Your Congo adventure begins at Brazzaville’s Maya Maya International Airport where you enjoy assistance from a tour representative as you transfer to a scheduled light aircraft flight. After a flight time of around two hours, you land at the local airstrip and can sit back on a 4X4 game drive into the Odzala-Kokoua National Park. Your destination is Ngaga Camp on the park’s boundary, lying in a sun-dappled glade and surrounded by untouched primary rainforest. After freshening up, you sit down and take in the forest view from your suite before meeting the gorilla research team and your guides to plan the next two days. Ngaga Camp is perfectly located to find western lowland gorillas: several groups live in the area, two of which are habituated to visits by humans. Expert guides lead the way on two treks, enabling you to spend time with a gorilla family, before introducing you to other aspects of the environment at Ngaga. You will also enjoy bird watching and guided nocturnal walks for sightings of the forest’s most elusive creatures.

Your final morning at Ngaga can be spent relaxing at camp before a road transfer to Mboko Camp where you will stop for lunch. Leaving Mboko, you kayak along the Lekoli River to Lango Camp, a journey that takes you back into pristine equatorial rainforest – this time at the heart of the Odzala-Kokoua National Park. Your cottage is built into the gallery forest and overlooks a ‘bai’, a local word for an area of open marshy ground surrounded by forest. These bais are often laden with salts and minerals and are visited regularly by elephants and buffalos, as well as flocks of parrots and herds of antelope. The surrounding rainforest is good habitat for primates and several species may be seen here during your nature walks, night drives, 4×4 and boating excursions.

On your last morning at Lango Camp, you will go on a guided walk through the bai – hopefully you will spot some beautiful African grey parrots – and have breakfast in a stunning location. Next is a walk over a wooden pathway built over a swamp (excellent for birding), followed by a game drive back to Mboko Camp in time for lunch. The afternoon can be spent on a nature walk or a river cruise. Showcasing a different aspect of the park, Mboko lies in a savannah landscape and next to the Lekoli River, its waters flowing to the Congo River. Here the emphasis is on experiencing the forest’s larger animals – such as shy forest elephants, spotted hyena and forest buffalo – as they emerge from the forest and onto the open savannah grasslands.

Bid farewell to Congo and the gorillas you have met as you head back to Brazzaville for your onward journey home. After breakfast at Mboko Camp you are transferred to the local airstrip for a scheduled charter flight back to Maya-Maya Airport in Brazzaville. Here you will connect with your onward flight or transfer to your Brazzaville accommodation.