Travel Guide Makoua

Makoua shares with Quito, the capital of Ecuador, Macapa in Brazil and Pontianac in Borneo the fact of being situated under an imaginary 40,000 km circle called the equator. It's a sprawling town, criss-crossed by sandy or red dirt roads sometimes as wide as Parisian boulevards, with lush vegetation and the absence of vehicles to boot. It's an airy town too, and all the better for it, as it's hotter below the equator than in other cities in the country. The plots here are fenced, often with hedges or lines of shrubs, as in Brazzaville's Bakongo district. The topography is typical of the Congolese provincial town: a central market, run mainly by West Africans, is the heart of the town, and most of the nganda and restaurants, which are relatively few in number, are located nearby, around this traffic circle. Then come the sprawling residential areas, which sometimes seem to be just emerging from the forest. The town has its own small landing stage, just a small beach in fact, on the banks of the Likouala-Mossaka, below the sub-prefect's residence. The road leading to it passes through a residential area with villas surrounded by high walls, and the largely elevated bridge affords a fine view of the river and surrounding forest. The town's policy of accelerated municipalization has provided Makoua with new buildings, including a new hospital with a large maternity ward and a high court. In addition, the presence of West Africans enabled the construction of a mosque in 2015.