Odzala, great gorilla experience and adventure safari in Congo!

[michael-ibk]

What a fantastic adventure, Paco, and absolutely outstanding photos - as always. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in a ST report!

[Chakra]

It was a pleasure to read your report on a less visited corner of Africa. Seriously considering this trip in future. Many thanks for sharing.

[africawild]

It is about time i finish this report and , as i said, it will be with a few road photos i took on the way back from Odzala to Brazzaville, very long but interesting drive.

 

 

I already mentioned how we could feel human live evolved around the road , with most villages beside it.

 

 

 

 

Between villages we could observe a few patches of rain forest

 

 

 

 

But what we could mainly observe by driving instead of flying is how chaotic and , at the same time surprising, live is in this country.

 

 

Roads are terrible

 

 

 

 

Even termite mounds can invade the road

 

 

 

The conditions of most vehicles are not the best ,look at the School Bus!

 

 

 

Some of them are even abandoned in the middle of the road when they brake down!

 

 

 

You will see a lot of people traveling on top of most trucks!

 

 

 

 

 

Many people walking the road !

 

 

 

 

Many people making a living selling things on the road side!

 

Mandioca

 

Charcoal

 

Even bushmeat

 

 

 

 

Taxis overload with all kinds of goods!

 

 

 

 

 

Motorcycles running with Gin!

 

 

 

Kids playing around burning cars

 

 

 

And even the Chinese have arrived

 

 

 

 

But despite all these things that may be strange or even unattractive to some, the Republic of Congo is a fantastic country to travel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is a great place to have an amazing and unique Gorilla experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And also the perfect spot to live first hand the wonders of the rainforest in one of the last wild corners of the Congo Basing.

 

 

 

 

Paco

Edited January 19, 2017 by africawild

[jeremie]

Marvelous! Thank you very much for sharing these great pictures of this unbeliavable and wild area of central Africa.

[xelas]

Absolutely marvellous ... and adventures trip report, @@africawild ! It will be difficult to top this one in the true off the beaten path category.

Edited January 19, 2017 by xelas

[africawild]

Marvelous! Thank you very much for sharing these great pictures of this unbeliavable and wild area of central Africa.

 

 

Thanks Jeremie, a pleasure. I hope more Safaritalkers can visit Odzala and enjoy it as I have.

 

Paco

[africawild]

Absolutely marvellous ... and adventures trip report, @@africawild ! It will be difficult to top this one in the true off the beaten path category.

Thank you Xelas. I am sure here on Safaritalk we will enjoy more trip reports to less frequented and remote places.

 

Paco

[dlo]

Amazing stuff @@africawild a journey I'm very jealous of. My dream has been Gabon or Congo for many years and looking at this makes me long for it even more. Beautiful photography as usual.

[Zim Girl]

@@africawild

 

Great finish to this really interesting report.

[gatoratlarge]

Wow!!! Stunning pictures of an amazing part of Africa and the planet...how did you take the night sky pics? I'm not sure I have it in my capabilities but I'd love to try it...some of the gorillas have some disfigured facial features---is that from some disease? (may have been mentioned previously --- I apologize if so)

[pault]

The burning car shot is a wall-hanger Paco!

 

Haha... That was a great and surprising ending to the report. It doesn't look very strange to me - even the bush meat sellers by the roadside isn't something we don't know about - but it's probably a bit raw for even many here. And of course the potholes (why don't more people post pothole pictures, me included? We must have seen some monsters.)

 

Really glad you posted that though. It's part of the trip and it really needs to be there, in my opinion. Also, it got me back for another look at some of the photos. Great stuff.

[africawild]

Amazing stuff @@africawild a journey I'm very jealous of. My dream has been Gabon or Congo for many years and looking at this makes me long for it even more. Beautiful photography as usual.

 

 

Thanks Dlo. Yes,Gabon would be an incredible combination with Congo, maybe some day?

