Cycling 500km Alone Through The CONGO Jungle 🇨🇬

I’m cycling alone into the middle of the Congo Jungle on my bike. It isn’t going to be an easy journey in the middle of rainy season as I pass through protected areas, see forest elephants, gorillas and sadly plenty of logging trucks.

This is Episode 14 of my Bikepacking Journey Across Africa. If this is the first video you’ve watched, be sure to go back and start watching from Episode 1 “Robbed on Day 2 Bikepacking Across Africa”

For more information on this Bikepacking journey across Africa, you can visit my website https://lewiblake.com where there are plenty of articles and photos from some of the most remote places in Africa.

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I just heard something running into the bush here. It’s a monkey or a gorilla. Look at these massive footprints. That is elephant poo. Elephant footprints. I’ve saw these small little shelters. This is the forest elephant. I’m about 15 m away. [Music] Yeah. Well, guys, welcome to the Congo jungle. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be here. I’ve uh crossed into the Republic of Congo. I’ve just left the town of Oso. I’ve crossed the Rasange River and I’m now heading into the thick of the jungle on my beautiful bike here. It’s going to be along a road like this, I think, for a little bit. Apparently, it’s not very passible in the rain, and it is rainy season. We’ll see how we go. I just bought a machete this morning so that I can use that if there’s problems with bandits or if I need to cut, you know, stuff to camp at night. I don’t know how good it is. Seems good enough. It was about $8. Not too bad. This is the part of the trip I was really looking forward to coming deep into the Congo jungle. There are forest elephants along this whole section. Apparently, they’re a bit more aggressive than the the ones that hang out on the savylvanas. There’s gorillas. We’ll see how we go with them. Let’s see what the adventure has in store for us. Honestly, I’m not going to lie, I’m a little bit nervous about these road conditions. It’s like uh 500 ks along this these dirt roads and hasn’t even rained today and it’s just so muddy. We’re in the middle of rainy season. So, it’s going to be raining every day. It’s going to be very slow progress, I think. Yeah, I have got 2.6 in tires that are almost brand new. So, that should definitely help. My bike is very capable. I guess we’ll see how we go. I’ve t I’ve got about a week’s worth of food and there should be a small village somewhere that I can find some food, I’m hoping. So, yeah, this road’s just getting wetter and wetter. Wow. I don’t know if you can see in the background. Um, I just had my first encounter with the pygmies. Yeah, they are absolutely tiny. They’re about half the size of me, half the height. Their French isn’t very good, so I don’t know how I’m going to communicate with them. This road is just so beautiful. Look at these tall trees coming through over the road and then just thick jungle, dense jungle on both sides. Ah, it’s absolutely beautiful. So just on the side of the road here, I’ve saw these small little shelters that obviously some people have come and made to sleep under. Interesting to see what they’ve done. They’ve just put a bunch of sticks and then these leaves on top for a bit of a shelter. Another one over there. Hopefully I don’t need to make one like this. Yeah. I wonder who has done that. You can see there’s a small Someone’s made a fire there. Some more leaves for a bit of a a bed. But yeah, I guess um some people wandering through the jungle have made them. Pretty cool. It’s been uh pretty easy riding. The road’s dried up a bit now. So although there are some wet patches, it’s uh not been too bad. Looks like I’m coming up to some river. I’m going to have to take a little boat across. Sava want [Applause] They come down me. What was your name? All righty. So, I just spoke to um some people, the eco guards, which are the people that work for the national park. They’ve got barriers every so often. The next one’s 75 km. It’s midday right now and I don’t think I’m going to make it there tonight. Um that was the plan originally was to probably just stay at um these barriers because it’s a bit safer. Maybe get out of the rain a bit. Doesn’t look like I’m going to make it there today. I guess I’ll be sleeping in the forest somewhere tonight. Wow. This is a big poo. I don’t know what it’s from. You can see the footprints there. Yeah. Don’t know what that is. They kind of look like they’d be a buffalo or something. Let me know if you know what they are. I actually haven’t looked at what animals are in the forest here, except for the uh forest elephants, the gorillas, the leopards, and monkeys and chimps, and it’s none of them. So, maybe it’s some type of antelope that’s in in the forest. I just heard something running into the bush here. I’m imagining it’s a monkey or a gorilla. Seems to have gone. It’s definitely there. It’s just not making any noise. I just want to see what it is. Oh well, I don’t want to chase it in there. It’s standing still and it’s by itself and it’s scared of me. So, I hope it’s not that leopard that’s apparently around here. I’m imagining it’s a monkey or a gorilla or chimpanzeee or something like that. So you can see all these trails here that I am assuming are from the elephants crossing the road. Another