The Congo River is not something you cross. It is something you live. You breathe it, taste it, sense it in the lapping of water against the wooden flanks of pirogues. Here, time is not measured by clocks but by tides and seasons, by the accumulating cargo and departures decided at dawn. I boarded one of those fragile yet majestic vessels, laden with sacks of cassava, jerrycans of oil, crates of beer, and passengers pressed together in a closeness that quickly becomes brotherhood.

The engine coughs, then purrs, and the pirogue pulls away from the Kinshasa shore, leaving behind the city's clamor. Gradually, the buildings fade, replaced by lush vegetation dipping its roots into earth-colored water. The river is wide here, so wide you might think you're at sea. But the horizon is not oceanic; it is dotted with villages of corrugated iron roofs, fishermen casting their nets in an ancestral choreography, children waving from the bank.

I remember an old man, seated at the bow, his face weathered by sun and wind. He told me his grandfather already made this journey, carrying goods and news from one village to another. “The river is our road, our market, our link to the ancestors,” he said. His words resonated within me. For this river is not merely a transport route; it is an open-air history book. Every island, every tributary, every emergent rock has its name, its legend, its place in collective memory. Pirogues do not only carry goods; they carry stories, songs, traditions passed down through generations.

The journey is long. Hours unfold to the rhythm of impromptu stops, negotiations on the banks, exchanges of greetings. We dock at villages that seem suspended in time, where the market is held under a giant kapok tree, where women pound millet in rhythm, where children chase chickens. We leave again, loaded with new provisions, new stories. The river, meanwhile, continues its course, imperturbable, majestic, indifferent to our tiny lives yet so intimately bound to them.

Night falls. The pilot cuts the engine. The pirogue drifts gently, and we remain there, silent, listening to the chorus of insects and the lapping of water. The stars, of striking clarity, seem to reflect in the river, creating a parallel universe. I understand then that this journey is not just a displacement; it is a pilgrimage. A return to the sources of what makes Africa: its ability to move forward, to resist, to invent, to stand tall against the storms of history.

The next morning, at dawn, we arrive at a small town. Pirogues line the bank, unloading cargo, disembarking passengers. Reunions are noisy, embraces warm. I merge into the crowd, a mere passerby, yet strangely at home. For the river has adopted me. It has offered me its landscapes, its scents, its faces. It has reminded me that travel is not an escape but an encounter. An encounter with oneself, with others, with this immense and generous land that carries and nourishes us.

I leave with my head full of images, my ears full of sounds, my soul full of scents. The Congo, I know, cannot be told. It must be lived. And every pirogue that glides on its waters is an invitation to discover it, to understand it, to love it. The river of ancestors continues to flow, bearer of hope and memory, linking the shores of the past to those of the future.

The River of Ancestors: Tracing Congo's Pirogues

The first thing you notice is not the vastness of the sky, nor the elegant curve of the baobabs. It is the silence. A silence so thick it seems to have a texture, like the velvet of moonless nights. Here, in northern Senegal, on the edge of the Fouta Toro, the noise of the world fades away. All that remains is the wind caressing the dry grass, and the distant crack of a branch yielding under the weight of the sun.

I had left Saint-Louis at dawn, leaving behind the colonial facades and the fishermen's song. My guide, an old man named Mamadou, drove in silence, his eyes fixed on a track that only he seemed to see. 'Here,' he said, pointing to a stretch of bush, 'there is no road. There are paths that remember.' And it is true. The sand holds the imprint of footsteps, of carts, of herds. Each passage is a light scar that the wind erases, but that memory retains.

We walked for hours. The sun was high, relentless. Around us, the savannah stretched to the horizon, dotted with acacias and termite mounds tall as men. Sometimes a herd of zebu appeared in the distance, ghostly in the heat haze. Their wooden bells emitted a deep, steady sound, like the pulse of the earth. Mamadou walked ahead, his staff setting the pace. He knew every tree, every stone. 'Here,' he said, stopping. 'This is the baobab of the ancestors. It saw my grandfather born. It will see my grandchildren die.'

We stopped at a village forgotten by maps. A few mud-brick huts, a well, a giant kapok tree. The children came to us, curious but shy. A woman offered us bissap, fresh and sweet. Sitting in the shade, I felt the fatigue leave my limbs, replaced by a deep peace. Here, time does not exist. Only the cycle of day and night, of seasons that follow each other, of generations that pass. 'Travel is not about distance,' Mamadou told me. 'It is about presence.'

