Has anyone been to the Congos?
 

I know they're hardly up there in the tourist hotspots of the world, but it would be interesting to hear if anyone has ventured into this part of the world. Yes, I know there are many political issues going on which affect safety, but still.

I guess the short and direct answer is "yes", several times to the DRC. I have spent much of the past 32 years in Africa, 48 countries, these two among them. No, they don't attract many tourists. Typical tourist things don't interest me, people and living culture do, but that's just me.

For what it's worth, a journalist who hitchhiked from Cape Town to Morocco described the DRC as hell on earth, incomparable to any other country he visited in Africa or elsewhere, including places like Chechnya. Granted, he didn't go to the Central African Republic or Somalia. Supposedly the Republic of Congo was much better, and so-so by African standards.

http://www.newtimes.co.rw/africa/two...itish-official

Kidnapping in Congo gorilla sanctuary | News | DW | 11.05.2018

Um, yea, I'm aware of that.


That's interesting to hear actually :)

He has a series of articles about the trip online, but they're in Czech - not exactly a commonly understood language.

Do you have a link on that? I'd love to take a look at it even if I have to view it through google translate.

Ebola
 

Have you seen this?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/healt...ntl/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/eb...lained-n875521

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/eb...o-says-n875561

a different view
 

If you want to read more about experiences in the DRC, this is a very interesting blog/thread about driving from Lubumbashi to Kinshasa. [warning - contains some disturbing comments about the civil war/mass killings]

Thank you for the link. Many recognizable experiences here, though different, since I travel alone and by bicycle (mostly). And I haven't spent any time in the south, so that was interesting too.

Not sure if people care, but on the political and financial front there is a big push now to have free trade amongst all east African countries and include the DRC. So the border and commerce is expected to be liberalised between Uganda and eastern DRC soon. Not coincidentally Uganda has discovered a huge amount of oil right near the Congo border and will begin pumping it out soon. Money has a way of changing things. :)

I’ve only been to DRC on business, and only to Kinshasa. I can’t recommend the place. The hotel was nice enough (I stayed at the Fleuve Congo, with a nice view over to Brazzaville) and in a part of the city that was kept safe. However, I could never escape the suspicion that may safety depended on the right people being quietly paid off, in the background. I was there for almost two months and noted that it was not unusual to see minders posted outside of some of the guest rooms on any given evening. Put simply, there’s not much in the way of the rule of law there.

Wanted to say thank you for posting the link to that report. A few hours later I've just finished reading through the entire thing - what an incredible and eye opening blog to read. Helps to balance out some of the naivety I feel like many of us have when speaking at length about foreign destinations but never having a clue of what the actual experience is like. It's one thing to fantasize about these trips from the comfort of your couch and keyboard, but entirely different in reality. Problem one of the best reports I've read in recent years. ^

Here's a link to the Congo article:
https://reportermagazin.cz/a/iMdn5/p...ruza-za-druhou

I read this a couple years ago and it was fascinating.