Camping at the Mbongo police checkpoint is not peaceful. Loud music plays well into the night. Children play football in the dusty police compound.

4.40am and we are up and about. Cooking breakfast and getting things packed away. The place is now silent, and we are on our way at first light on the track into Congo.

A new country and as always we wonder if it will be different from the day before now we have crossed this arbitrary line on a map set out by some past colonial power when they decided to separate these people. There are always some differences which surprises us as they are the same people but have developed separately for many years. Certainly it’s poorer in Congo and the palm wine drinking is back, but not as bad as Cameroon.

When we need anything like a place to camp for the night we always try and engage with women as they aren’t drunk! Just like this night….. Asked some lovely ladies if we could camp in their village shelter. Luxury as it had tables and benches. What a difference it makes for cooking when you aren’t on the ground. The ladies greeted us with arms stretched out shaking both our hands “Bonjour Bonjour…….Bon Arrive Bon Arrive …… broad warm smiles and much excitement. What a welcome. Wonderful interactions at the pump too. We pumped water for each other filling containers that were transported back to their houses either by carrying on the back in a makeshift rucksack or in a wheelbarrow. We cooked supper, our usual pasta and cassoulet, and returned to the water pump after dark to have a good wash.

The dusty rough track continued passing occasional villages which provided entertainment for us and the people sitting around watching the day go by.

The 275km from the last town in Gabon have been quite challenging, very rough with deep ruts but luckily no water. It must be a nightmare after rain. It is these rough sections that push us to our physical limits where we see the real Africa and so many memories are made on these sections. The warm interactions and the captivating, beaming, radiant African smile that erupts, with waving of both hands, as we pass by.

Cultivation of crops has returned! On a small scale but there are neat vegetable gardens and stalls selling tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges and lots more. It’s a welcome site after only imported fruit and vegetable in Gabon.

Eventually we join the main Brazzaville Pointe Noire highway. Soon we were climbing the mountain range that separates us from the coast and also the range that we have been in the shadow of all the way from southern Gabon. We left the dry savanna area with its wild fires and the green trees and luxuriant vegetation returned.

We are heading to Dimonika, 45km away, a place where people dig for gold. We don’t know anything about it, but it looked interesting when we stumbled across it.

We left the main road along a jungle track for 8km, not knowing what we would find. All we new was there was a place to stay in theory, but would it still be there! We have our tent if it is closed.

We arrive at the very lively village of Dimonika. The place has a ‘Wild West’ feel. Boisterous people sat around on bar verandas. Music played loudly Wooden and corrugated iron buildings housed more bars and dance halls. A very enthusiastic game of football was being played on a dusty improvised pitch. The place had alot of energy as if a celebration was going on.

We carried on climbing along a jungle track hoping to find this mystical auberge. Then round a corner appeared a garden with ornamental plants and a picket gate. On the veranda of the grand house, Papin stood, a smiling kindly chap wearing black trousers, a white dress shirt and black bow tie. ‘Bienvenue’ he said.

A Belgian, monsieur Vigoureux, acquired the valley in the 1930’s to exploit the gold here, but unlike his predecessors who were just greedy for the gold and used forced labour, he built a whole town including an olympic swimming pool, hospital, school, cinema and housing. There was electricity, water and phones. The workers were paid and were given housing. Some 3000 workers and their families plus about 50 Europeans lived here. Most of the buildings and town have been retaken by the jungle now. A few places remain including M Vigoureux’s house where we are staying. Just before independence the place was abandoned, but in 2007 M. Vigoureux’s grandson managed to buy it all back and set it up as a sort of eco tourism! The locals think of M Vigoureux as a good man and he certainly was different for the day, but I guess he got a lot of gold too….

We went on a fascinating walk with Papin, now changed into regular clothes! He showed us all the remains of the Vigoureux development that I talked about in the previous posts. This whole valley had such infrastructure back then, even a charcoal fuelled power station, now even the Auberge doesn’t have running water.

There are still remaining some of the African workers houses and the school and large church still function.

We visited Monsieur Lavie’s house. He is a gold buyer and also runs a bar and dance hall. As Papin explained M. Lavie is cleaver, he buys the gold then the people spend the money in his establishment so he gets his money back. M. Lavie was drunk!

At the Auberge we had a lovely meal prepared by Martine, the first one we have had on this trip where you have the influence from France or in this case Belgium. It’s colder here in the jungle mountains and they lit a fire. It is an atmospheric scene with dinner by candlelight and Papin serving us dressed in his white dress shirt and black bow tie. We are the only people staying here and I don’t think they get many but the place is loved.

The music and jollities from the village could be heard into the early hours. Celebrating and losing the days gold money!

We arrive at Pointe Noire on the Atlantic coast. It’s a town dominated by oil money, but has a pleasant cosmopolitan feel.

Spoke to a couple of kindly characterful elder ladies who were sitting outside a cafe smoking, one from Algeria and the other Russian. They had both lived here for 40 years, Anna the Russian works at the cafe that we have been frequenting. They love Congo and kindly sorted a taxi to take us to Anna’s beach house at Pointe Indienne. A slight ramshackle of a place as she told us she had plans for improvements but sadly her husband died 6 years ago and she was hoping her children would help, but they have left and live in Switzerland. The route to get there was very sandy and Sergei, the taxi driver struggled with his car and eventually we were truly stuck in deep sand with the body of the car completely grounded. Luckily some kids had shovels and soon we were digging and ripping up dried grass to put under the wheels. It reminded me of crossing the Sahara in 1984. We had a nice swim in the Atlantic.

Africa attracts eccentric expats that fall in love with the place and make it their home running ambitious enterprises. We stay at a lovely place near to the border with Cabinda. Set among the palm trees next to a lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean crashing on the beach in the distance, this paradise was built by Gerard’s wife Grace who sadly died six years ago of Pancreatic Cancer. She built this huge complex of substantial huts, restaurant, bar and gardens with the Africans and so much love. The attention to detail, like every door has intricate carvings, and the really very high quality of carpentry everywhere is a credit to the absolute love she put into the place while her husband Gerard was working in Pointe Noire as a mechanical engineer in the oil business. It was lovely chatting with Gerard and looking through the photos of building the place over many years from the late 1990’s. He said nothing was rushed, it was built with love and his wife had no previous experience of building and absolutely through her self into this magical place. They did all this when the country was at war!

We bid farewell to Gerard, he is a quintessential Frenchman with his fine distinguished curly moustache. We wished him well and headed off to the Angolan border……