Boyoma Falls

Boyoma is a chain of seven cataracts running for about a hundred kilometres of the Congo above Kisangani, dropping some sixty metres in total and carrying an enormous volume of water. They are rapids rather than a single fall. At the lowest cataract, on the edge of the city, Wagenia fishermen build wooden tripods anchored into the rock and hang large conical basket traps into the current, a technique that has been described and photographed for over a century and is still worked daily.

What you actually see

• The lowest cataract - broad rapids on the edge of the city, the most accessible of the seven.
• The Wagenia traps - wooden tripods and conical baskets set into the current by hand.
• The volume - one of the largest flows of any waterfall system in the world, by discharge.
• The fishing - traps checked and reset daily, worked from the rocks and from canoes.

When to go

The drier windows, December to February and June to August, are more comfortable. Water levels change through the year and affect where the traps can be set. Mornings are when the traps are worked.

Honest expectations

These are rapids, not a plunging waterfall, and photographs can oversell the drama. Access to the fishing site goes through the village and fees are negotiated, sometimes firmly. Photographing the fishermen should be agreed rather than assumed.

Nearby

Kisangani is immediately west, and the river runs downstream from there.