The mornings in town were rather lazy. I was going out across the street to have a baguette with an avocado salad and a cup of nescafe. Sueco where I stayed also did food but it was expensive. I once took a seafish bullion with vegetables, it was nice but if was also 3500cfa. Oops. However on Sunday the man with the baguettes wasn’t there and I had pain au chocolat and another French pastry with a cup of very weak nescafé in Sueco. The pastry was fresh and very nice.
Friday – the first day – I went on to find DRC Consulate. Not marked on any map, it took me several taxi drivers to find actually the one who could take me there, and even that one went on the street to ask people where the consulate is.
I haven’t marked the consulate on Google Maps as each time I map a consulate my edit is refused. Interesting. The bars and restaurants and hotels go live on Maps immediately but the consulates? Nope.
But the consulate is there, I paid 1500cfa for the taxi. It is in a multi-storey building, a flag marks the spot. Just before I entered the compound I asked a man working on something next door if this was really the entrance to the consulate. He reprimanded me for not greeting him first. So I went through the Bonjour / Ça va procedure before I got my answer from him.
The consulate is on the first floor, no signs outside, it is literally 2 rooms. The men inside were friendly but unhelpful. They told me I should apply for the visa in Brazzaville, they also mentioned I should “normally” be a resident in order to apply for the visa. They even called the embassy to ask what papers I should bring but their phone calls were getting disconnected. They asked me to leave my phone number and WhatsApp number but I never heard from them again.
While we were driving towards the consulate, a few hundred metres before it I spotted a coffee street stand. I walked back to it after my failed consulate visit. There was a hotel La Constance on that street with a restaurant prominently displaying the bushmeat it served. The menu included a “boa.”
The coffee stand was run by a man from Mali. How I love men from Mali. He showed me his coffee bag, “coffee no. 6” from Ivory Coast. He explained to me where he bought it (on Gori roundabout turn right and it’s a 3rd or 4th shop, you will see, they also serve coffee). He also told me that in a nearby supermarket, Tic Tac, there should be coffee beans. Or I should go to Lumumba roundabout and there is a Regal supermarket which definitely would have coffee beans. A cup of Malian-Ivorian coffee was 250cfa, I took two.
The Tic Tac supermarket only had instant coffee.
As I walked towards Gori roundabout I saw another coffee stand, there were not even benches, it was just outside a car parts shop. I took another cup and I chatted with the man, as he was making the Sahara tea. He too was from Mali. He gave me a cup of tea and for the 10 seconds I was back in Mauritania.
Left of the Gori roundabout the chaos of shops and workshops were so grand that I got lost counting the 3rd or 4th shop. I started asking people and they all pointed ever further from the roundabout until I ended up several blocks away at a stand run by a woman. When I asked her if she sold coffee she said it was finished.
But my long walk was towards Lumumba roundabout so not all was lost. However all coffee that Regal supermarket had was from France.
Lunch I had in a Senegalese restaurant near Sueco. Tchiep rice with saka saka, which is Congolese leaf stew, tasty, 1500cfa. Not bad.
Afternoon I went to the beach. The town beach is wide and it wasn’t very crowded. There were some plastic chairs to sit on and there were some expensive-looking bars on the beach. The waves were quite big and there were signs not to swim although I also saw two men that looked like beach patrol so who knows. There were no clouds so the sunset wasn’t spectacular. I also stopped wearing my safari hat, it’s completely fallen apart. A hat from South Africa didn’t survive West Africa.
Coming back from the beach I had a beer at café de la gare. On my way I stopped at La Citronelle. According to the Breast Guide it’s the oldest of patisseries in Pointe Noire. Unfortunately they were not doing croissants aux amandes but they had some coconut cookies so I bought some.
On the way back two small children walked along me. They looked like they were coming back from school but the girl already had breast. The boy came up to me and asked “papa give us 100francs”. I refused but then as I kept walking so were the kids, crossing the streets together holding hands, the girl showing the boy the way. It struck me that they don’t take any transport. I asked them what do they need 100francs for – the girl said they want to take a bus. Oh dear.
Saturday morning I walked around neighbourhood. The mask shops near Sueco were mainly closed, apparently the shopkeepers went to someone’s funeral. I had a baguette with avocado salad and a cup of nescafé for breakfast.
I took taxi and asked to be taken to where the transport goes to Diosso where some picturesque canyon is, about 20kms away from Pointe Noire. Both guidebooks that I have on Congo barely mention the transport. It’s as if they assume people will drive around.
I was dropped at the central market. Taxis were there collecting passengers but there was nothing to Diosso. Of course I was offered a course which is the word for hiring the taxi. 5000cfa one way. I said I’d pay 8000cfa return and the taxi man first didn’t want it but then he called me and we went. It took us a bit more than an hour to reach Diosso but that mainly because of Pointe Noire traffic, the road was good.