 

Paco

[africawild]

Wow!!! Stunning pictures of an amazing part of Africa and the planet...how did you take the night sky pics? I'm not sure I have it in my capabilities but I'd love to try it...some of the gorillas have some disfigured facial features---is that from some disease? (may have been mentioned previously --- I apologize if so)

 

Thank you Gatoratlarge.

 

Yes,there was one young gorilla with a problem in his face , it was a skin problem but it looks like the face was much better than a few weeks previous to our visit so that is good.

 

Night sky photography has much to do with your equipment.

 

For best results you will need a full frame camera with good high ISO capability, a wide angle fast lens and a tripod. With the right equipment and decent techniques ( easy to find in the WEB) African skies will do the rest!!

 

Paco

[africawild]

The burning car shot is a wall-hanger Paco!

 

Haha... That was a great and surprising ending to the report. It doesn't look very strange to me - even the bush meat sellers by the roadside isn't something we don't know about - but it's probably a bit raw for even many here. And of course the potholes (why don't more people post pothole pictures, me included? We must have seen some monsters.)

 

Really glad you posted that though. It's part of the trip and it really needs to be there, in my opinion. Also, it got me back for another look at some of the photos. Great stuff.

 

 

Thank you Pault.

 

I agree that roads are very similar all over Africa and in the countries we usually visit we see similar things.

 

Potholes were not that bad, most of the road was good but there were some big ones, however the drivers knew exactly where they were so our backs were safe!

 

Bushmeat on the other hand is a big problem in Congo. During our 2 drives we saw people selling genets,civets,pangolins,duikers,bushbucks , francolins and different monkeys!! The drives were long but i have done previous drives before and i haven't seen anything close.

 

In African Park anual report you can see how concern they are about the bushmeat problem in Odzala,in fact last year their rangers withdrew twice as many snares as the year before.

They have implemented A Cocoa Project to help local communities with an economic alternative to bushmeat hunting, hopefully this can start to lower a bit the pressure on the fauna of the National Park

 

Paco

Edited January 21, 2017 by africawild

[michael-ibk]

Paco, thanks again for a really spectacular trip report. I really appreciate the "on the road" shows, it helps to get a better idea of the country. Often read about the bush meat problem, your pictures show the sad reality of that. Even so, to say it again, one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen - would love to go sometime, and I´m sure your report has put this in the bucket list for a lot of us.

Edited January 22, 2017 by michael-ibk

[JayRon]

Just found your trip report, seems like an amazing trip. Been to most of East and Southern Africa, but Congo seems way different. Must go there someday(if I win in the lottery ) Thank you for posting.

 

I was just wondering, that since there still is hyenas in Congo, what happend to the lions? Poached out or something else?

[africawild]

Just found your trip report, seems like an amazing trip. Been to most of East and Southern Africa, but Congo seems way different. Must go there someday(if I win in the lottery ) Thank you for posting.

 

I was just wondering, that since there still is hyenas in Congo, what happend to the lions? Poached out or something else?

Thank you Jay,

 

Sorry but don´t know much about the Odzala Lions, only that in 1994 the last 2 males where shot in a nearby hunting block!! But it is believed the population was very small?

 

Paco

[jeremie]

On 5/22/2017 at 5:14 PM, africawild said:

Thank you Jay,

 

Sorry but don´t know much about the Odzala Lions, only that in 1994 the last 2 males where shot in a nearby hunting block!! But it is believed the population was very small?

 

Paco

 

Hi Paco @Africanwildlife& @JayRon!

 

I have just revisited Paco's trip report as I just came back from Odzala and Dzangha (I will soon write a Trip Report about it).

It's a real pleasure to read your TR Paco!  There are many similarities between your experience and ours. It is very true that the gorilla experience was very challenging... I was sweating a lot, I felt a bit unconfortable to cross the very dense marantacees, I was full of these very annoying flies (but this was nothing in comparison with the herds of tse-tse on the Lekoli river and even worse, the sun flies in Lango Baï....). My gorilla pics from this area are really bad. It's nearly impossible to take pics with a mask there, the lenses suffer condensation if not well cared. It's not recommended at all to change of lens in the rainforest as they could easily stay wet during all the trip there due to the very high level of humidity.

