Odzala National Park is large, and most of the touristic infrastructure and activities are in the Southern end of the park, in the forest savanna mosaic of Mboko and Lango. The habitats there, aren’t representative of the entirety of the park and there is a lot more to discover in the north. Along the Mambili River, there are large forest bais, that are well visited by elephants and gorillas. These bais weren’t easely accessible at the time of our visit in Odzala, but hopefully that has changed or will change in the future. On the north-western limit of the park, there are old forests, and on the western border specifically, there is a large cliff with the promises of unique biodiversity. The oldest forests are always the special ones, with very old, large trees, rare insects, rare birds, unique plants. We weren’t going to visit these at the time, but I hoped that one day it may be possible.

For our last visit of the park, we decided to explore different forests for a few days. We traveled east on the Lekoli on a small boat, until it reached the Mambili and then going north, as far as we could, close to other Bais. Essentially, we were trying experience the habitat gradients along the rivers, from the wetlands of Lango – comprised of Phoenix palms, Uapaca and Dracaena trees – to the taller riparian and swamp forests in the north.

I had been on many rivers in Central Africa. In many places, rivers are the only way to reach certain areas. While they may look superficially similar, each river has its own unique characteristics. Some have black waters, some are narrow with tall trees, some are massive, wide, with smaller trees or papyrus edges. Sometimes, the terrain is hilly, and in other times, we have had to avoid waterfalls.

The Lekoli river, close to Mboko, was quite narrow, with relatively short vegetation and trees were only about 20 meters high on average. The river was also part of a larger wetland systems, with palms trees, swamp forests and inundated marshes. It was an excellent place to catch a glimpse of rare animals. We managed to see several Brazza Monkeys, always in pairs and particularly shy on the branches above the river. The little Talapoin, sometimes in very large group completely eluded us. In some meanders, a lone elephant was often present and small herds of buffaloes often seen when the vegetation was very low.