bobmcgee

Lango farewell …

Lango camp, Odzala National Park, Republic of Congo. A beautiful spot, home to some creatures that are happy to pose for photos …

and some that attack the offending camera …

This was a camera trap set near the camp. Not mine, I’m pleased to say. It was discovered by a hyena who did a full Kanye West on the camera. The offender took its own photo in the process, the SD card survived. I will update this post with a photo if I can get the owner to share it.

Sadly, time to go. Back to Brazzaville and a cruise on the Congo.

Smelling the roses …

Maybe orchids rather than roses but traveling through Odzala National Park largely on foot does bring you close to some of the smaller things that might otherwise be missed.

And if smelling the flowers fails to excite then you could chew them. A few of these little yellow flowers growing on the margin of a swamp will give you numb lips and tongue for about half an hour …

Sundowner …

One evening sitting on the deck overlooking Lango Bai, drink in hand, the conversation turned to the extraordinary perils of my homeland. This was a theme already explored by Leon Varley in Zimbabwe and encountered again on the TV in a Johannesburg hotel. Everyone, it seems, is aware that Australia is home to the world’s most poisonous snakes and deadliest spiders. A swim entails the risk of Great White Sharks, marine stingers, crocodile attack, blue-ringed octopus and killer stingrays. Less well known are the stinging trees that when touched cause pain that recurs for months on contact with water. It takes courage to be an Australian, it’s a miracle any of us grew up.

It’s much safer sitting here on this deck, isn’t it?

Walking through the bai earlier my socks got wet. They have been hanging outside my little thatched hut all afternoon. I slapped a fly or two whilst we were walking, nasty little bite. Is that a mosquito now that the sun has gone? Slap … no appears to have been just a beatle.

Fortunately the last paragraph was a flight of fancy. No one leaves wet socks or any clothing out to dry. That would be an open invitation for the Mango Fly to lay its eggs. The larvae appear in two or three days and can penetrate intact skin. An itchy and later painful swelling follows, the little maggot lives happily in your flesh until maturity then it finds its way out, metamorphoses into a fly and heads off to find some more damp washing.

The day biting flies could be the vector of a number of other nasty problems. The tsetse fly has a most unpleasant bite and they tend to hunt in packs. Bad enough for that reason alone but worse still they may spread sleeping sickness. The agent is a trypanosome, a single celled organism, that when injected in the sub-cutaneous tissue …

moves into the lymphatic system, leading to a characteristic swelling of the lymph glands called Winterbottom’s sign. The infection progresses into the blood stream and eventually crosses into the central nervous system and invades the brain leading to extreme lethargy and eventually to death.

If diagnosed early sleeping sickness can be cured relatively easily these days. But the biting fly may have been carrying filaria instead producing a disease called Loa loa …

Some patients develop lymphatic dysfunction causing lymphedema. Episodic angioedema (Calabar swellings) in the arms and legs, caused by immune reactions are common. Calabar swellings are 3-10 cm in surface non erythematous and not pitting. When chronic, they can form cyst-like enlargements of the connective tissue around the sheaths of muscletendons, becoming very painful when moved. The swellings may last for 1–3 days, and may be accompanied by localized urticaria (skin eruptions) and pruritus (itching). They reappear at referent locations at irregular time intervals. Subconjunctival migration of an adult worm to the eyes can also occur frequently, and this is the reason Loa loa is also called the “African eye worm.” The passage over the eyeball can be sensed, but it usually takes less than 15 minutes.

Eosinophilia is often prominent in filarial infections. Dead worms may cause chronic abscesses …

In the human host, Loa loa larvae migrate to the subcutaneous tissue where they mature to adult worms in approximately one year, but sometimes up to four years. Adult worms migrate in the subcutaneous tissues at a speed less than 1cm/min, mating and producing more microfilaria. The adult worms can live up to 17 years in the human host.

It is better not to slap any creepy crawly it might just be a Blister Beatle …

They squash easily and … emit cantharidin. Blisters and slight irritation will appear quite soon after contact with cantharidin. RESIST the temptation to rub or scratch AT ALL COSTS as this will spread the problem. Fullblown blisters will develop, accompanied by inflammation and an aching pain as the poison penetrates deeper.

The liquid from the blisters will itself cause new blisters if allowed to come in contact with fresh skin!

And the mosquito, of course, is the most dangerous animal in Africa. Children under five are especially vulnerable to malaria. The WHO tells us that somewhere in Africa a child dies every 30 seconds.

