Boyoma Falls

Seven cataracts on the Congo — the upper limit of river navigation

Address Boyoma Falls, Kisangani, DR Congo

The reason Kisangani exists. Boyoma Falls — known until independence as Stanley Falls, after Henry Morton Stanley, who described them in 1877 — is a series of seven cataracts running for about 100 km along a great curve of the upper Congo (Lualaba) River between Ubundu and Kisangani. Each cataract is at most 5 metres high, but together they form an impenetrable barrier to navigation: the limit of the great navigable river from Kinshasa, 1,700 km downstream.

The seventh and lowest fall, immediately upstream of Kisangani, is the most accessible. The local Wagenya (Genya) people have fished it for generations with traditional tripod-and-basket traps that span the rapids — a spectacular sight, and one of the iconic images of central Africa. Local guides can arrange a visit and a pirogue trip out to one of the fishing platforms.

things to do landmark
A story
The Wagenya people have fished the falls in the same way for centuries, building wooden tripods anchored into the river bed and lowering conical basket traps into the rushing water between them. The technique is one of the few that works on the cataracts, and the daily catch is sorted and sold on the riverbank in the morning.