A Trip to "The Gorge" Hiking in the bush

Friday was a ship holiday.  An extra day of rest for the crew.  We joined 7 other crew mates for a trip to "The Gorge."  I don't know if this place has a name, but everyone simply calls it "The Gorge."

We decided to start at the beach and hike up to the top, reasoning that a return going downhill in the heat and sun would be the best choice.  Traveling out of Pointe Noire, we soon got beyond the city into the African country.  It was quite beautiful.
Pointe Noire is a busy place, but  the traffic is heavy and orderly.  The road is full of trucks and taxi's.  The taxi's are mostly Toyota Corolla's.

Since we traveled on a Friday, we parked at the beach without any people.  Apparently this is quite crowded on weekends.  Notice that the water is quite muddy.  This reddish brown color is caused by  a river (stream) that flows into the ocean at this point.  It carries the red clay out into the ocean.
We experienced a lot of red mud on this hike.





 We began our journey by hiking towards the gorge.
Trails in Africa are not marked.  It's not obvious where to go, but we had someone with us who was there in the dry season and generally knew the way.  Since this is the wet season, the grass had grown very tall (sometimes shoulder height) and often thick.  Sometimes we were in heavy vegetation.
Being the wet season, there was also a lot of red clay mud a numerous places.  We spent a while cleaning our shoes after the trip was completed.

Starting out to the Gorge

Being 4 degrees south of the equator, and being hot and humid, we needed a lot of sun screen, bug spay, and water. Rain might have been nice and refreshing, but in only rained while we were in the car.

A nice wide flat path was how it started out.

Soon the path narrowed, so we had to walk single file most of the way.  We were rewarded with lovely views of red rock/clay surrounded by lots of green vegetation.

Is this really a path?  

Crossing muddy streams was part of the adventure.  The shady areas were a welcome relief from the tropical sun.  I remembered this specific  spot on the return as I jumped off the logs that crossed the steam.  The only problem was I jumped into a bush instead of the path!

Did we mention the red mud along the trail?

Eventually we had to start climbing.  This part required two hands as well as two feet.  It was often on step at a time looking for a firm place to place your foot.  At one point we heard a scream from one of crew mates ahead of us who ran into an anthill that took some fast action to get rid of ants covering her and her backpack.  We detoured a bit and never saw the ants.  Fortunately there were no injuries of ant bites to remember this section.

The climb became more difficult as the rain had washed the trail away there was no way to get on top of the ridge.  Progress was slow and it did not appear that a way to the top was possible.  At some point we made a wrong turn.

 We were feeling a bit dehydrated, so we turned back after taking a few pictures from as far up as we would get on this trip.  The view was spectacular!

On our return, we heard a voice calling out "Bonjour!, Bonjour!"  We answered with a "Bonjour, ÇaVa," but we couldn't see anyone.  After trying to converse for a few minutes, we finally saw a man high up in a tree.  Apparently he was harvesting some kind of fruit.  He also explained and pointed to the path we should have taken.  At that point we didn't care.  Since it was a shady part of the trail, we drank some water and fortified ourselves with our peanut butter sandwiches.   We headed back the way we came and arrived at the beach.  We found some shade and continued with our lunch while enjoying a nice breeze off the water.

A Lovely spot at the end of a hike

Chuck