In the Congo McGee wore long-sleeved shirts and long pants, all his clothing was soaked in permethrin prior to leaving home. DEET was spread on exposed skin. He took his Malarone every day and slept under a mosquito net whenever one was available. His flesh may well have been rendered unfit for human consumption but he actually doesn’t give a shit for the welfare of anyone wishing to eat him.

And he made it safely back to Australia where …

Wet foot safari …

Although the tourist concession in Odzala is in the hands of Wilderness Safaris you must deal with a travel retailer if you want to go there. One such is Classic Africa. I particularly like this little quote from their webpage …

The Odzala Safari is unlikely to be the ideal choice for a first safari, due to the remoteness of the Park and the specialized nature of its wildlife.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the first half of that sentence but I don’t think the reason has anything to do with the second half. In the typical safari setting you jump into a vehicle early in the morning. An experienced, knowledgeable driver/guide pilots you to the first target species. Parks with the light behind you and does his David Attenborough impersonation as you take photographs of creatures that you know well from your television. Just as safe and effortless, if somewhat more expensive, than staying at home and watching your television.

In Odzala you jump into your shoes, walk out of the camp and get right in amongst it. Here is a pretty little scene near Lango camp …

It’s actually the path, hop in …

Getting deeper …

It is entirely possible that you will meet an elephant or buffalo coming the other way.

This is more than a safari, this is an adventure.

Lango …

To the gorillas at Ngaga we were now yesterday’s people, they were looking forward to the next group. That’s a gorilla’s way, an endless quest for novelty.

We took to the road. The trip to Lango takes about three hours by four-wheel drive vehicle.

Ngaga is set in forest that seems endless, Lango is surrounded by a mosaic of forest and savanna. It is set on a Bai or saline marsh and the salts attract animals from the surrounding area. The camp is raised and set back in the trees. Here is a photo of the camp from the bai.

Activities here are mainly on foot or by boat. There is heaps to see, large game, monkeys, birds, butterflies, lizards, flowers. Chimpanzees are present but not habituated and unlikely to be encountered. We did hear them. The Forest Buffalo, on the other hand, are not shy.

They are included in the same species as the Cape Buffalo but they are smaller, redder, their horns are different and they do not form large herds, twenty or so would be a large gathering. They do need to be treated with similar respect. Each tends to have an attendant Yellow-billed Oxpecker or two. These provide the service of removing insects from the skin. It comes at a price, they also peck at any wounds and drink the resulting blood.

At first glance the Forest Elephant is not as different from the Bush Elephant as the Forest Buffalo is from the Cape Buffalo but DNA evidence reveals that they split somewhere between two to seven million years ago, they are consequently considered full species. They tend to be smaller and darker and have more rounded ears. If you get to count their toenails you are likely to find five on the forefoot and four on the hindfoot, like the Asian elephant but unlike the African bush elephant which normally has four toenails on the forefoot and three on the hindfoot, although I can’t personally vouch for that. Their tusks are longer and stronger, suited to their denser habitat. They rejoice in the scientific appellation, Loxodonta cyclotis, the creature with oblique sided teeth and rounded ears.

Not far from camp is the Lekoli River which we explored by boat.

The switch in the skipper’s hand is to beat off the tsetse flies, an ominous sign, but fortunately not much needed. We racked up a good bird list including Finfoot and Hartlaub’s Duck. We capped the first river trip off, though, with something that is locally very rare …

Gorilla …

The Congo Basin contains the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, surpassed only by the Amazon. It is home to both the Western Lowland Gorilla, the Chimpanzee and the Bonobo (although for the last you would need to visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Dr Magda Bermejo of the University of Barcelona has been studying gorillas in this region for over fifteen years, since 2010 her team has been based at Ngaga camp where three groups of gorillas have become used to the prying eyes of researchers.

Wilderness Safaris have the tourist concession in the region and as well as Ngaga they have a second camp, Lango. A well choreographed shuffle moves the visitor from Brazzaville to Ngaga (three nights) to Lango (three nights) and back to Brazzaville. At both camps the accommodation is constructed of mainly local materials in a style that might be called thatched hut chic. The beds are mosquito netted with a fan inside the net, what luxury, toilet and shower en suite, electricity to recharge the camera and computer. The food is amazing although by the time it arrives from Paris it does have a few food miles up. Alcoholic drinks are included.

