Mbandaka, Kongo

In the morning Hafsa and I continued our journey to a small town called Mbandaka. Mbandaka is the capital of Equateur Province. We traveled for an hour on a small plane with noisy engines and narrow seats, surrounded by others who looked tired of the noise, like her.

This is one of the fastest ways to get to this small town, there are only six flights per week from Kinshasa. There were no buses, or land transportation available to reach this city. According to Hafsa as she told me during the flight, the city is very difficult to reach by road trip because mostly consists of impassable muddy roads that were in constant ruin. Another alternative that was an option was by boat along the Congo River, which was only available once a week, and took four to seven days to reach Mbandaka depending on the weather.