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Published: August 7th 2007
Every have a 200+lb animal reach and want to touch your leg? Ever share a tent with a man with an AK47 at his feet (Funk, I said AK47 not M16)? Ever walk on the moon? Well, these are just some of my experiences in DRC - Democratic Republic of Congo, and they were all good experiences.
On the Moon My first introduction to Congo was the town of Goma. When I first got here I hated it. I think I was scared. Everyone warns you about going to Congo, and yet everyone also says it is safe. My experience was that it is safe in areas and the concern is just that the Guerrillas aren’t completely done fighting. But in and around Goma it seems calm. In the town there are lots of signs of force. There are the police at the roundabouts, the army walking around and of course MONUC, the boys in the blue helmets - UN Peacekeepers. It was actually interesting for me to see them driving around in pickup trucks with manned M60s mounted on the cab roofs. I wanted to but was never fast enough with my camera to get a picture of
this.
Money in Congo is interesting. They have their own money, the Congolese Franc. I for some reason insisted on changing money even though the guide from Goma Tours told me to just spend US. But I insisted and changed $20 into 10000Francs. What I noticed later is that they don't have a bill bigger than 500F or $1. They just use Congolese Francs as change for the dollar. Almost all prices in stores are in $1. Just interesting, I thought. Oh yeah, the money is very grubby and dirty. Worst money I've seen.
My first impression of Goma was that is was just a dirty, useless city. There isn’t any pavement in the streets but they aren’t dirt, they are this dark, black silt/sand/something. Everywhere there are all these large black rocks and everything just seems to have a dark feel to it. Of course then I remember, that in 2002 Goma was buried under 2 meters of molten lava. This dark silt is actually lava as are the rocks. The town itself is still rebuilding. What seemed like angry people who weren’t smiling and asking me many questions were really just people that didn’t care if
I was there or not. They had their business and I had mine. By the time I left I was sad and actually wanted some more time in the city, but I had chores to do. I think one of the telling things about Goma were the guys working at the hotel I stayed at. They would constantly come and talk to me, ask if I wanted to be shown around, say they wanted to be friends, ask what I was doing. Same stuff I get almost everywhere. It is sad but sometimes you get jaded and are really just convinced that they want something. Anyway, one guy said that he wanted a picture with me and I said sure, can we do it later, I have to get something from the store before I leave. I figured I would take the picture and then send it to him in the post. While I’m packing I get a knock on my door. It is the guy and he wants to know if we can take the picture now. With him is a guy from the street who has a camera. This guy was taking paying to have the picture taken
and get the print from a street vendor. I was thoroughly impressed.
Click here for generic pictures of the Congo Gorillas or Guerillas I had two goals for coming to Congo. One was to Nyiragongo Volcano and the other was to possibly trek the Gorillas. I had wanted to do this in Rwanda because I had heard that is the best place but all of the Rwanda permits were full up until the end of August. I guess I could come back then or look into DRC. DRC doesn’t have many tourists and I thought if it is safe I might be the only one trekking gorillas and that would be cool. I wasn’t the only one, there were 6 of us, but that was ok.
It actually worked out in my favor. The road to get to the park office is very, very bad even by 4x4 standards. Because of the rain the previous day we couldn’t drive all the way and had to hike the last 2kms to the office. Then we hiked for many hours more as the guides were taking us to the largest family that was supposedly also the farthest away. I didn’t care, but the lady/family that
had been with us had been told that there was only 30 minutes of walking. The guide decided to split the group because the family was going very slow and he was worried about them wanting to turn back or it raining and the rest of us not seeing the gorillas.
We found the gorillas. I don’t know that I can fully describe with words the experience. There is something about seeing these massive animals in the wild. Having them beat their chest at you and mock-charge at you or having one come crawling up the hill toward you pawing at your leg. I just sat there and the ranger chased him away then he made me move. Often times, we would have to step off the path as one would want to run past. One guy next to me actually had his leg brushed by one as he ran past less than 1ft from me.
The permit to see these creatures is $300 in DRC and $500 in Rwanda. For this you get to spend exactly 1 hour with the gorillas once you find them. This is a very expensive hour, and I think the telling of
the experience is that it is worth every penny. Nobody has ever said it wasn’t money well spent. And now my lucky part. About 20 minutes into our viewing the gorillas the son of the family showed up and then maybe 20-30 minutes after that the others showed up. Well, because of all this we managed to be able to stay with the gorillas almost 1.5 hours… not bad.
The only other thought I had while hiking was that on the road from Goma there were lots of soldiers “guarding” the road. I couldn’t decide if this made me feel safer or not. I figured it is nice to see good guys with guns, but then would they really be there if they weren’t needed. Somebody made the comment that “Hey, it is July 4th. Maybe we will see some fireworks tonight.” We all were happy not to see fireworks, in the Congo they probably aren’t for celebration.
Needless to say when we arrived back in Goma at 1900, I was exhausted, but happy.
To see all the gorilla pictures, click here Nyiragongo Volcano Nyiragongo Volcano is an active volcano 17kms from Goma. A lava lake still exists in the crater of
this Volcano. I had planned to hike up and spend the night on the crater rim. Not a problem as me and my ranger/guide headed out… I decided to skip the porters, I could carry my own gear.
The hike up is very strenuous. You start out walking in forest and then are walking over loose volcanic rock. You then go back into forest and mud/dirt as you get closer to the top. Along the way you can see steam rising from several vents. I found the 2nd forest very strange. In 2002 this volcano erupted and buried Goma in 2 meters of hot lava. I figured an eruption like that would surely have flattened the whole forest but where was plenty of old growth. It turns out that the eruption was not a blow your top eruption, but a massive lava flow out some of the vents and down the lower slopes into the town. It was still strange to be almost to the top of the volcano and be in forest.
It was cold and breezy at the top. But when you actually stepped up to the rim you could feel the heat from the volcano
on your face. For myself, I found a nice spot to hunker down just below the rim and out of the wind. I set up my little camp stove here and my guide and I sat and watched the lava lake while we cooked dinner. Once again I was lucky as it was a clear day and night. The lava is an impressive site in the daylight but once it gets dark the show really comes on. You can see the cracks in the cooling lava and fresh lava shows up all around the lake. I sat there thinking “What a way to spend 4th of July weekend, Gorillas and now the worlds largest bonfire.” I really wanted a marshmallow and a really long stick.
All through the night, I could here the lava bubbling down below. About 100 meters below are perch on the first major rock ledge you could see steam during the day, but at night there was an early red glow from under the rocks. At the tent “platform” I had accidentally set my bag down next to a small steam vent. I probably should have left my bag there and let it get steam
cleaned.
My guide informed me that the summit was about 3500meters, it was 800 meters from the summit to the lake and the crater was 300meters in circumference. He wouldn’t let me walk down into the crater though, even though there was a path. That was only for the scientist who studied the volcano.
It turns out that my guide didn’t have a tent with him. He just had his army issued poncho/sleeping bag, while I had a 2 person tent. I offered to let him share the tent with me. This wasn’t a completely altruistic offer. I had been warned that on the summit it was very cold and could get to 0 or minus. I figured that 2 people in the tent would be warmer than one. So as we go to bed I realize that after getting his bed ready my guide carefully laid his AK47 at his feet and went to bed.
Volcano Pictures After hiking down from the volcano, I met some MONUC soldiers going up. I really wanted to talk to them about what was going on and what they were doing. But they were more interested in hearing about my travels
and getting their picture taken with me.
Congo was good.
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Funk
non-member comment
Dude...
those Gorilla pics were awesome!