At Ngaga the main focus is the gorillas. We were divided into two teams of four and assigned to a tracker. On each of two days we set out soon after dawn in search of that day’s target group of gorillas. We headed towards the site where the gorillas were known to have spent the night, unless we crossed the track of the group on the way, that would be the beginning of the tracking process. It could be a long hike or a short one. Once we found the group we donned surgical masks, gorillas can suffer from infections that humans carry. The minimum distance permitted was seven metres. In the Antarctic one could get away with the excuse that the penguin came up to me, here that didn’t wash, if a gorilla infringed the seven metre rule and it was safe to do so we were told to back off. The gorillas would have to put up with our company for a maximum of one hour.

Of the three groups that had developed some tolerance to human visitors one group was only ever visited by researchers. The two groups visited by tourists would have to put up with that indignity for just four hours per week. We had a talk from Dr Bermejo one evening, the tourist activity has obviously been developed under her watchful gaze. Physical contact with humans puts gorillas at risk of potentially lethal infections and if she wanted to study zoo animals there were easier places to do it! The program, I think, is a very sensitive means of looking after the welfare of the animals, has low impact on their behaviour whilst giving the tourist a fair chance to observe and photograph their nearest relative in exchange for money that benefits local people. Putting a value on wildlife gives government a good reason to conserve it.

We fared extremely well on both days. The trek was not too long, the gorillas were relaxed and good views could be had. Low light and condensation on the camera lens hampered photography. The groups are named for their silverback elder statesmen. The first day we visited Jupiter and his group, about 25 individuals. The second day we visited Neptuno and his smaller group. This also entailed a change of tracker because each tracker stays with their own group. The trackers would go out again late in the afternoon to find where their group would spend the night.

The Marantaceae plants this individual is walking through form part of its diet. I tried the stems, they are quite fibrous but with a bit of effort the pith can be extracted and doesn’t taste quite as bad as Crocodile Dundee would have you believe.

Bird watching around the camp was reasonably productive. There were lizards, butterflies and squirrels around as well. We visited a local village one afternoon which took us past a road sign that one doesn’t see often …

The villagers were welcoming. The tourist development provides some employment and a visit like ours was a chance to sell some local produce. The houses were mostly of wattle and daub construction with thatched roofs.

Bananas and paw paws were purchased. Cassava is their staple diet, grown in forest plots that are first cut and burnt. Goats, ducks and chickens were in evidence and could be supplemented with a bit of hunting.

The Congo …

The River Congo is Africa’s second longest river (after the Nile) but Africa’s mightiest river in the quantity of water discharged at its mouth. It acquired its name from the Kongo civilisation once situated near the mouth of the river, and it’s given its name to the two modern day countries that it separates, The Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, capital Kinshasa and the Republic of the Congo to the north, capital Brazzaville. The two capitals face each other across the river, the closest capital cities in the world … unless one includes the Vatican and Rome.

The Republic of Congo was a French colony given independence in 1960. The first president shackled the country to the communist bloc. His rule came to an end in a coup in 1968. President Ngouabi followed and the country became the People’s Republic of the Congo. He was assassinated in 1977. There were two years of an interim government before Denis Sassou Nguesso became president. Sassou was pushed aside in a civil war that began in 1997 but after a few months the Angolan socialist régime invaded and reinstated him. He is still in power. He is a connoisseur of foreign bank accounts and fine French real estate.

On March 4th 2012 a fire started in an army base, in the neighbourhood of Mpila which is close to the docks and a densely inhabited area. It led to a series of explosions that flattened the surrounding housing and two churches in which services were underway. About 14,000 people were made homeless, the dead exceeded 250 and the injured ran into the thousands.

Social infrastructure and health services are shambolic. As of 2010, the maternal mortality rate was 560 deaths/100,000 live births, and the infant mortality rate was 59.34 deaths/1,000 live births. Malnutrition is widespread.

By comparison the Democratic Republic (the former Belgian Congo, then briefly Zaire) is a mess.

We flew into Brazzaville over the river, over the construction site of a new stadium for the 2015 African Games and into the nice new airport.

Here we were greeted by the quarantine staff in full protective gear, hand sanitizer was dispensed, our temperature was taken and our recent travel history inspected. The Republic was the location of a particularly lethal outbreak of Ebola in 2003. The response is impressive. Outward travelling passengers get to see sophisticated health advice on the airport screens as they wait to check in.

When in Brazzaville McGee stays at Mikhael’s Hotel. An excellent hotel, if you are there any time soon look out for the head waiter, Francis, the man is a gem.

The following morning it was back to the airport and into a Cessna Caravan for the trip to Odzala Kokoua National Park. Transfers were managed impeccably by Wilderness Safaris’ local staff. Hat tip to Imelda.

Coming next Odzala … but I will be back in Brazzaville for further adventures after that.