The next day, we took a trail that follows the Senegal River. The water was low, the color of earth. Pelicans stood motionless on the sandbars. On the other bank, Mauritania, ghostly. Here, the border is an idea, not a reality. People cross by pirogue, as they have for centuries. The river is a link, not a separation. We walked in silence, lulled by the lapping of water against the banks.

On the last day, we climbed to the top of a hill, the highest in the region. From up there, the view was dizzying. The river snaked across the plain, the villages were patches of baked earth, the herds moving dots. The wind was strong, carrying the smell of sand and burnt grass. I closed my eyes. I felt the weight of the sun on my skin, the vibration of the ground under my feet. I understood then that true travel is not about seeing new things, but about seeing things differently. This forgotten trail had taught me that: beauty is not in the landscape, but in the gaze you cast upon it.

On the way down, Mamadou picked up a flat stone, worn by time. 'Take it,' he said. 'It will remind you that the road exists only because you walk.' And so I left Fouta, my pocket heavy with a simple stone, my heart lightened by an ancient wisdom: the path is more important than the destination.

The Road That Wasn't There: Rediscovering Senegal's Forgotten Trails

There is first the light. A light that exists nowhere else, falling from the sky like a blade, making shadows dance on the sand. This is the first thing you notice upon arriving in the Ténéré, the desert of deserts, where the Sahara becomes a liquid immensity of dunes and regs. I have come here to walk in the footsteps of the salt caravans, those long lines of dromedaries that for centuries connected the mines of Bilma to the markets of the Sahel. Today, trucks have replaced the beasts, but the wind has not changed. It still carries the scent of salt and the memory of the men who braved the horizon.

We set off at dawn, when the sand is still cool and the sky is tinged with rose and orange. My guide, a man named Elhadji whose face is a map of the roads he has traveled, waits for me near a well. He speaks little, but his gestures are precise. He adjusts his camel's load, checks the waterskins, then turns east. 'We must walk before the sun becomes a master,' he says. And we leave. The silence is almost total, broken only by the creak of saddles and the steady breath of the animals. Each step raises a cloud of fine dust that glitters for a moment before settling.

The Ténéré is a place that demands humility. Here, man is nothing before the expanse. The dunes advance and retreat with the wind, erasing tracks, blurring landmarks. One must know how to read the stars, feel the humidity in the air, listen to the sand. The old caravaners knew every dune, every stone, every variation of light. They knew that salt, that commodity more precious than gold, was worth giving one's life for. For salt meant preservation, currency, the link between peoples. Without it, the empires of the Sahel would not have survived.

By noon, the heat becomes a tangible presence. The sky whitens, the ground burns, and the air shimmers above the regs. We stop in the shadow of a rock, the only relief for miles around. Elhadji brings out tea, sugar, a small stove. He prepares the tea as if celebrating a rite, with slow, measured gestures. The first glass is bitter like life, he says. The second is sweet like love. The third is soft like death. I drink in silence, and I understand that this ritual is a way to conjure the immensity, to remind ourselves that we are still human.

In the afternoon, we resume walking. The landscape changes imperceptibly: the sand becomes lighter, finer. We approach an ancient salt pan, a place where the earth itself seems dusted with frost. The caravans stopped here to load salt, pack it into goatskin bags, then head south. Today, only traces remain: shards of pottery, a piece of rope, the bleached skeleton of a dromedary. But the memory is there, vibrant, carried by the wind that moans between the dunes.

Evening falls like a curtain. The sky ignites with purple and gold, then fades to deep violet, then black. The first stars appear, so numerous and so close you feel you could touch them. Elhadji lights a small fire. The flames dance on his face, and he begins to sing an old Tuareg song, a lament about separation and thirst. His voice rises into the night, carried by the silence. And I think to myself: this is what true travel is — not going from one point to another, but allowing oneself to be transformed by the journey.

The next day, we reach the ruins of an ancient caravanserai. The dry-stone walls are crumbling, but the main arch still stands, open to the desert like a mouth calling out. I run my hand over the warm stone, and beneath my fingers I feel centuries of human presence. Merchants, slaves, adventurers, pilgrims. All passed through here, drank from this well, slept under these stars. Salt carried them, and salt consumed them.

I leave with the dust of the Ténéré in my clothes, my hair, my lungs. I know I will never be the same. For the desert, when you truly listen, gives no answers. It gives questions. And the most beautiful of them is this: what are we willing to cross to meet our own silence?

The Call of Salt: Tracing the Lost Caravans of the Ténéré Desert

The day breaks over the Ferlo like a promise held back. The horizon is a sharp, almost metallic line between the honey-coloured sky and the ochre earth. Here, silence has a weight. It is not empty: it is filled with the rustle of wind in the acacia leaves, the distant cry of a francolin, the breath of waking animals. I am walking on a trail that Fulani herders have used for centuries, a scar barely visible in the landscape, erased and redrawn each year by the rains.