We passed some very European-lookimg forests: long poplar-like trees in neat rows. A turn off to the gorges de Diosso was in the village. By the gorges a representative of Youth Association for development of tourism in Diosso announced that entering the 50m by 50m viewing area is 2000cfa. I paid. The view was pretty, you could see the ocean. Then the boy offered we could go down to the bottom of the canyon, to “a photo point”. Sure! But it was paid extra. How much? 5000cfa. What?!! No thank you. And I even told him it’s too much and why should I pay when I already paid but of course he didn’t understand. So we left him there not understanding the issue and went to the museum of Loango. Loango is the area of which Diosso uses to be a capital.
It’s paid, too, 2000cfa and the tour is guided. There isn’t much to see, some artefacts, utensils etc but the guide was very entertaining and informative. He talked much about the masks the different tools, the animals and then about the history of Loango and generally of the colonial rule. I had no idea this part of the word uses to be called Afrique Équatorial Française (AEF) and the French were calling its citizens AEFiens.
There was also a small map print showing the railways of Africa. It’s stunning to see how the railways were only used to carry goods to the coast, the thick lines connecting two cities, one in the interior, one on the coast. Also the map was showing the French colonies as one huge “country”. In West Africa the English countries, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, looked like the English ate away land from the French.
It’s actually the English who took most of the slaves among the colonial powers, 44%. The 2nd in the queue were the Portuguese, which is surprising. The French were third. On the chart there was even Denmark!
The guide also made me guess who abolished slavery first. The French abolished it but then Bonaparte, which was Polish hope for independence in 19th century, brought it back apparently – my guide’s version of events at least – his woman asked him to bring it back coz she was scared that she would not have anyone to work for her.
Diosso felt like small village in the woods, very quiet. I asked my driver to take me to the former museum building which at the same time is former royal palace and now holds court of justice. The current former royal palace is just next door and doesn’t look like a palace but it’s a very big compound.
I saw why there were no cars going to Diosso in the market in Pointe Noire. There were actual city busses coming to Diosso. Wow. Wish I had known where to catch one in town, the trip would be even more interesting, I would be the master of my own time. Anytime I hire a taxi for a trip like this their first question is always “how much time will you take there?”. And the thing is people here don’t really seem to care about time, or what time of day it is. Well, maybe they do but the general impression I get is that they don’t.
Back in town I asked the driver to drop me in front of la Constance Hotel. I was intrigued by its bushmeat menu and I do wanna try monkey meat. The driver asked for extra 500cfa on top of the 8000cfa we had agreed, “for beer”.
I saw the bushmeat menu outside, a lady peeked out of the small restaurant but I didn’t go in. The pangolin on the menu scared me away. I have an image of pangolin as an animal threatened by those who eat it.
Interestingly, either the same day or day after I saw an Instagram post on pangolins posted by I think Guardian. It said that the most threatened pangolin species are in Asia, that only now the attention turned to African pangolin and there were even pictures of people handling the pangolins in Cameroon. That those people allowed themselves to be pictured, wow. So I don’t know how it is and the matter is probably not as simple. When I try to find this post I get an educational message (!) from Instagram that searching for pangolins is often done in relation with harm to the animals. I also recently read about elephants and ivory that sits unused in Southern African countries who want to be able to sell that ivory and even allow hunting elephants – Zimbabwe has 30,000 more elephants that it’s able to contain on its lands – and there was a statement from Botswana that “people from countries with no elephants tell people from countries with elephants what to do about them.” Botswana a few days ago allowed hunting elephants.
Up the road from La Constance Hotel there was the coffee stand but it was empty – I was told the man managing it had gone home. Around the corner there was that other coffee stand and I took a cup but since there was no proper seating there, I didn’t linger for long.
I walked towards a restaurant that I saw from taxi, Marie Diallo, I saw they had maboke. Maboke is in my eyes Congolese dish, I had it first on my first visit to Kinshasa in 2005: fish pieces in peppery sauce wrapped in leaves – the wrapping is loose – and roasted on charcoals. But Marie Diallo turned out to be evening only restaurant and now its outdoor seating area covered by the market. So I walked on towards the Senegalese restaurant next to Sueco, where I stayed. They had no saka saka on Saturday so I just had tcheboudjen with meat. Meat means beef meat.
On my way there I passed Institut Français. There seemed to be a live concert in the evening, starting at 6pm, there was a festival going on, N’Sangu Ndji-Ndji. Something to do in the evening. Ndji-Ndji is the local name for Pointe-Noire. I had even asked the guide why they won’t change the names back to the local ones. Perhaps Mr N’Guesso likes the French too much.
I walked to the train station, got a beer in Cafe de la Gare and after 6pm I walked back to Institut Français. I’m a Real African now, always 45 minutes late. But the Institut Français was running on time and by the time I reached it, the first artist, Aline Frazão from Angola was already on stage. It was an acoustic set, only Aline and her guitar, mellow songs yet the audience – the place was full – reacted cheerfully, shouts and whistles. After Aline there came on stage two men from Guinea Conakry: Séfoudi Kouyaté with his kora, and Mohammed Sylla on xylophone and drums.
