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The green walls along the Ivindo changed into the most luxuriant diversity of trees, plants and lianas growing through and over each other. We had zoomed in to what we had seen from a distance along the Ivindo. The Nouna is not much wider than a room for most of its length.
We spent two nights on the banks at locations that had been used by fishermen as stopping places. They had smoked their catch there. The bulk of the heavy vegetation had been removed from these places and there were branch "frames" that we could use for our tarpaulins. All we had to do was hang a mosquito net underneath and we were ready for the night.
The tent also turned out to be an excellent solution - this was supposed to be unsuitable for use in a tropical rainforest due to swampy ground or insects. Rubbish! My final attempt to overnight in a hammock ended after a couple of hours on the first evening. After that I chose the tent.
Serufin's role gradually became more important. We began to encounter trees that had fallen across the river more and more frequently. Each time after such an obstacle I thought: the journey is going to end at the next tree. And each time it turned out that there was a way around or under, although sometimes we had to take a lot out of the boat.
The second evening at our campsite by the Masoko landing stage the forest bees visited us. These were a lot more of a nuisance than the mosquitoes. Their sting is not so bad, but there were lots of them all over the place and they liked our food. They left after dark.
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