This is a journey that begins without a true starting point. You leave the paved road near Linguère, and suddenly the world changes. The noise of engines fades, replaced by the creak of carts, the calls of children tending goats, the dull thud of millet being pounded in mortars. The air smells of dust, burnt wood, shea butter. Every village is a pause, a story, a face. In Mbar, an old man offers me tea under a dead tree whose twisted branches look like fingers in prayer. He tells me about the drought of 1972, the migration of young people to Dakar, the pride of living here, despite everything. 'The Ferlo,' he says, 'is like a stern mother. She does not give much, but what she gives, she gives forever.'

I continue north, towards the Senegal River valley. The landscape changes: sand gives way to darker soil, irrigated by the river's waters. Villages become denser, crops greener. But it is in the river's dead arms, far from towns, that I find what I am seeking: a wild, almost forgotten beauty. Pirogues glide on jade-coloured water, between islands of greenery where birds nest. Fishermen cast their nets with an age-old grace, their gestures precise as a dance. The setting sun ignites the river, turning every ripple into a tongue of fire.

Later, I sit on the bank at Podor, facing Mauritania. The air is heavier, laden with humidity and the scent of dried fish. Children play football on a sandy pitch, their shouts mingled with the muezzin's call. I think of all the travellers who have taken this road before me: Moorish traders, explorers, pilgrims. The river has seen empires and exiles pass. It flows on, imperturbable, a silent witness to history.

This journey is no expedition. There is no danger, no thrill, no 'discovery' in the colonial sense. It is a slow, respectful immersion into a world that exists fully, beyond the gaze. Each day I walk a few hours, stop at a village, drink tea, listen. The people are not subjects of study nor postcard characters. They live their lives, with joys and sorrows, hopes and weariness. And I am merely a passer-by, a grateful witness.

On the last evening, I camp near a waterhole in the middle of the bush. The sky is an ink vault studded with stars. The fire crackles, hyenas laugh in the distance. I think back to the old man's words in Mbar. He was right: the Ferlo gives little, but what it gives is priceless. A silence that is not absence, a light that is not blinding, a hospitality that expects nothing in return. I leave tomorrow, but a part of me stays here, on these forgotten trails, listening to the wind.

As I fall asleep, lulled by the chorus of crickets, I understand that true travel is not about going somewhere, but about letting a place come to you. And the Ferlo, generous in its poverty, has come.

The Forgotten Trails of the Sahel: A Journey into Deep Senegal

Day fifteen. Banjul, capital of the Gambia, that thin ribbon of access to the ocean wedged between the river's meanders and the Atlantic. A city that, seen from afar, seems just a dot on the map, but approached by road, becomes a promise. We had been driving from Accra, crossing Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, to land here, in this enclave where English colonial history left subtler traces than elsewhere. Here, the dream has a particular texture, that of a future written without a predetermined frame.

In the streets of Banjul, the asphalt cracks under the weight of horse-drawn carts, relics of another era. Yellow taxis, with patched-up bodies, slalom between itinerant merchants offering mangoes, dried fish, wax fabrics. The air carries a smell of salt and sweat, that of a city that works, that struggles, but has not renounced poetry. For Banjul, unlike other West African capitals, has not yet traded its soul for concrete. Here, every street corner tells a story, every face carries hope.

The West Africa Road Residency, this pan-African literary and artistic expedition, brought us here. We were about ten writers, photographers, filmmakers, from all over the continent. Each day, we discovered a new landscape, a new language, a new way of being African. But Banjul is different. It is a city that does not need to prove its modernity. It stands there, humble, with its decrepit colonial buildings, its colorful markets, its beaches where fishermen pull their pirogues. It offers the traveler what large metropolises have lost: the time to stop.

And yet, Banjul is also a city of contradictions. The dream is accessible, yes, but at what cost? Young Gambians, who spend their days selling phone credit or driving 'kekes' (motorized tricycles), know that the dream can also be a trap. Many try the adventure of the 'back way,' the migratory route to Europe. But those who stay, those who choose to make Banjul their world, invent other dreams. They create music festivals, open art galleries, write poems on walls. They transform necessity into beauty.

What I understood upon arriving in Banjul is that the dream is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity, especially for a city that has known dictatorship, diplomatic isolation, poverty. The dream is what allows one to get up in the morning, to believe that tomorrow will be better. And Banjul, despite everything, continues to dream. Its inhabitants have that quiet strength of those who refuse to be defined by difficulties. They invent their own narrative, far from clichés and miserabilist discourses.

