Congo

A year earlier, I had visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger and more well-known of the two Congos. After more than a month traveling across Africa, it was time to visit its quieter neighbor, the Republic of the Congo. My German friend Leon and I based ourselves in Pointe-Noire, the country’s second-largest city and economic hub on the Atlantic coast. While there, we visited a salt glacier and watched local villagers harvest salt by hand. Reaching it wasn’t easy, though. As we crossed the muddy salt flats on foot, sections of quicksand-like mud swallowed our legs nearly to our knees.

The highlight of the trip, however, came somewhere entirely different. For years, I had followed a Danish traveler named Charlie on Instagram. He had set out on an extraordinary mission to walk from Denmark to Tanzania while raising awareness and funds to build clean water wells across Africa. When I realized he was passing through the Republic of the Congo, I reached out, and he invited us to meet him.

After a five-hour drive, we found Charlie in the small village of Mandingou, still pushing the same cart that had carried his supplies across thousands of kilometers. Visiting him offered a glimpse into the incredibly remote places his journey had taken him. Soon after arriving, a street vendor offered me a bowl of soup. When I looked inside, I found a monkey skull staring back at me. I could only imagine some of the meals Charlie had encountered over the years. We eventually sat down at a simple roadside restaurant for a few beers, but before long, an undercover police officer approached our table, questioned us, and inspected our passports. Charlie explained that seeing a group of foreigners in such a remote village was highly unusual, and the authorities wanted to know what we were doing there. It was clear this wasn’t the first time he had experienced something like this.

We spent an awesome afternoon together, and I left with a great deal of admiration for Charlie. His journey reminded me that the greatest adventures aren’t always about what you see. Sometimes, they’re about the impact you leave behind.