The Congo's Forgotten Colonial Getaway

An island in the Congo River was once a prime vacation hub and prosperous rubber plantation. Now, visitors are scarce and the jungle is taking over, leaving some locals nostalgic.

At the highest navigable point of the Congo River, thick jungle creates an impenetrable wall of green around a large island. Apart from the dug-out canoes transporting bundles of thin trees from its shores, there’s little sign that the land is inhabited. But just up the steep river bank and through the brush is an opening. Here, a cluster of nearly 20 narrow homes is the jungle-eaten remnants of a once prosperous plantation town that was left to rot when the Belgian colonialists granted the Democratic Republic of the Congo independence half a century ago.

The jungle peeks out from the ruins of a Belgian church. (Nina Strochlic/The Daily Beast)

Belgika, as the island is known, doesn’t get many visitors. Many years ago, when the country was the Belgian Congo, it was a hub for foreigners who would come from the nearby city of Stanleyville to vacation amid the abundance of wildlife. In the 54 years since they departed, Belgika has been forgotten by the outside world. The most recent visitor, villagers say, was an African-American man who came to do prospecting for the World Bank a few years ago.

The city of Stanleyville—now called Kisangani—was a majestic port city as deep as one can go into the Heart of Darkness. It was this area that inspired a young steamboat captain-turned-author named Joseph Conrad to place a crazed Kurtz in his Inner Station. During the first half of the 20th century, the city’s whitewashed glamor drew well-heeled European visitors and Hollywood stars like both Audrey and Katherine Hepburn. The African Queen was filmed here.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/18/the-congo-s-forgotten-colonial-getaway.html