Trip to Kongo Central and DRC's coast

In December 2024, we took our long-delayed trip to Kongo Central province and specifically Muanda, on DRC's coast. We'd previously planned to travel there in December 2022, but heavy rains washed away a portion of the N1/Route de Matadi (the main highway leading from Kinshasa to DRC's port in Matadi). Some repairs were made, but large sections of the road were one-way which would have made an already slow drive even longer.

View of Matadi and the Congo River.

The longest portion of the drive is between Kinshasa and Matadi, due to the trucks going back and forth from the port. Aside from traffic getting in and out of both cities, the trip went smoothly. For all legs of this trip we got rides in smaller cars/taxis. The Kin-Matadi ones were arranged by calling in advance (you reach a call center then they pass on your number and the driver calls you to coordinate, usually after 10 PM the night before travelling), while for the other drives we just told people at our lodging that we were looking for a ride to Boma/Muanda/Matadi and they found us a taxi. So it was pretty easy to get around.

Hôtel Metropole, Matadi.

Kinshasa to Matadi took about 8 hours, which wasn't too bad considering that the last time we were on this road it took a convoy of us 9.5 hours to get from Kisantu to Kinshasa (120 kms), and I was one of the drivers.

After a night in Matadi we continued to Boma, the capital under King Leopold II's Congo Free State until 1923. We later learned from some other customers at the bar/historical sight Belvédère that it was not the first capital of the Congo Free State, and that Vivi across the river from Matadi held that status from July 1885-May 1886. 

Ship heading past Boma up the Congo River to Matadi.

Boma is a quiet town with a number of historical sites worth visiting. These mostly stem from DRC's colonial history - churches, government offices, etc. - but Boma is also host to what are reputedly the first cars in the Congo. These are understandably in a state of disrepair, not least because our kids (among other visitors over the years) were allowed to "drive" them.

The first cars in the Congo, they belonged to a German named Fischer.

We then headed north to INERA Luki, and agriculture and forestry research station where a TASOK colleague of ours grew up. His brother continues to work there, and was a great help getting to and from Luki (i.e. finding a driver who was willing to take us the 6.5 kms offroad to reach INERA, then riding with us) and then when we had a family member fall sick and need medical treatment in Boma.

Dimensions of Central Africa's biggest tree.

The illness unfortunately cut our INERA Luki visit down to one night instead of three, but most of us were able to do a small hike with Papa Bambi to see what is reputedly the largest tree in Central Africa. Our host described 30-40 other sites of interest, so we hope to return to Luki again.

Onwards to Muanda, which was just a 1-1.5 hour drive from Boma. Once you get past the port at Matadi and cross the river, traffic is much calmer thanks to the smaller amount of heavy goods trucks on the road. Besides increased traffic, the Matadi-Kinshasa also features numerous truck breakdowns (or trucks that veered into the deep gutter alongside the highway), which requires drivers to weave around them while on the lookout for oncoming traffic.

Fishermen at Tonde beach, Muanda.

In Muanda we stayed at a guesthouse on the grounds of a Catholic church, Maison d'accueil des Sœurs de la Charité. This was a couple of hundred meters from Plage Tonde, a pleasant enough beach with chairs and umbrellas available for the cost of a drink, with shrimp, fish and other food available on the grill. The sea was a bit rough, but the kids enjoyed riding the waves near shore, building in the sand, and, one time, helping fishermen pull in their net (they offered us a decent-sized fish for our efforts, despite a meager haul for what was a lot of effort on their part).

A couple of hundred meters from the main public beach is a section abutting Hotel La Beviour, and across a small lagoon is a turtle hatchery managed by ICCN - Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (the Congolese wildlife authority). When sea turtles lay their eggs, ICCN staff collect them and bury them in a designated area for safe-keeping and protection. Once the turtles hatch they are then released onto the beach to head out to sea.

Per Christian at the ICCN outpost/hatchery, the turtles, Olive Ridleys, laid eggs in October and about five weeks later they hatch. So every day there were 1-2 batches of turtles hatching, so we went twice to help count them and release them onto the beach.

(Left: first church in Congo, brought prefabricated from Belgium. Right: oil derrick monument, Muanda.)

Since Kongo Central was part of the former Kongo kingdom, I was a bit surprised to hear Lingala so widely spoken as opposed to KiKongo (not that I would have recognized the latter). One of our colleagues had previously explained that Mobutu was responsible for the spread of Lingala throughout DR Congo. Mobutu was from an area where Lingala was the principal Congolese language. As he built up the Congolese/Zairois army, Mobutu initially mainly recruited soldiers from his home region. Their deployments around the country helped spread Lingala, as did the adoption of Lingala by people who joined the predominately Lingala-speaking military.

Former Governor's residence, Boma.

On our return trip through Matadi, we made a visit to Belvédère, sight of a hillside monument to the construction of the train from Matadi to Kinshasa (built to bypass the rapids on the Congo River). The main feature, a bronze topographical map mounted on marble, is mostly surrounded by a bar/restaurant, although it was covered in a tarp to protect it from the rain.

The bronze map matches the view from Belvédère, and a gentleman quickly arrived to point out various key locations (a monument to porters who died during the railroad construction, the first electricity substation) and history. The map was made in Belgium and brought to Congo in 1948.

"Across this chaotic land, bold and tenacious men
 launched the first railway in Central Africa."

Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip. We hope to go again sometime, to spend some more time at Luki, and also to head to Pointe de Banana, where the Congo River empties into the Atlantic Ocean.