Congo - the river in the heart of Africa

Congo is a river that flows in the heart of Africa. Its appearance is wild and mysterious, and the history is shrouded in secrets. In it, all the fantastic power of nature is felt. Even the dry description of the Congo River makes it possible to feel its power. It has 4,667 kilometers in length and carries 42,450 cubic meters into the ocean. water per second, yielding only to the Amazon. The source of the Congo River is in the savannah of Zambia, at a mile and a half height near the Mumen settlement. In its upper reaches, it rapidly flows through narrow (30-50m) canyons and forms rapids and waterfalls. The name Congo (river) received from the name of the state, which existed once in its mouth.

Long Flow Path

After a long loop through the territory of Zambia, Congo(river) appears in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There it merges with the river Lualaba and under this name reaches 800 km from the humid forests of Central Africa. Further the stream flows directly to the north and, after passing a distance of about 1600 km, crosses the equator for the first time. After that he turns to the west, describes a giant arc in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and turns again, now to the south. Again crosses the equator, but flows in the opposite direction.

Legends of the African jungle

Here the Congo flows through moist forests thatrepresent the most impassable jungle in the world. Trees ascend to a height of 60 m, and their roots are eternal dusk. Under this waving green canopy in a suffocatingly damp heat, in dense thickets, where a man does not make it, there is a real hell inhabited by the most dangerous animals - crocodiles, poisonous snakes and boas, poisonous spiders and ants. Any person risks to pick up malaria, schistosomiasis or some other more serious disease. The local residents have stories that it is in these marshes that the dragon lives in the Moqelet-Mbembe. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Europeans drew attention to the fact that there are no hippopotami on one of the swampy areas. Local residents reported that there is a strange animal, which, being smaller in size than the hippo, nevertheless attacks and kills them. Others, on the contrary, said that he looked like an elephant, only with a long neck and a muscular tail. If boats were close to him, he attacked them. But this animal was fed by plants. I must say that strange traces of an unusual animal are found here to this day.

Waterfalls and rapids

In the north-eastern part of the arc are waterfallsBojoma. This is a series of waterfalls and rapids, along which for 100 km the river descends to a height of 457 m. From this place, already under the name of Congo, the river is navigable and very wide (over 20 km wide) over 1609 km. Behind the site dividing the two capitals - Brazzaville and Kinshasa, are the falls of Livingston, formed by the South Guinean Upland. This is 354 km, on which there are 32 waterfalls and a series of rapids. From the city of Matadi, the stream runs another 160 km and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. But a huge flow does not immediately slow down your run. On the ocean floor, it forms an underwater channel of Congo, 800 km long. Its water on this segment easily differs from oceanic by its reddish-brown tint, which gives red soil, carried away from the depths of Africa.