A Bike Ride in the Jungle

Day One

We left about an hour later than originally planned, which is pretty good for here. Kitoko was not very happy to realize I was leaving on the boat and she wasn’t coming with me. She followed the boat in to the water and then raced along the shore in the direction of the boat after we took off. She really has become attached to me lately.

So we arrived in Mpongoboli and loaded up the bikes. I’m always so amazed how they can attach so much baggage with just some vines as twine. I had the most stuff of course. Even though I had packed and repacked to take as little as possible.

 

We rolled on the same path we had a few months before with the WWF visitors we took to Bakele, over all the cool old bridges whose foundations are left over from Belgium times.

Bridges left over from the Belgians. You can see a boat under me. 

We arrived in Bakele without incident aside from deciding that wearing runners was a waste of time due to all the creeks we had to cross that were at least ankle deep. In Bakele we waited a long time for the local Animateurs (our community facilitators) to finish packing and join us. Although they had known for days we were going on a trip at this time it still took them 2 hours to be ready. Typical. While we waited we had ‘lesolo’ (exchange of news) with the chief, fixed our bikes, and ate oranges, which are actually green.

After Bakele we rode through 16km of forests, crops of cassava, mais and plantains and big beautiful blond savannahs that contrary to ones preconceived notions of a savanna are inundated, or, technically, semi-inundated, with water. So we walked our bikes through a small path that had been worn down over years of use and through big patches of mud that sucked my sandals off. There were also some welcomed sections of dry where it was better to ride so the pedals didn’t bang into your legs on the narrow trail but it was not always possible because the edges of the path kept bumping into your pedals and knocking you off kilter. A fine balance.

Arriving back in the forest with its open paths and swampy bridges was a welcome change.

We finally reached the village of Lobalu where we found the rest of the crew that we had organized to meet us there. We rested in front of the traditional chiefs house, well actually they call it a palace. Interestingly they plant these very original looking yucca like trees around the palace so it is easy to see from far away. When the chief dies the palace is abandoned and a new one built. We rode through new villages, new savannas and met wit another chief and had the lesolo. As the sky was going pink we had 4 more km to go and we rushed. At this point I was feeling very weak as we had rode over 40km all day in the humidity and heat. We arrived well after dark but all in tact.

We met everyone else at the camp resting but I knew I couldn’t sit down. I had to get my tent up or I would be sleeping in the dirt covered I mud and sweat. A lovely mama heated a bucket of water for me on a 3-stone fire (logs) and took me to her palm frond shower stall only to find that it had fallen down in the wind. We proceeded to the neighbors stall that required quite a few vines to be pulled out of it before I could enter. But regardless, it was an awesome bucket shower.

I attempted to sit with the others and make small talk but my blow up pillow was calling to me and I fell asleep on it by 8pm.

Day Two

I slept without waking until 4am and got up at 6am with a circle of kids surrounding my tent. I felt like a new woman.

Sunday is the only time where most of the village doesn’t go to the forest or the fields to work so there was quite the audience present to watch me brush my hair, eat and orange, brush my teeth and take down my tent. Every time I opened my bag or my tent door the entire crowd would lean in to see what I was going to pull out next. Sometimes it gets frustrating to be started at like and animal, especially when you are tired, or on hot days when they block the airflow (and children fart), but there isn’t much you can do about it.

Thunder and lightening were threatening in with sincerity on the horizon so we waited for most of the morning in weather that was so cool I went to get my cardigan. We ate what is actually one of my first Congolese meals since the first month I was here two years ago and I learned not to eat them any more and restricted my diet to rice and tomatoes. It actually wasn’t too bad. We also ate this fruit, Safu, that looks like a big purple pill. You boil them and eat them with salt. I had also decided I didn’t like these my first month in Congo but this time thought they were pretty good. It’s funny how your perspective changes.

So we finally decided the storm wasn’t going to come around 1pm when it was nice and hot for riding through km after km of flooded savannah. It was about this time that I remembered I had forgotten my deodorant. Fun times. The entire area of this part of the Congo basin, the river’s ancient flood plane, is only at its highest 300m above sea level, so when you get to areas that are lower than this they flood in the wet seasons between October and June. Savanna and forest alike are inundated for half the year.

I was constantly amazed at the variety and abundance of butterflies along the route. Blue, purple, orange, white and I even saw a bright green one which struck me as a strange colour for a butterfly. I came across some that had perished in the mud so I pressed them in my book.

After 17km we came to the town of Olynge Oye that started as a farm 30 years ago. I loved its name when I found out that it means: Come and stay if you want to stay, go if you don’t.

After passing the welcoming village we quickly came across our team of chainsaw bearing road clearing men (not wearing their expensive and imported safety gear). We had sent them 2 days ahead of us to clear the road because trees, huge trees, regularly fall on the path and make passing very difficult as you have to lift your bike over or under trees or push through the forest to get around them. I quickly learned how essential they were because now that we had passed them we were left to lift our bicycles and packs over these massive trees.

 
When we finally rolled in to Ilee, our final destination and over 60km of road later, the welcome was well worth the effort. We rode straight to the palace and were met by all the dignitaries (except for the chief who was away on a voyage to Kinshasa) with very un-Congolese speed. Children crowded around the hanger to see their first ever mundele (white person) and all the men exclaimed how touched they were that this mundele makasi (strong white person) had made such a hard journey just for them. After another dinner of boiled fish and Kwanga I went to my tent thinking “if only there were drums” and then they started. Ah, I thought , how perfect, and then I thought, but wait, those arent’ African Djembe type drums. Those are marching band drums. Sure enough I saw them in the morning, the visiting Catholic Band from a neighboring villages church marching out of town flutes and all.