one through here. These are generally what they look like. Could be a smaller animal making these trails. Don’t know if there’s any elephants going through there. But then again, I don’t know what the forest elephants look like. I don’t know if they’re smaller or or not. Would be nice seeing some wildlife. There’s another trail there. So, there’s definitely something that uses this as a path. I don’t know where I’m going to put my tent because I don’t want to put it in the trail of an elephant. I’ve heard that forest elephants are a little bit more aggressive than the ones in uh East Africa and the Savannah elephants. I’m lucky it’s overcast today, so it’s uh not been too hot. It’s actually been a really perfect temperature. Um, I’m getting used to the humidity a bit now. So, it’s getting a little bit easier. Just going to keep trudging along until about 5:00 and then I’ll see how close I am to this next barrier. I don’t actually know exactly where it is. They said it’s 75 km from that point. I’ve marked the point they told me. So, who knows exactly if it’s going to be right. This is all part of the national park on that side or on both sides. It’s all protected. There’s uh lots of signs saying no hunting, no guns. Um so yeah, they should be full of wildlife. These are the signs I was uh talking about that say no no guns, no hunting, protected area. They’re every few kilometers you see them on the side of the road. It’s just so amazing like coming into the jungle. I don’t know what attracts me so much to the jungle, but I just love it. There’s some monkeys jumping around up in the trees here. Got a few uh logging trucks coming through at the moment. There’s been about their sixth one. So yeah, the size of the trees on the back are just huge. So there are a total of 14 logging trucks altogether with absolutely huge trees. Must be over hundreds of years old. Those trees, they were massive. So yeah, it’s the reality of what’s going on out here and probably why this road exists in the first place. This road is just turning into mud now. So my wheels are absolutely caked in mud. The belts um slid off cuz the mud’s knocked it off. Didn’t snap or anything. So, I’ve just got to uh put it back on there. I got to take the wheel off so I can get the belt back on. Yeah, a little bit annoying. Should probably uh get some of this mud off. I wish I had a bit more water. Be nice to wash some of this off a bit. I don’t really have anything any to waste. Would be nice to give it a bit of a clean. All right, I think that should be enough. All righty. I got the belt back on, but it’s feeling really tight. It’s not feeling good, to be honest. That feels a bit better. I’m so dirty. I’m uh saturated in sweat, dirt. Um okay, the belt feels okay and it’s not too muddy. It’s just on the side of the roads. It’s muddy. Just have to make sure I don’t go on the side of the road when the trucks come. All righty. This poo I definitely recognize. Look at these massive footprints. They are. And that is elephant poo. Elephant footprints. And yeah, that’s my first proper sign that’s 100% elephant. There’s another big poo over here. And uh yeah, that’s obviously from yesterday or this morning. They must have been eating stuff from this tree here. I’ve absolutely made a big mess of it here. Look at the size of these footprints. Huge. And I guess then they went off into the back into the forest somewhere. But it’s so thick. I don’t know how those big animals get around. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of exactly where they’ve entered back into the forest. Yeah, I’m really happy about that. It’s nice uh knowing that you you’re not alone in the forest. Might give some people nightmares. Yeah, it definitely uh makes me feel pretty good being around surrounded by like massive elephants and in this thick jungle and knowing there’s gorillas and leopards and it’s pretty cool place to be to be honest. I can see some more tracks heading off into the jungle there. There’s some more there. And then you can see this one’s been walking along the road. And then there’s another big poo here. And then there’s another one up there. So, probably was a bit of a herd that came through here. I’m going to have to be really careful about where I put my tent tonight if I can’t um stay anywhere because the worst thing you can do is put your tent in an elephant’s tracks. It’s pretty hard to make out where they’re actually going because it’s just so thick everywhere and the trails go into those into the bushes. So yeah, going to have to be really careful tonight unless I can find somewhere to to camp at a you know an eco guard a guard post or something. It’s not looking very likely that I’m going to make it another 50 km today. It’s about 2:00. Progress is very very slow. There’s some like the road right now is pretty good. In fact, it’s very good. But there’s just sections that are just so muddy and wet that the bike just gets completely caked in mud. And the Yeah, I can only go a few ks an hour riding. There’s a group of monkeys. Got very scared of me. One of them made a massive leap from there to there. Like a Superman dive. Another one there. Whoa. I was hoping they were gorillas. Look at this sign here. Congo safari hunting. Interesting. It must be an old hunting area, but it’s all now protected now. Congo safari hunting. There’s a little building there. Don’t want to disturb