.jpg?width=1600)
01 One sanctuary and no other
Lola ya Bonobo is described as the world's only sanctuary for orphaned bonobos. Not one of the few: the only one. It lies south of the Kimwenza district, beside the Petites Chutes de la Lukaya, inside the Kinshasa boundary, and covers 30 hectares of primary forest where around sixty animals live.
02 Why it can only be here
The reason the world's only sanctuary sits on this city's outskirts and nowhere else is geographic, and there is no getting round it. The bonobo lives only south of the Congo River and north of the Kasai, in the humid forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are no wild populations in any other country.
Kinshasa is on the south bank. Brazzaville, opposite, is on the north bank, which is chimpanzee territory. A bonobo sanctuary over there would make no geographic sense.
The sanctuary was founded by Claudine André in 1994 and moved to its present site in 2002. It offers guided visits and lodging in cabins inside the grounds, which lets you stay overnight and have the whole morning, when the animals are most active.
.jpg?width=1200)
03 How to lay out the days
The sanctuary takes a whole day, and ideally two halves: arrive in the afternoon, sleep there and use the following morning. That covers the reason for the trip, and leaves three days for a city you cannot cover but can sample.
One day for the river. The Kinshasa bank is where the bonobo fact becomes visible: on the far side of the water is another country and, in primate terms, another continent of behaviour. And it has to be seen from here, because from the far side the effect is not the same.
.jpg?width=1200)
And one day for open country, which here is still inside the city. Kinshasa is both city and province, covers 9,965 square kilometres and only some 600 are built up: the rest is savanna, valley and forest, all inside the same administrative boundary.
04 The friction, unadorned
The first and most important: check your government's official travel advisory for this country before booking anything, and check it again before you leave. There are areas of the country with do-not-travel recommendations, and inside Kinshasa province itself there are specific corridors and districts under restrictions. This article refers to the city and its immediate outskirts, not to the rest of the territory.
The second is the month. August is best by a distance: 2 millimetres of rain, 155 hours of sun and humidity at its annual low, 74%. July is the alternative, with zero recorded rain days. April and November are the months to avoid: 238 and 247 millimetres over 17 and 16 days.
And the third is about expectation. This is not a safari. You are going to a thirty-hectare rescue centre to see one species in closed forest, not to a plain with herds. If what you want is the second format, this destination will disappoint you and plenty of others do it better.
If the profile fits, the argument fits in one sentence: there is a single great ape species that lives in a single country in the world, and a single place on the planet devoted to rescuing its orphaned young. It is on this city's outskirts, in thirty hectares of forest, and you can sleep inside it.
_at_Lola_Ya_Bonobo_-_1.JPG?width=1600)
