Three days in Brazzaville

The plan was to stay in Brazzaville till Friday and then take the ferry across the river to Kinshasa, stay there till Monday and go back home. I even had bought ticket a few days before. I’m using my points from the travels I had done with work, it’s so much easier this way, as it’s practically possible to buy a ticket for the next day, I still had to pay the so-called airport taxes but it’s much less than I’d have to pay if I had to book a ticket a few days before the travel, one-way. The ticket via Brussels was 1340zł that’s about $355 or €315. Cancellation/change of such ticket is 200zł, $/€50.

First things first, DRC visa. I had made the booking for the hotel in Kinshasa, cheapest I found on booking.com was $30/day. I dressed up for the occasion, a shirt (short sleeves) and I put on the famous long trousers that allowed me to enter Gabon Embassy in Yaoundé. I took taxi to centre ville. The embassy is in a large building, in reception I had to leave my mobile phone and already there I knew what the outcome would be. There was a communique on the wall listing the via options: visa for “our brothers and sisters from Republic of the Congo” wait less than 10 days for the visa. Do they even need the visa? The foreigners resident in The Congo need to wait 10 working days for the visa. And a remark: no visa for non-residents.

I went to the visa room where there was a small line. A madame sat behind glass windows. I went up and told her my story. She even asked why I bought a ticket if I couldn’t get the visa and I couldn’t get the visa because I’m non-resident and anyway it takes time, they have to send a query to Kinshasa and receive a response. So I asked straight “So there is no chance?” to which I got this confusing French way of responding to negative questions “Yes.” Yes, there is no chance.

Even though I was ready for refusal, I didn’t feel very happy. I went to a patisserie behind a corner for coffee and pain au chocolat and first thing I did was to search for a ticket out of Brazzaville. The choice of airlines out of Brazzaville is much lower than from Kinshasa. There was space available on Ethiopian Airlines on Friday 14th. I booked it. To cancel the ticket out of Kinshasa I had to call the airline back in Poland, Skype is good and very cheap for such calls from abroad.

The exchange office next to the patisserie and its adjacent hotel, Hotel Mikhael, a Lebanese outfit, has extremely good exchange rates. They paid 715CFA for euro, almost 10% higher than official rate. Two days later the rate was already 720CFA while the other exchange offices in city paid less than 700 CFA for euro (I walked through city trying to change the euros so I know).

I walked around city centre, sat in another patisserie and had another coffee. I went to post office and posted postcards I had carried all the way from Ivory Coast. I had bought just because they had been available but I think they were nice. I took off my long trousers and walked around city with them.

I wanted to change my hotel but somehow catching taxi to Bacongo wasn’t that easy. I had looked at the Petit Futé guidebook again and again I found out they liste hotels per town district. I have the guidebook in ebook format and that’s a very unhandy format. Also Petit Futé has bad chapter marking so I find myself scrolling endlessly through the long listings of expensive hotels before I could catch the one cheap one that they mention in Bacongo. The hotel is called 3T Hotel, on Google Maps it’s marked as MICH Hotel and it’s right next to centre sportif Makélékélé. The guidebook even says they have hot water.

There was a big sign hanging from the hotel “hotel for sale”, nevertheless the reception was open. I was shown a vast room that was actually two rooms, a sitting room and a bedroom, price 5000cfa. The catch? Bucket shower. Hell no.

I peeped into a nearby restaurant but the prices were high. I walked along the main streets but didn’t see any signs for hotels or auberges. Finally at the end of a street. Hotel du Clé de something I can’t remember. Attached to a bar/restaurant, prices of 20-25kcfa. Eish. I did ask the receptionist if she had something cheaper and she mentioned 15000cfa. With 15k I could live. I did ask if perhaps 25000cfa for two days would be OK and she said yes. Great. The room looked nice and there was water. I said I’d be back the next day, she agreed.

Happy I had a beer outside and then a roasted fish at a nearby roasted fish stall and another beer. Good area, good hotel, good price.