By the second “song” – there was barely any singing – the audience was in ecstasy, the melodies tickled our brains into some kind of desert bliss. And the songs were not short, they lasted 10 minutes or more. It was a beautiful performance. At one point the artist that was supposed to perform next – Paloma Pradal from France – came on stage and sang flamenco songs to the Malian melodies and it worked beautifully. It’s always a joy to see African concerts, the artists often get carried away by their own music and continue playing and jamming without end. And it’s never the same later on the records. I tried to search for Kouaté and Syllo and I found little although Séfoudi Kouaté has a webpage and even released a digital record, Mohammed Sylla search results are overwhelmed by a football player with the same name.
Next on stage Pamela Pradal and her guitarist. It was a very minimalistic set, her voice, guitar and occasionally clapping hands, flamenco songs. I don’t know much about flamenco, I only once saw a performance in Sevilla, possibly a touristy one, but this one was good and the audience loved it. At the end Pamela said it was her first time on African continent and that she loved it. True. I’m not sure there is a person that came to Africa and did not love it.
The evening ended with another musical riot, when both Malians and Pamela and her guitarist and two more singers and a drummer came on stage and played a long jam that made parts of the audience run up to the stage and keep dancing to the riotous music.
Kudos to Institut Français, the whole festival is free to enter. Also the organisation: the beers were provided by a maman, which I understand was hired from outside. The emcee was a crippled man, standing and moving about using crutches. I somehow cannot imagine such in my own country where everyone has to be beautiful and shiny.
After the music fiesta I went to get my maboke. It was already late but I tried to take the taxi not for the usual 1000cfa but for 500. And it worked! From then on all the taxis were 500cfa, what was I doing before?
The maboke in Marie Diallo was 2000cfa + 200cfa for manioc and it was possibly the best maboke I had in my life. Very aromatic, full of onions and garlic and small pieces of small catfish. How do I know the catfish was small? I had maybe 3 tiny catfish heads on the plate. The only bad thing about Marie Diallo? Mosquitoes. I will have to buy a malaria drug for when I get home just in case.
Sunday was supposed to be lazy day, where I would do nothing but sip coffee and read books. I finished “Children of blood and bone” by Tomi Adeyemi, a fantasy book in an imaginary Nigeria, where gods and magic are forbidden but I didn’t quite like it. The potential for stories evolving around here Yoruba deities is big but the book didn’t use it. Then I read “Black Moses” by Alain Mabanckou, possibly the most famous Congolese writer. I enjoyed it. I started “Memoirs of porcupine” by Mr Mabanckou, it’s actually translated into Polish.
But instead of reading I ended up roaming about the town. I bought myself a bottle of groundnuts, 2000cfa. I went to find out about the transport, none of my guidebooks mentions how to get to Brazzaville by bus. I guess I’m not the target of those guidebooks but then who is?
The taxi took me to Ocean du Nord agence. Ticket to Brazzaville costs 12,000cfa. Bus A leaves at 6:30am, bus B leaves at 7am. Since the trip is apparently 10 hours long (Google says 515kms) I picked bus A – I had no idea where to stay in Brazzaville. At the bus station there was a man with espresso machine, I took two cups, 250cfa each. I love this.
From the agency I walked back to Sueco. The avocado salad and baguette man had a day off so I took pain au chocolat and some other French pastry from Sueco – they were very cheap and tasty and fresh from the oven.
I had a beer in an open-air buvette under a tree. The mask shops were open today so I walked around them but I didn’t see anything that I liked.
Afternoon I went to Kokolo Kopa stadium. The N’Sangu Ndji-Ndji festival continued and ended there. Since I thought 3pm for music is too early I showed up at the stadium – which in reality was just an open space, full of sand – no security, no checks at the entrance, nice. It turned out there were technical problems and noone had started playing yet. Across the street were buvettes and they were full. I sat in one and took Guinness and the first hand started playing, I took the bottle with me. There were two sellers of kola nuts roaming around in the stadium but only one had good (fresh) bitter kola nuts. They expensive in Congo at 100cfa each.
The music wasn’t as enchanting as the previous day, it was a bit more of a stadium music. Musée d’Art from Congo was a multidrum band, there were 9 drummers with the traditional drums and a percussion drummer on top of it. The music reminded me a bit of Konono no. 1, a music group from DRC. Then a DRC band played and I think audience likes it, people were dancing in front of the stage, the band was called Rumba Music. Then a Malian artist with his band came on stage, his name Koré Yeelen. But he sounded like Youssouf N’Dour, he sang in wollof, so to me he was Senegalese. And then again technical problems showed up and the concert was interrupted for some time. And then a reggae band was on stage, I think 10 people, I Jah Man & New Feeling Control. I like reggae when it’s Bob Marley. So I left the venue.
I went to Chez Andreas to get one of those enormous fish tails again, before I leave Pointe Noire but on Sunday it was closed. I walked towards Marie Diallo but I managed to confuse myself and instead of walking towards Marie Diallo I walked away from it so I ended up at a roasted fish joint near Andreas. It was good fish, 2000cfa. I will miss roasted fish at home.
Coming back to Maman 