As we hit the road again on the last day, I watched Banjul disappear in the rearview mirror. The city was receding, but it remained within me, like a lesson. A lesson on resilience, on the ability to dream when all seems lost. And I told myself that perhaps the true journey is not about covering kilometers, but about learning to see differently. Banjul taught me to see the dream where others see only lack.

On the Road to Banjul: When the Gambia Becomes Dream and Reality

Dawn breaks over Podor like a promise. Mist rises slowly from the river, hemming the banks in silver. I have come here to walk the forgotten trails of Fouta Toro, that kingdom of water and sand stretching along the Senegal River, a liquid border between the Sahel and the savannah.

With the first steps, laterite crunches underfoot. The path plunges between millet fields and clusters of rônier palms. The air is thick with mingled scents: wet clay from the riverbanks, zebu dung, the acrid perfume of burning vène wood from a distant courtyard. Here, travel is lived through the senses. Light itself is a substance: golden at dawn, white at noon, ochre at dusk.

At Guédé, I wait for the pirogue that will take me to Île à Morfil. Women wash laundry at the water's edge, their gestures broad and precise as an ancient choreography. A little girl stares at me, eyes wide, before plunging into the river with a crystal laugh. The ferryman arrives at last, an old man whose face is carved by sun and wind. He does not speak, but his smile says enough. We glide over the green water, brushing water lilies and sandbanks where white birds balance on one leg.

Île à Morfil is a world apart. Here, time seems held back by the branches of centuries-old kapok trees. The banco houses melt into the landscape, their mud walls as old as the stories they shelter. I walk through narrow alleys, guided by a muezzin's chant rising from the mosque minaret. Children play football with a rag ball, their shouts echoing between ochre walls. An old woman sitting on a mat sorts millet, her agile fingers dancing over the grains. She offers me a glass of bissap, cold and sweet, which I drink in silence, sitting in the shade of a mango tree.

Fouta is also history. The ruins of Podor's fort tell the colonial story, but it is the villages that carry living memory. At Doumga Lao, a griot welcomes me under a palaver tree. His voice is gravelly, but when he sings the epic of Sundiata Keita, the syllables become precious stones. He speaks of the Ghana Empire, caravans of salt and gold, Fulani warriors and marabouts. I listen, and the river wind seems to carry his words to other shores, other times.

Evening falls, and I cross to the Mauritanian bank by pirogue. On the other side, the desert begins. But here, on the water, I am between worlds. The sun sinks into the river, setting the sky ablaze with purple and orange. Fishermen haul their nets, their black silhouettes cut out against the light. I think of ancient trade routes, exchanges between the Sahel and the Maghreb, that fluidity of borders the river embodies.

Before leaving, I return to Podor market. Stalls overflow with dried okra, smoked fish, brightly coloured fabrics. A woman sells mangoes, their skins gleaming like miniature suns. She laughs when I ask where they come from. 'From the river,' she says simply. And I understand that everything here comes from the river. Life, food, songs, dreams.

Fouta Toro is not a tourist destination. It is a place to be earned, on foot, by pirogue, in silence. It offers no modern comfort, but a deeper wealth: that of time rediscovered, of connection to land and water, of encounters with faces that ask for nothing. To walk these forgotten trails is to accept getting lost in order to find yourself, at the slow rhythm of the river and the seasons.

The Forgotten Trails of Fouta: A Journey into Senegal's River Heartland

There is a particular light here, between the end of the rains and the beginning of the dry season. A light neither harsh nor soft, but one that seems to fall from a sky so vast it becomes almost a presence. The wind carries the scent of heated earth, of pounded millet, and sometimes, far away, a hint of salt from the invisible ocean. I am walking on a track that winds between thorny acacias and solitary baobabs, their branches stretched out like arms that forgot to fold back. This is Senegal's Sahel, a region often crossed without being seen, travelers in a hurry to reach the coast or the big cities. Yet here beats an ancient heart of the country.

I came to follow a forgotten trail, the one used by Fulani herders before tarmac roads redrew the map. Today, only a few shepherds and their zebu herds still use it, out of habit or necessity. The sand is soft under my feet, in places mixed with dried dung and twigs. Each step raises a tiny cloud that settles immediately. The silence is broken by the cry of a hornbill, then by the creak of an old sweep well that a man works, bare-chested, his skin glistening with sweat. He watches me pass without surprise, as if my presence on this path were just an ordinary variation of the landscape.

