Ferry flight to DRC- last leg to Kinshasa

Posted on by Valneufeld
Leaving São Tomé (a picture from 2016- it was cloudy departing but I wanted to share this great landscape again!)
Our route to DRC
The coast of Continental Africa
Then miles and miles and miles of dense dense jungle. Gabon is 90% jungle.
It’s hard to imagine from above but some of these trees can tower up to 200 feet!
And the most biodiverse – with 8-10,000 types of plants (20% endemic),670 species of birds, 10,000 animal species, 200 types of mammals including 20 species of monkeys and hippos that are known to surf the waves, and I can’t imagine the insects and snakes that live here

As we started to hit bad weather we couldn’t help but have the chat of where would be the hardest place to have an emergency landing- jungle or sea or ice cap or the desert Looking down at this massive dense jungle we thought – desert:)

The jungle continued on into the Republic of Congo. These jungles are said to be largely unexplored- which is certainly not surprising considering the massive size.
Plains of Republic of Congo
Beautiful landscape
Approaching Brazzaville
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. It is on the other side of the Congo River and DRC ‘s much bigger city of Kinshasa (900,000 people compared to 19 million people!)
The Congo river.
While flying today I was reading the book King Leopoldo Ghost- by Adam Hochschild. The book starts with a history of when the Europeans first came to Africa. In 1482 the Portuguese had built a vessel went further south down the western coast of Africa than any European prior. When captain Diogo Cao came across a massive brown yellow body of water that was fresh! This turned out to be what was called the Congo River. A fascinating river. It sits at a plateau at approximately a thousand feet and descends to sea level in 220 miles. This river pours 1.4 million cubic feet of water into the ocean per second- only the Amazon carries more water. I read that this river has more hydroelectric potential than all the lakes and rivers in the USA combined
The Congo River – is 2,900 miles long and is the deepest river in the world- with measured depths of 720 feet deep.
Green islands on what I think is the Ndjili River- a tributary of Congo River by Kinshasa
Making our descent into Kinshasa
Parked at the Kinshasa airport- look closely to the end of the line

The Democratic of Congo – formerly Zaire – is the 2nd largest country in Africa and is land locked- except for a 25 mile coastline. DRC gained independence from Belgium in 1960. The country has vast resources of diamonds, copper,cobalt and has one of the largest forest reserves (equatorial rainforest) in Africa. Despite this, DRC is the second poorest country in the world- next to Haiti. When reading about this country- the poverty is said to be due to a lack of formal economic opportunities, a legacy of entrenched political conflicts and instability as well as high rates of illness and malnutrition and poor education.

It is said to be one of the hardest places in the world to raise a family.

If you are interested in some of the work of MAF here – go to the following link

Dem. Rep. of the Congo

I will be signing off for now- we are starting our airline flight back home late this evening

Thank you for joining along. Again- we are always so grateful for the opportunity to do this!

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