In the evening I was back at Irene’s but I only had the avocado salad, there were many mosquitoes.

Back in quartier Mouhoumi there was no electricity. There is a roundabout known among the taxi drivers as rond point Mouhoumi, but access to it is via a huge pothole covered partly by sand so most of the cars go through the small streets. By the roundabout there are boys with shovels that possibly try to even out the pothole by shuffling the sand and ask money from the drivers waiting in the line to enter and exit the pothole one by one.

The hotel was running a generator but with the generator they did not support the AC. The days in Brazzaville were quite sunny and therefore hot but the evenings were quite nice and the AC or even fan weren’t necessary. Nevertheless I made a point of informing the receptionist that I’d like to pay for the room as if it was without AC.

So the next morning the AC wasn’t still running but somehow the power was on and I couldn’t hear the generator. When I came down I gave the receptionist 23kCFA (instead of 25k), she didn’t know how much I was supposed to pay so called the owner. The owner came and of course said I owe him 2k. I explained to him why I didn’t feel like paying for AC when there was no AC and I even mentioned that even in the morning when there was power, there was no AC. Turns out they switch off the fuses when switching to generator and the receptionist didn’t switch back the fuse on when the power came back. She got reprimanded by the owner for being forgetful but this way I saved 2000cfa. I’m getting better at this game.

The taxi I took to Bacongo was a bit weird. First the driver called someone on the street and another man joined us. Then a few streets later he said that other man will drive me and he said something about having (or not) the right papers for the car. We ended up driving small roads in order to avoid police check. At my new hotel it turned out the driver had no money so he can’t give me 500cfa change out of my 2000cfa. He also didn’t feel like going around asking for change and the receptionist from my new hotel had no 500cfa to help us out and I ended up giving him 1200cfa – all the change I had.

At the hotel I registered myself, the receptionist asked to see my passport anyway – it actually happens quite often, these people take their police seriously. I gave her 25000cfa which covered my next two days and then she asked if I was paying just for one day. What? I said no it’s for two days as we had agreed. She said no, the room was 25000cfa. But I asked and you said 15000cfa. She said it was for the passage! Shit, how did we communicate? I even thought I’d negotiated the price down! Do I have to go back to Mouhoumi now? Ah.

Outside the hotel I took out the phone, looked at Petit Futé again, they mentioned an auberge in Salvation Army compound, South of airport but the area wasn’t really that far from Mouhoumi so I had ignored it. Now there was no choice so I went there, quartier plateau 15 ans. Surprisingly the taxi was “only” 1000cfa and the auberge was there. 7000cfa for room with shared bathroom, 12000cfa private bathroom, there is water and toilet seat. I registered myself, madame at the reception asked to look at my passport.

I had grilled chicken with manioc outside and a bottle of Ngok.

I took taxi to marché artisanal to see if I can maybe buy myself a mask, after all I will no longer have to carry it on my shoulders. The market is quite small and doesn’t have much choice. The sellers were friendly, I even showed them a picture of a wooden shield I took back in 2017 and the shield was still there. So much for tourists in Congo. I was shown some masks and some of them were even nice. I liked one, by Pende, from North Congo, with some checkered patterns painted on it but its mouth was bent downwards and the mask felt a bit negative to me. I saw another one, by Lua Lua from the plateaux just North of Brazzaville, the seller asked me how much I was willing to pay, I said 10thousand. He tried asking for 40k then 25k then 15k and then just asked me if I’d take it for my original price. Yes I would. So I got a mask!

I walked happily with it to town centre. There, I possibly saw a tourist! Oh well while peeping to some bars in order to locate coffee I saw a white man coming out of one bar, dressed in quite touristy but clean clothes. Inside the bar there was his big backpack and a smaller one in the corner. An airline luggage tag just said BZV as if he just arrived directly from somewhere. The man spoke English on the phone.