Further on, the trail climbs a low dune. From there, the view opens onto an ocean of savannah dotted with villages of conical huts. Thatched roofs smoke gently in the morning air. One can imagine the women pounding millet, children playing in the shade of a kapok tree. Nothing here seems to have changed for centuries, except perhaps the color of the sky, paler, as if bleached by heat. But change is elsewhere, invisible: in the dropping water tables, in the rarer rains, in the young people leaving for Dakar or elsewhere. This trail, however, remains. It still connects watering holes, weekly markets, cemeteries where ancestors sleep.

I sit on a flat stone, in the relative shade of a thorn tree. An old shepherd approaches, his staff in hand, a toothless smile lighting his face wrinkled like a map of drought. He does not speak French, but we exchange gestures. He points to a dark line on the horizon: the Ferlo Valley, he says in Fulani, a word I understand. He adds something I do not grasp, but his tone is that of a confidence. Perhaps he is telling me about the spirits of the bush, or simply the way to the next well. I offer him a sip from my canteen. He accepts, then leaves, his tire-sandals barely raising dust.

This journey is no expedition. It is a slow, almost meditative stroll. Time stretches, distances measured in cast shadows, in bird songs, in chance encounters. Here, one does not conquer the landscape; one marries it. One learns to read signs: a broken branch indicating a passage, a pile of stones marking a grave, the low flight of swallows heralding rain. Every detail is a sentence in a story the place has been writing for millennia.

Evening falls, and with it the coolness. The sky turns purple and orange, as if a mad painter had thrown his colors onto it. Sounds soften. A fire crackles in a nearby camp; men's voices rise, mingled with a child's laughter. I take the trail again, but this time westward, where the moon rises, round and yellow, resting on the horizon like a ripe fruit. And I understand that this trail is not forgotten: it is simply discreet. It waits for those who still know how to walk without purpose, for the simple pleasure of being there, in the light and the wind, at the heart of the Sahel.

The Memory of Dunes: On the Forgotten Trails of Senegal's Sahel

The ferry leaves Dakar with a clatter of metal and the cries of gulls. The air is thick with iodine and promise. Ahead, the island of Gorée rises like a scar laid upon the water. You might mistake it for a postcard, but every stone here is a witness. I am not a tourist; I am a pilgrim.

Morning sun kisses the facades in shades of terracotta, saffron, and teal. Bougainvillea spills from balconies, purple flowers trembling in the breeze. Stepping off the boat, silence wraps around me. Not the silence of forgetting, but of listening. The alleys are narrow, paved with stones worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. Each step echoes like a heartbeat.

I wander without direction, letting my feet guide me. The scent of warm bread and coffee drifts from a small shop. An old woman, her face etched by the sun, sells fruit from a stool. She smiles, and in that smile is all the dignity of a people who have survived the unspeakable. I buy a mango; its juice runs down my fingers, sweet and sticky as life itself.

Further on, the House of Slaves stands white and austere. I do not enter immediately. I sit on a low wall facing the ocean. The waves come and go, indifferent. I think of those who passed through that door, the Door of No Return. The wind carries their names. I close my eyes and listen. The cries of gulls, the lapping of water, the laughter of children playing football in a square. Life continues, stubbornly.

In the afternoon, I stroll through the alleys on the western side of the island, where the houses are more modest. An artist's workshop opens its door. Inside, vibrant canvases tell stories of deportation and rebirth. The painter, a man with paint-stained hands, speaks of his work. "Memory is not a burden," he says. "It is a strength. We must carry it, but also transform it into beauty." I buy a small canvas of a baobab tree whose roots plunge into the ocean.

Evening falls, painting the sky orange and purple. I climb to Fort d'Estrées, the highest point on the island. From there, the view embraces Dakar shimmering in the distance and the ocean stretching to infinity. The wind is stronger here; it snatches away words. I stay for a long time, still, watching the colors shift. A fisherman mends his net on the beach below. His movements are precise, almost ritualistic.

Gorée is not a museum. It is a living place, home to families, artists, children. The tourists leave at night, but the island remains, with its ghosts and its laughter. Before leaving the island, I pass the House of Slaves one last time. This time, I enter. The interior is cool, dim. The cells are small, damp. A weight settles in my chest. But stepping out, the light dazzles me. The sea is such a pure blue it seems unreal. I understand then that Gorée is not only a place of memory; it is a place of resilience. Every stone, every wave, every smile says: we are still here.

The ferry departs into the night. Dakar approaches, luminous. I watch the island recede, a small dark smudge on silver water. I still feel on my skin the salt, the wind, the heat of the day. Gorée has spoken to me. I did not understand everything, but I listened. And perhaps that is the true journey: not to see, but to hear what places have to say.

Journeys