Mefloquine Monday

Kin la Belle, "the beautiful", and Kin Poubelle, "the dustbin", two fond nicknames of Kinshasa on the river Congo. Depends where you stay I guess. In an 800 pp Africa travel book, Kinshasa gets about 4 pages, DRC about 8...for the 3rd largest city and country in Africa. It seems there is little to learn about this place prior to arrival. There's about 300 miles of paved road in an area equal to east of our great American river...it possible to drive crosscountry? Kinshasa sounds intense...sprawling, potholed, dangerous, and unfriendly to tourists. But the nightlife is hailed, as Congolese music is famous across Africa....the airport is an alternate landing site for the space shuttle..and construction of an $80bn dam, twice the size of Three Gorges may soon commence.
Unreachable yet in the same country, remote tropical forests host rare species like the giraffe relative Okapi, Mountain Gorilla, and pygmy chimp Bonobo. These forests and the tribes who rely on them are invaded by pilferers of diamonds, coltan, gold, mahogany or more valuable logs which filter through UN-patrolled lawless regions via illicit networks to the world market.

So thats what I know...the truth is I know nothing and I can't wait to learn!