutes-ish (and a quarter tank of gas). The road is passable in any vehicle, but is the worst kind of road for me. It’s formerly paved, meaning you are constantly going on, off or to the side of remaining bits of pavement. On the short stretches where you are 4 wheels on asphalt, you are dodging or not large potholes. At Boma, I again wasn’t sure which road to take, so tended to veer to the right (river side) at every intersection with other paved roads. I dub this route the “ring road”. There’s a sign along this route for a hotel. Needed a bathroom break given the lack of cover along the road, I decided to explore the hotel. Looks about as nice as the Ledya, with the added attraction of hot water heaters outside all the rooms. I didn’t look at the rooms, but was told they start at $40 and there is a compound on which a car would be securely guarded. The bathroom was perfectly acceptable and the view from the rooftop restaurant was spectacular. I didn’t write down the name of the hotel, but there’s a big sign pointing uphill, it starts with an “M” and if you’re desperate, you’ll find it. It takes about 20 minutes to cross the 5 miles of Boma and you wend past the port, more lovely colonial buildings, some in good condition and through downtown. I stopped to get supplies on the way down, including what turned out to be uniformly stale cookies and worse crackers. If you like that kind of thing, load up in Kinshasa. The water was perfectly acceptable.

After Boma, the paved road ends and you’re driving on teeth jarring broken rock and potholes for a long way, then the rocky part ends and it’s just sand, dirt and potholes the rest of the way to Moanda (a total of 63 miles, 3 hours, ¼ tank of gas).

Outside of Boma, the road skirts the Congo River going through the Elevage du Bas Congo for miles and miles. This seems to be industrial cow production and palm tree planting. I saw more tractors than cows, but I am sure they are there somewhere. The geography is a pleasing plain with papyrus swamps, grass and some fields. Then it goes up to 1 400 feet elevation and you see your first hint of what the forest used to look like. This is apparently the #Luki Biosphere Reserve. There’s not much signage, but you can tell its special by the decrease in the sale of charcoal along the road and the uptick in bush meat vendors. I googled the reserve afterwards to learn its sad history and low prospects for the future. An undated UNEP report was basically giving up on it even though it was one of only 2 small remaining patches of native forest. At any rate, as a reserve, it is not set up to receive visitors.

The final approach to Moanda is not only welcome but spectacular. You drive across a high plain (domaine militaire, BTW) then the road cuts to the right along the face of a final hill, giving the full view of glorious Moanda with the sea in the background. At the bottom of the hill, it’s just another Congolese town with too much traffic, bad roads, no signage, random cops doing random things. I followed my instinct towards the ocean and after some spectacularly large potholes, there is a paved divided road through what I suppose is downtown. I had been told by colleagues of maisons de passage chez les abbes et les soeurs near the ocean, so I kept heading in that direction. The paved road leads straight to the ocean, turns left and stops at this not really beach.



It was already 4 pm and I wasn’t going to drive back to Boma, and had seen to signs for a hotel in town, so I wandered around near the water and asked many people who did not know about a hotel or maison de passage before finding 2 guys who did know. For future reference, as the RN1 gets to the ocean, there is a dirt road on the right with Rawbank on the corner. Go 1.3 miles up that road, keeping ocean side wt the roundabout until you see the religious tableau. The Abbe is on the right, the maison des soeurs on the right. I stayed chez les soeurs where they have 2 kinds of rooms – VIP with AC, cold water and TV of sorts for $100/night and normal without AC for $45. Breakfast included for both. AC is not necessary in July, but I wanted to give them more money. Should you like to make reservations, their number is 081 00 36 787.
The nuns know how to line a flower bed 

The nun who “checked me in” asked why I was in Moanda and was happy to report that the Mangrove Park staff has their office right there at the maison de passage. They were no longer there that night, but that did seem like a good sign. The cook had left for the day and only did dinner if you arrange it ahead of time, but she directed me to the New Cliff restaurant.



In looking for New Cliff, I missed it and ended up driving to Banana instead. Banana is the first European settlement in Congo, only about 4 miles from Moanda after taking that left off the paved road. It’s on a narrow spiit of land between the ocean and one of the many arms of the Congo River as it makes its slow final approach to the sea. Between Moanda and Banana there are mangroves on the inland side of the road with roots up well above the level of the road. I learned later that the water indeed goes above the road, but thanks to the mangrove swamp, Banana which is about a foot above sea level doesn’t flood. Banana is now a naval base and felt a little weird to be driving through. It’s in a state of next to complete ruin, so even when some kids told me I could drive to the mouth of the river, I chickened out and turned around to look for the restaurant. New Cliff restaurant is in fact right after the left hand turn of RN1 at the sea. There’s no sign (of course) and it looks like a house a bit below the level of the road. Once you pull into their compound you see that New Cliff hotel and restaurant is written above the front door. There are tables set up on a wide front porch and while the selection is much more limited than the menu, the service is awful and the meat is tough, it is indeed a lovely place to enjoy the sunset over the ocean. And the only place I found to easily find an evening meal, however limited and bad.

The next day, I met the park staff. It’s a national park and belongs to the Office de Tourism, but is run by the Institue Congolais de Conservation de la Nature, ICCN, a government entity. Mr. Ngeli, 081 9046 217, is the most reluctant charge de tourisme I have ever met, but knowledgeable and ultimately we got where we needed to be, though I found out I had done it the wrong way. There are 3 tours offered of the park. 2 hours, longer and longer still. All of it is by motor boat. Each person pays $25 for a park pass. His guidance and the boat are free, but you pay for fuel depending on the tour you take. He’s not terribly forthcoming about things like timing the tour around tides and other such details, but I think that’s because the mangroves here are in the middle of the river and the tours go through channels that remain no matter the tide. I got to do the 2 hour tour and there’s more about that below, but this is how it should be done:

-          Call Ngeli ahead of time
  •           Drive to Boma
  •           He will pick you up there in this boat, capacity 9 tourists. 

  •           You stop at the top of the park, where the water is fresh and there live the hippos, crocs and manatees
  •           They have a camp set up there where you spend the night for $20 more / person. Manatees are nocturnal so this increases your chances of seeing one. He told me we could also kayak out from the camp ground. In the absence of outboard noise, you could also hope to see monkeys
  •           They’ll feed you at the camp for $10 each
  •           Next day, you motor down to Moanda and see additional parts of the park.
  •           The beach is also part of the park and in November / December sea turtles come to nest.
  •           Then they’ll motor you back to Boma. The fuel for the motor is $200 round trip.

I am sure additional charges apply. Call ahead for more detailed negotiations.

There are 4 kinds of mangrove in this park, Rhizophora mangle or red mangrove, Rhizophora racemosa, Avicennia germinans or black mangrove and Avicennia (languqulairia, I can’t find a reference and he was pretty tired of me not understanding at this point)  and mangrove ferns. I hope these pictures are close to in order.



Avicennia produces salt which was used traditionally in cooking



mangrove ferns

Fishing village and baobabs
There was also a picturesque fishing village with baobabs.

We ended the tour at the mouth of the river and Banana from the water side. The mouth is 8 km wide, the current sluggish on either side with the major force of the water concentrated in 2 km in the center of the passage.


Lest I leave you with the impression that the beach was that small strip of nothing from day 1, Moanda actually does have a tourist worthy beach. There are few bathers and green sludge in the surf, but it’s a pleasant place with bars and concerts.



But I have to end with the question – looking at these roots, whatever possessed a woman in 1893 wearing the long dress of the time to walk through these? Mary Kingsley was one hell of a woman.






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