Above the falls …

On our last morning at Victoria Falls we were up early and headed out to explore the Zambesi river bank above the falls. A couple of hundred metres from the hotel we were reminded of Africa’s perils when we encountered a large herd of Cape Buffalo beside the road. Along with a cyclist and a couple of other pedestrians we opted to make a detour and give them a wide berth.

We skirted the enclosed area at the falls and took Zambesi Drive following the outside of the fence. This led us to the river. The bush is fairly open except along the bank. We made note of some very fresh elephant dung and proceeded with caution. At the river edge we caught sight of a guy who apparently was sleeping rough there. His first response was to duck out of sight but after a brief pause he came out and warned us of the presence of the elephant and urged us to be careful.

The target species was Rock Pratincole and we soon had some fairly distant views, to get closer we would have to swim with the Hippos and Crocodiles. We passed on that idea and made do with a photograph of an African Openbill instead …

Then, not wishing to be surprised at close quarters, we circled back through the more open country away from the river passing a number of White-fronted Bee-eaters and racking up a good list of birds …

and back to Ilala Lodge for breakfast. Joseph was waiting outside he may have wondered where we spent the night. He was sad to hear we would be leaving and was still keen to come with us. We shook hands and gave him a small present. A nice kid obliged to live off his wits.

After our cereal and fruit juice it was check out time. A drive across the border into Zambia and the airport at Livingstone. Soon the Congo.

Victoria Falls 2 …

The Zambesi thunders over the falls and makes a sharp left turn through a deep gorge. A cloud of spray ascends high into the air. Opposite the Devils Cataract and the Main Falls there is an area of luxuriant forest bathed in a steady light rain. Once you get away from this the surrounding countryside is quite arid.

The birding and botanising are quite rich in this small patch. The appropriately named Fireballs Heamanthus sp.

Eastern Bearded Scrub Robin …

Black-eyed Bulbul …

Terrestrial Brownbul …

White-browed Robin Chat …

and the spectacular Trumpeter Hornbill …

There is an excellent cafe where you can enjoy a local beer and watch the staff deal with unwelcome guests …

We encountered Bushbuck, Warthog, Chacma Baboon and Vervet Monkeys, like this little guy waiting for his lunch, inside the fence. It was well worth spending the whole day there which gave us the best of the light for our photography, early and late.

Joseph, of course, was waiting at the gate …

Mosi-oa-Tunya …

Or in English, the smoke that thunders, otherwise Victoria Falls. It’s huge.

So big that, like Iguazu, you can’t take it all in at once. On the ground you have to move from view-point to view-point and add it all up in your head. The only way to photograph the whole thing is from the air.

Visiting in November the falls were at their minimum flow, virtually nothing was going over the eastern end. The western half remains spectacular. It may not be the worst time to visit however, in April, peak flow, the spectacle is obscured by the spray rising out of the gorge, hiding the foot of the falls and soaking visitors and their cameras. Even in November the spray rising above the falls can be seen from kilometres away.

Mark and I left Ilala lodge bright and early. A short distance down the hill there is a broad footpath sweeping away to the right. There is no signage on it but it is the most direct route to the falls. Joseph and a cabal of carving sellers were waiting for us there. They were only able to accompany us as far as the gate because you have to pay to go in. It’s $30 US for foreigners, somewhat less for locals.

It’s probably best to make your way to the west end first. Here you will find Livingstone’s Statue. A Scot, he went to Africa in 1841 as a medical missionary with the London Missionary Society. In 1855 he was supposedly the first white fellah to see the falls which he named after his queen. He spent most of his adult life in Africa and it was a life far more beneficial than say the King of the Belgians or the present führer of Zimbabwe.

Not far from the statue you can stand above the western end of the falls. From here the far end of the falls is 1,708 metres away. The water drops 108 metres in the centre. The first chute is called the Devils Cataract. It is separated from the next broad expanse, the Main Falls, by Boaruka Island. Then comes Livingstone Island, from where the good doctor first saw the falls, then Rainbow Falls (the highest) and the Eastern Cataract.

The waters of the Zambesi pour into a gorge which sweeps around a number of horse shoe bends before heading off towards the Indian Ocean. When the water level is low you can get down into the gorge but not to a position that will give you a great view. Your $30 gives you a number of splendid views from above. The Devils Cataract …

The Main Falls, looking west …

Rainbow Falls looking from the east, a small party on the Zambian side are getting ready to swim in the Devil’s Pool. Only a tiny minority are swept to their death.

You could spend the day there, and we did …