I found coffee and even croissant aux amandes in a Lebanese – or Turkish – café across the street, 1000cfa for a cup, a good deal for Brazzaville. The croissant was very poor though, barely any almonds and no cream inside. I thought to myself that the best croissant aux amandes on this trip I had on arrival in Ivory Coast, in that remote town of Man. Or maybe that had been the culinary shock of first real coffee and a proper restaurant after eating manioc or potato leaves in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

From city centre I walked to the river. There is a new road (and bridge, known as bridge to nowhere) along the river. The road is dual carriage but not very busy and during the weekends it used to be actually closes for traffic. I took a walk as it was my only chance to be close to the river. On my bucket list there is a boat trip up river Congo but I’m not sure it will ever happen. There used to be boat trips on the river in Brazzaville but they cost crazy money. In Kinshasa apparently any photos of the river are strictly forbidden but DRC is not your usual country, there – officially at least – you must buy a permit to take any photos in the country. It makes me only appreciate Brazzaville even more although that I am allowed to take photos of a river isn’t anything special in most of the world.

At the end of the road before the bridge there were some young people with Nikon cameras taking photos of passers by and offering to print the photos on the printers that they had with them. Of course I got the same offer but we ended up of taking some of the photos of me and I got three of them as a cadeau sent via bluetooth to my phone. I left them my phone number, they asked if it was possible to send camera equipment from Europe as its much cheaper “on your side”. Sure.

I walked along the bridge till the end, where I had a beer. The whole area along the river road feels kinda sterile and empty, it would benefit from some entertainment development, I mean a bar or a chip joint would be nice. There is a restaurant at the beginning of the avenue, Mami Wata but there a dinner for 20kcfa (€30) is a cheap dinner.

I took taxi to my auberge. I bought a bottle of groundnuts, strangely in Brazzaville they are all unsalted, and a pineapple for 1000cfa as I was going to visit Mimy’s maman who lives just outside Bacongo.

It was already dark when I went there and on that sandy dusty street there were no street lamps working so I wasn’t sure I could find the right house but I did. Topography sense still going strong. Maman was sitting outside the house enjoying the cool evening with her sister and two daughters and two grandchildren. We chatted for some time, she sent someone for a beer for me. We tried calling Mimy but as usual she was in church. I regretted it was so dark so I couldn’t take any photos.

From there I walked to Irene’s but instead I sat in a chop joint next door where I had saka saka, gizzard and manioc. It was all very tasty but the saka saka and gizzard skewer were cold which somehow doesn’t feel right for my Polish taste buds. In Poland fresh food is hot food. On my way through the market, the streets still lively with people, I saw le courge! I bought some and it was good.

Thursday morning I couldn’t find any sandwiches on the street so I had roasted meat and manioc instead. There was a choice of meat (beef), liver and tongue. I tried each but settled for meat and liver, the tongue was nice but its surface looked like it had hair on it. Don’t know what it was.

Thursday could be a lazy day, I walked all the way to city centre to sit down for coffee and read a bit. I started reading Graham Greene’s “A burnt-out case”, it takes place in a leprosy hospital in deep Congo and it’s very atmospheric.

From there I looked in some supermarkets for piment, a Congolese way of making pepper, fresh and chopped and mixed with oil. Couldn’t find any. I had maboke, catfish roasted inside leaves in a sauce. If was nice. I walked along Corniche again to look at the river. I had some money left so I thought to buy one more mask, the unhappy one. Some money means I thought I’d ask the seller if he’d sell it to me for 10k. I’m a 10kcfa man. So I walked to marché artisanal again. It was quite busy, white people around, I sat down in the shop that had the mask and the man already knew which mask I wanted. I told him I had 10,000cfa and would he sell the mask for this money? He first said 40k, 25k but I insisted that’s all I had and it was true. Unless I changed more money or used ATM I didn’t have much more. And in the end of course I did get the mask.

