Salonga National Park Expedition

This is a serious frontier expedition into Africa’s largest tropical jungle reserve and one of its most remote reaches of rainforest. It does not take you into the dangerous areas of Kasai and rebel-held territories, and approaches from the mostly de-populated north from the equator and the Congo River. 

This is not a safari. It is an expedition. It is to be taken very soberly and seriously. 

Here are the first things that the adventurer should know about Salonga Park:

One guard stays at the shore with the captain to keep the boat,  fuel, and engines. Animals circulate every night in search of food, and it is not safe for the captain to stay there alone. 

The camp is always set up hundreds of meters from the river. Two other guards secure the crew for a ride in the forest.

The elephant’s swimming pool (yep!) is ten kilometers from the camp site, which is about three hours on foot, round trip about twenty kilometers. Good walking shoes are needed as the forest has many dangerous little animals and insects which can harm.

The client needs a professional camera in order to take good pictures of animals, as they are very quick in the jungle, the trees are very high, and there is no good light from the sun as the forest has many and high trees. Good binoculars are also needed as some animals are high up in the trees, there is no way possible to see them clearly on the top.

Salonga is 750 km from Mbandaka, created in 1970, and still after all this time is the most remote park in Africa and requires 5 or 6 days of sailing upstream if the weather is good, and 3 days downstream. The whole park is 3600 square km divided into two sectors north and south. We go usually to Monkoto corridor which is in the district of Tshuapa Equatorial Province.

It has two river streams Loile and Luilaka that flow into the Ruki river then into Congo River in Mbandaka.

There are many villages along the river but only names of big villages will be mentioned here apart from those villages there are many fishing camps. The big villages are : Ingende ; Boteka ; Longa ; Lotumbe ; Imbonga ; Waka, Watshikengo ; Bokuma ; Nkasa ; Ikende ;Kombo ;

Bempumba ; Ikuwa ; Losako,

Monkoto Ville is the last big village where we get all the papers that allow us to access Salonga Post downstream about an hour to get there by motorboat.

Normally, when traveling we camp four times on the way, and we only choose small villages since we avoid crowds and other immigration services. What is important is not where we can camp, but how many times we can do that while traveling, it is dangerous to travel at night because of sand and branches of trees under water

If you do not have a flexible schedule and attitude, this trip is not for you. You need to budget a minimum of 3 weeks and be in good physical and mental shape to undertake this, be ready to get very dirty and to go with river water showers if any at all. After Mbandaka you will not stay in any hotels and it will be all rough and real wilderness.

DESCRIPTON

Kinshasa formerly Léopoldville (French: Léopoldville or Dutch Leopoldstad  is the capital and the largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is situated alongside the Congo River.

Once a site of fishing and trading villages, Kinshasa is now a megacity with an estimated population of more than 12 million. It faces Brazzaville, the capital of the neighbouring Republic of the Congo, which can be seen in the distance across the wide Congo River, making them the world’s second-closest pair of capital cities after Rome and Vatican City. The city of Kinshasa is also one of the DRC’s 26 provinces. Because the administrative boundaries of the city-province cover a vast area, over 90 percent of the city-province’s land is rural in nature, and the urban area occupies a small but expanding section on the western side.