Travel Guide Oyo

The famous town of Oyo, stronghold of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, is the object of contradictory feelings in the Congo: mistrust and envy. From the very first steps, even before the bus stops, you can feel that something is happening here. Good roads, bustling workers on major construction sites: a new sub-prefecture, a new town hall, a new magistrates' court, which look like palaces, a new hospital, said to be the best in Central Africa, a new grand hotel on the outskirts of town, a new port, a new police station, a new market, and so on. These infrastructures, built in part by Chinese companies, are in addition to the existing villas, those of the president, his family and his guests, which, from behind their high, white-painted perimeter walls, resemble hybrids of hotel complexes and noble estates.Oyo is unmistakably the will of a man, effectively relayed, the affirmation of the North as a new economic pole, the Congo of construction projects carried out at full speed. Structurally and in terms of facilities, the city is one step ahead of other Congolese cities.Oyo is a development dream that has the advantage of existing. It's also a beautiful town, set on the right bank of the Alima, a major commercial hub where dried fish unloaded from pirogues are promptly shipped along with pigs and jerry cans of palm wine on the road to Brazzaville, a city where public and private spaces are intertwined. Oyo is well worth a stop.