I walked back to the auberges, stopping at the pharmacy to buy a drug for malaria. I told the woman that all I know is Co-Artem but she didn’t have any so she brought out the same drug I got in Togo, so – good. I wanted it because of something happened in Poland by the time the doctors would be able to test me I’d be half-dead. The drug was 3900cfa.

From auberge I took taxi to the outskirts of Brazzaville to a restaurant called Les Rapides. It’s right next to the river at a place where water becomes a bit frothy due to a series of small rapids which are unfortunately only visible from a distance. It’s quite a nice spot. There I saw my piment, 500cfa for a small jar. I bought one, it is not very well but still wrapped in a few layers of cloth and plastic – Congo has banned plastic bags comoletely, they are ahead of us in this. The piment is in the big bag in the plane, prayers and thoughts so it doesn’t break. Even the touch of it is felt on the thinner parts of the skin.

Just before the entrance to the restaurant there were young boys. The moment they saw a white man they all started asking for money. I chatted with them and said I did not have any money as I was leaving the next day. Ha but they saw me entering the restaurant… Oh well. I had a beer inside, it was quiet with not many people sitting and enjoying the river view.

Walking back from the restaurant to the main road I saw a woman pouring palm wine to jars from which the men were drinking it. I asked to try the wine and then the woman said something that might explain all the wine tastes that I had in my life. She said she had added sugar to the wine. Ah, so is it why some wines are actually nice mellow and sweet and the other wines feel dry? I have to investigate.

I took taxi to ATM as I felt I may need more money. I remember the times when there were no ATMs in Brazzaville, then there was just one serving VISA, now there are not exact many more but just more.

I walked from the ATM to Irene’s and I had my avocado salad. I bought some le courge cubes. Mimy wasn’t sure they would survive (i.e. won’t spoil) till I get home and they are in my big backpack so they may get squeezed. Prayers and thoughts.

I couldn’t sleep much the day before departure. Reisefieber, I have not flown planes in my life, who knows.

Then I realised the Ethiopian flight was not at 12:50 but at 12:10 so I had to rush packing. My statue/head and two masks in my hand backpack, all electronics charged. I thought about the statue/head, it’s a heavy piece of wood and someone could think I’d be able to attack with it. In Lagos airport a glass bottle of groundnuts was once taken from me on the account that I could break the glass and hurt people. In Lagos airport again a spoon was taken from me and I was shown how I could scoop someone’s eye with it.

The airport is really a walking distance from the auberge but I travel in style so I took taxi.

I showed the statue/head to the Ethiopian team and the man said it’s better to put it in the main bag. I wrapped it with all the clothes I had in the bag. All the prayers and thoughts should be redirected from piment and le courge to the statue so it doesn’t break. It’s really nice and my heart will ache if it does.

Brazzaville customs has a history of asking for cadeau on various occasions but this time they asked how much money I had and they didn’t look into my bag, where the masks were sitting. The X ray people also didn’t say anything.

But just before the gate when boarding the bags are checked again. When the guys saw the masks they immediately said strictement interdit. What?! It’s wood. Monsieur do you have someone who can take it from you? No. And somehow they allowed me in, saying it’s only this time that next time they won’t allow it. Oufff.

But I have two more x-rays ahead of me, one in Addis, one in Frankfurt. I started reading about forbidden objects in cabin luggage and nowhere it does mention wood. Prayers and thoughts.

The Kinshasa fiasco has its silver lining. I have the $350 dollars I saved for DRC unspent. I flew to Brazzaville via Addis Ababa many times and each time I salivated for the coffee on sale in Ethiopia but I never could buy it: they only take cash and dollars and I never had any. Now I’ll splurge.

I already think how to enter DRC with no problems. Cameroon does visa the same day in Germany, DRC has embassy in Poland, Congo visa I can get in Yaoundé, perhaps I could even go via Central African Republic. A friend’s brother is a missionary there and she even encouraged me to go there and if the country continues calming down as it does now.

Maman do you hear that? I’m coming back to you.