 

We also witness that the Neptuno group is now completely sick, in and around Odzala gorillas got infected by a kind of siphilis, probably transmitted by Baaka people. This disease looks like a leprosy, and the gorillas have very severe skin injuries. We were said that even chimps from Nouabale Ndoki National Park to the North got infected... Very unfortunate and I even feel very confused to show any pictures of my pics from the Neptuno gorilla group.

 

I will try to answer the lion question of @JayRon

There currently many hyenas in Odzala, at the point we were able to watch them every day/night around Mboko and even heard them at Lango in the very early morning, as well as spotting their pugmark on an elephant track at the entrance of the Baï. Odzala Park Manager Jonas Ericksson told us that hyenas are even resident in the Northern Baï of the park, and interract a lot with elephants. It is likely that they prey on elephants calf too. A team of Natgeo looking for elephants in the Congo Basin were in Lango/Mboko just before our stay and we were said that they decided to go back later this 2022 to the Northern Baïs to get new captions.

I can also tell you that hyenas were spotted during 2018 and 2019 in Gabon. First in Momba Baï Christopher Orbell who is working with Panthera, I guess on a leopard study, captured on a camera trap in 2018 and 2019 the same female individual.

Langoué Bai in Ivindo National Park in Gabon further to the South West of Momba, also supported during a few weeks in 2019 different hyenas. Some rangers from ANPN first spotted a hyena in the Baï with the "longue vue" from the platform, and then saw them again from there. After this sighting they witnessed that the number of red river hogs was lower in the area, and the resident sitatunga left (or were killed) in Langoué Baï. This report from diferent ANPN rangers at Kongou was confirmed to me directly by Ivindo park manager. The pictures of Christopher Orbell are available on internet on Lee White own Twitter webpage.

 

In a nutshell, hyenas are very present in Odzala and it seems the population is at least stable or growing if hyenas are times to times seen as far as in the core of the rainforest in Gabon, which means that at least migrant hyenas follow during hundreds of kilometers the elephants boulevards in the forest. 

 

As far as lions are concerned, there is a very good book about Odzala in the CCC lodges which is very clear about the lion history in the region, which I will try to transcribe to you.  Parts of the current Odzala park was then managed as a hunting concession by a certain Frenchman called Carvatti in the exact same area which is now concessioned to CCC by the Congolese authorities. He was complaining that the lion hunting quota was too low in comparison with the sightings he then had there. He witnessed a pride of 12 lions in Lango Baï. He was receiving different hunting parties and killed lions as well as elephants and buffaloes every year. This was in the 70's and the 80's. In the 90's the park suffered a couple of incidents with lions, the first one was a lone lion following someone from the park in motorcycle, but then weeks later a lion killed and ate a man also close to Mboko. Lions where then targeted to be killed. 2 males lions got then killed as a result to this retailiation, but it was written in the book that there was still some few more lions after that. Some of them were seen in Etoumbi and then again in Mboko, and that was the last sighting of lions in the park.

 

I also asked in Ngaga and Mboko if local people from Mbomo have ever seen lions before, and if they would be happy to see lions back in the region. There answer is very negative as they strongly remember this incident.

Brice, CCC camp manager, told me that much further South from Odzala he remember that in his village South to the Bateke National Park in Gabon, a hunter killed and showed a lion decades ago. He told me that lions suffered a structured national program of eradication in Congo. 

