Matadi on the rocks

As my blog brings its name, I cannot avoid to present the city that is hosting me: Matadi.

The port of Matadi

Matadi is a chief sea port, the biggest in Congo DR and is also widely to be known as "la ville de pierre", for the fact that all the city is literally carved in stone and actually Matadi in the local Kikongo dialect means, hard to believe, stone.


 

The port constitutes the driving force of the city, roughly 90% of the goods entering in the Congo DR, access the country via Matadi. That also explains why one of the very few decent roads of the country, is the one connecting Matadi to Kinshasa, the capital city. There is also a railway line but it is of minor importance: most of the goods are transported by road.



View of the River Congo from my house



Before coming to Matadi, I thought the town was not bigger than 250.000 inhabitants (according to Wikipedia sources). However, once on the spot, I could notice that the city is, for sure, over 700.000 people, probably even close to a million if we consider the suburbs. The UN base is uphill, in the Kikonda neighbourhood that enjoys of a wonderful view over the "Pont Marechal" - a suspension bridge, built by the Japanese that allows Kinshasa to be linked via Matadi to the other smaller harbours, Boma, Banana and Muanda.

View of the Pont Marechal

However, close as it may seem on the map, as I have been recently done the journey, from Matadi to Muanda (on the Atlantic sea) it takes approximately 5-6 hours by car, of which only the first 3 hours are practicable thanks to a paved road to Boma. From Boma to Muanda is a completely different story: the road is largely unmade, with huge holes on the ground and made mainly of sand. When it rains,and here it rains a lot when it does, you need necessarly to have a big off-road vehicle, otherwise you will end up to push your car on the side of the road, waiting for help and for the rain to stop.

Something we have definitely to do when in Muanda is to buy fish: it is very cheap and of extremely good quality. I am not yet familiar with the names of the fishes here and maybe someone out there can just help me with that but "capitaine" and "malua" must be certainly on your shopping list.

 Grey king prawns are also worth their purchase. Once cleaned, just add olive oil and lemon, roll the fish into a baking paper, put them on the barbecue or in the oven and wait 15 minutes. The meat is so thick and soft that it just melts in your mouth. Absolutely delicious!!.  

 

Grey king prawns from river Congo

 Ok, guys, I am going to have a bit now, talking about food made me real hungry

Smell you later !



Capitaine Fish



Pietro