someone if they’re there. Bonjour. Bonjour. Yeah, it’s definitely an old thing. I could sleep in there tonight. It’s only 3:00. H. Very interesting. I don’t really want to walk over there, but there’s a building with two a bunk bed inside and then a smaller one here, but it’s completely overgrown. So, before this was a protected area. Maybe this is where they came hunting. There’s a barrier there. I just have to move my bike before any truck comes. It’s a cool area. I guess I’m just going to continue on. It’s 2 and 1/2 hours till sunset, so I’ve still got plenty of time, plenty of good riding time. Here’s more lo logging trucks. This is about the 20th one I’ve seen. Look at the size of these trees. Absolutely massive. Man, lucky I was paying attention. There’s this massive hole in the road and you can see the water passing through beneath. So, this is obviously where they’ve built the bridge over this uh creek with these massive trees. The soil is falling through there. You can see there’s the creek that runs through. Definitely got to be careful about that one. There’s so many elephant tracks along the road. You can see their little toenails, their little toes there. It’s pretty cool. And then I keep seeing these other tracks. I don’t know what they are because they also do poos like that, like a cow, but I know it’s not a cow. So, yeah. I don’t just don’t know what other animals are in in the park. The people here are so friendly. I haven’t had a bad encounter yet through this area. Everyone’s just been super nice. I’m having a really good time. One interesting thing they were saying is that this road here is going to be tred. They’re going to put ashfelt on it um pretty soon in the next few years. They said about 10 years ago or even a bit longer, this used to just be a small trail. Then the Chinese invested a lot of money to build this road for all the the logging trucks cuz they’ve got a a big share in all this logging that’s happening around here. Eventually, it’s going to be a road. I don’t know what that means, but uh it’s going to, I guess, bring more people to the area. Might not have as much of a remote kind of feeling. Another interesting thing they were saying, that sign I saw that said Congo hunting where that abandoned building was, apparently that is still active and they do bring tourists here to hunt in the protected area. So very strange, but apparently they pay a lot of money per animal that they want to kill. So they have to buy it before they get there. They buy a tag for say an elephant or a gorilla or a chimp or something like that and then they come in and kill them. And he seems to think that he seems to think that they they’re able to take them home, but I doubt that. I doubt they’re able to take the meat home. I think it’s more like trophy hunting in the national park, which is super weird. I don’t fully understand it, especially if gorillas are endangered. And so I’m coming up to another barrier here. Maybe I’ll be able to camp here, see if there’s anyone there, and ask them. So I’m able to stay the night at the border gate thing, um the security gate. Four of them who are living there at the moment. One of them’s from the National Park Protection Service and the other three are working for the C. I don’t know what that is. I guess some sort of police. So, they all seem really nice. They said I have to pitch my tent inside the building because they get elephants and gorillas and leopards and apparently there’s heaps of leopards that come. So, I have to camp inside the building and not out the front. So, it’s pretty interesting. Hopefully, I get to see some. Um, but they said they see them every second night. So, yeah, hopefully I get to see some tonight. That’ll be really cool. Um, I’m just going I’ve already come down here to give myself a bit of a clean in the river. And now I’m just going back down again to fill up my water. Then I can set up the tent and relax a bit, have some food, and enjoy the evening. Yeah. So, this is the river that I’ve been that I had a bath in. They told me there’s no crocodiles, but it definitely looks like crocodile water, especially through the jungle. You can’t fully trust people here with that kind of thing. But yeah, I’m going to go down, fill up this water. So, the water’s coming under these two massive logs that they’ve made the bridge out of. Although there’s this telephone tower there, there is no reception. I prefer it that way anyway. And hopefully the crocodile hasn’t come back and realized my routine. But yeah, I got given this uh filter. So you just fill up the drink bottle. Filters through. [Music] So pretty cool. So I’m just going to do that for about yeah 3 L worth of stuff. So, this is my little setup here for the night. Not too bad. I’m just going to have a can of sardines for dinner. I don’t think I’m going to cook anything. So, this is the forest elephant that everyone was saying so aggressive. I’m about um 15 m away right now. It’s just chilling, eating some bushes. It came right through the camp and um yeah, they noticed it. But it’s super chilled and yeah, this is the the camp for um people logging at the moment. And this is the guy that works for the national park. Yeah. Who’s about 5 m away and he’s getting closer. Holy there’s a big silver back. I almost rode into him. I’ve got my pepper spray in my hand. I’m just going to slowly walk past. Holy crap.