 

I also met Ivon Kienast in Dzangha Sangha, who is now in charge of the long term elephant project in Dzangha Baï. I realized in our diferent talsk that she was the scientist in charge of the Max Planck Chimpazee project in the Bateke National Park in 2015 when she discovered, of course very surprised, the first pics of this lone lion that all the people thought to be extinct in the Teke region. This single lion is still alive, they got further pictures this year. I think he is very old and must be around 15 or 16 by now, but Panthera confirmed me that they are still trying to reintroduce 2 lion females there this year (but it's been a while they think to do it this year and 4 years have passed since then...). Well, at least there is still one single lion there, we now that the park can still be home to at least 1 single lion. The interesting thing is that there are diferent sacred forests in the Teke region where only the Teke King can visit. These sacred forests seem very strictly respected by the Teke hunters and there are rumours that lions could still persist in some of those forbidden lands. The Aspinall foundation tried to spot some on camera traps these two last years in Lesio Louna and areas in the Southern part of the Lefini reserve, but didn't got any... They even discovered that the area supported a population of caracal cat, never seen by anybody in Lesio Louna before this. So maps saying that caracal are absent from the Congo basin savannahs are wrong, but at least we know that they are absent form Odzala where a lot of camera trapping have been done in the last decade.

 

That's all about the lion, if you wish I can ask to one of the CCC guides if they could send me a pics of the specific page of Odzala's book about lion if you wish to read the full story about it

[wilddog]

what a fascinating and informative post @jeremie. We can always rely on you to add to our knowledge and understanding .

[JayRon]

@jeremieI completely forgot about this topic, but I still find it very interesting, so thank you for your long response. I would very much like a picture from the book about Odzala and lions. Fascinating to hear that hyenas does occur in these areas and also caracal. Still shows that nature not always behave like we think. I am also really looking forward to your trip report from Odzala and Dzangha, those places are on my (very long) bucket list. 

 

I do find it intriguing to find new places where lions (and other wildlife) have survived.  Coincidentally I stumble over a NGO called Forgotten Parks Foundation on facebook yesterday and look into that. It looks like they are doing some work in DRC too. At a national park called Upemba, anyone ever heard about this organization or the nationalpark? 

[jeremie]

21 hours ago, JayRon said:

@jeremieI completely forgot about this topic, but I still find it very interesting, so thank you for your long response. I would very much like a picture from the book about Odzala and lions. Fascinating to hear that hyenas does occur in these areas and also caracal. Still shows that nature not always behave like we think. I am also really looking forward to your trip report from Odzala and Dzangha, those places are on my (very long) bucket list. 

 

I do find it intriguing to find new places where lions (and other wildlife) have survived.  Coincidentally I stumble over a NGO called Forgotten Parks Foundation on facebook yesterday and look into that. It looks like they are doing some work in DRC too. At a national park called Upemba, anyone ever heard about this organization or the nationalpark? 

 

Alright I will try to get it. Meanwhile, as you seam also interested by hyenas and small cats, here is the best study of them from Odzala:

https://save-wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/5.-Population-ecology-conservation-status-and-genetics-of-the-spotted-hyena-1.pdf

[Atravelynn]

Fabulous Western Lowland Gorilla pictures.  The setting of up in the tree adds an appealing element to the shots.  I'm glad their disease does not appear to be fatal but how disappointing they have to endure it all, especially since humans likely gave it to them.  Your group of transition shots are a bouquet of images.  I view ST on a big desktop screen and all shots lined up nicely.  Your report is a wealth of knowledge for any other intrepid travelers!

 

[John M.]

1 hour ago, Atravelynn said:

Fabulous Western Lowland Gorilla pictures.  The setting of up in the tree adds an appealing element to the shots.  I'm glad their disease does not appear to be fatal but how disappointing they have to endure it all, especially since humans likely gave it to them.  Your group of transition shots are a bouquet of images.  I view ST on a big desktop screen and all shots lined up nicely.  Your report is a wealth of knowledge for any other intrepid travelers!

 

    Paco, thanks to Lynn I've just discovered your report (ST is so, so big, sometimes overwhelming).  Fascinating photos, and wonderfully comprehensive descriptions.