Traveling is a popular hobby, but few think of adding Lake Tele to their list - the mystical, remote lake in Congo that sees only a handful of visitors each year. Irina Papuc was one of them in 2022, becoming the first documented Romanian to reach Lake Tele and discover its secrets and legends, including the story of a dinosaur-like creature said to still inhabit its depths. The journey was anything but easy - navigating unfamiliar waters, surviving encounters with dangerous wildlife, and earning the trust of local tribes who guard the lake as a sacred site. 

Born in Sibiu, Romania, and raised in Chicago by her artist grandparents, Irina Papuc grew up with a deep appreciation for life's intangible riches. Her path took her from a physics degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology to CERN's prestigious research labs, but the pull of the unknown proved stronger than the safety of a traditional career. Today, as the co-founder of Galactic Fed, an award-winning digital marketing agency, she balances the business world with an unrelenting drive to explore.

"I regard travel as a slow, overland pilgrimage, where you show up on the world's doorstep and are sometimes invited in for a glimpse into how other people eat, cook, and live," she told Romania-insider.com.

After traveling to roughly 60 countries, in 2022, Irina Papuc became the first documented Romanian to reach Lake Tele, an isolated, genuinely unexplored lake in the Republic of Congo, rumored to be home to the legendary dinosaur-like creature that the locals call Mokele-Mbembe. The journey, which began as a spontaneous decision, was anything but easy - navigating uncharted waters, surviving encounters with dangerous wildlife, and earning the trust of local tribes who guard the lake as a sacred site.

Alongside her travel companion and business partner, Zach Boyette, Irina braved the unpredictable currents of the Congo River, endured perilous treks through dense jungle, and faced the eerie silence of one of the most remote places on earth. From quicksand and deadly centipedes to "tons and tons of Gorillas," "dudes with guns and spears," and local taboos, every step of the journey was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

She says, "It was a spontaneous decision, really! My co-founder Zach and I knew vaguely that we wanted to travel through Africa for three months, but we had no solid plan to begin with. At the last minute, after a month in Kenya and Tanzania, I suggested we go to the Congo, mostly because of my love for Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness," and that's how we ended up flying there!"

"Lake Tele is sacred, and we had to receive the Chief's blessing to even reach it and follow various spiritual rules of conduct, including feigning any astonishment upon seeing the lake and not carrying religious relics with us. A village elder named Rimbo guarded our caravan at its helm with a 12-foot spear.”

In this exclusive interview, Irina Papuc shares the trials and triumphs of her unique expedition to Lake Tele, as well as past and future travel plans, Romania included.

• Please tell us a bit about yourself – where you're from, where you're based now, your journey from Romania to the US, and a brief overview of your career.

I'm originally from Sibiu, Romania, and immigrated to the United States in 1990 when I was two years old. I grew up the typical immigrant (arriving in a foreign land and starting all over again with two suitcases). Grew up in Chicago with my grandparents, who are Romanian artists. We were poor, but I felt rich in spirit because they taught me to value the spiritual part of life. I watched them struggle and sacrifice a lot for the promise of a better life for the family, and this motivated me to try very hard at life myself. 

I was fortunate to gain a scholarship at a local tech college (IIT), where I graduated with a degree in physics. I briefly worked at CERN (the Large Hadron Collider) as an undergrad but quickly realized that office life was not for me. What I really wanted was complete freedom of movement. 

I ended up buying a one-way ticket to Taiwan shortly after graduating and taught English there for a year before embarking on a 9-month journey, mostly overland, from Thailand to Romania. During these 9 months, I spent only about USD 2,000 before I camped, hitch-hiked, and eventually slept in the back of a station wagon my friend and I bought in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Met many wonderful local people along the way who took me into their homes and made me feel like a part of their family. 

I returned to the US in 2014, where I applied for one single job, an entry-level position at unicorn tech startup Toptal, which I was lucky enough to get, and eventually led their SEO program for 3 years. 

Left Toptal in 2018 to start the award-winning digital marketing agency Galactic Fed. 

• What inspired you to embark on such an adventurous journey to Lake Tele in the Republic of Congo?

It was a spontaneous decision, really! My co-founder Zach and I knew vaguely that we wanted to travel through Africa for three months, but we had no solid plan to begin with. At the last minute, after a month in Kenya and Tanzania, I suggested we go to the Congo, mostly because of my love for Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness," and that's how we ended up flying there! 

On the airplane headed to the capital, Brazzaville, I started reading the Lonely Planet guide to that region of the world, for which there was a chapter on the Republic of Congo, and I just so happened to come across a single page about this legendary lake, Lac Tele. The guidebook conveyed that this was one of the few places left on earth that had remained truly unexplored, with an average of 2-5 outsiders visiting it per year, and even those visitors amounting mostly to researchers studying the life around and in the lake. 

The lake itself was so isolated that much of its biology had yet to be studied!  

• As the first documented Romanian citizen to reach Lac Tele, can you describe your experience of visiting the lake and the challenges you faced along the way? How did you prepare for such an isolated and difficult expedition, especially considering its remote location and sacred status to the local tribe?

My co-founder and best friend Zach Boyette went on the entire journey with me and is the first documented person from the SE United States to reach the Lake. We began our journey in Brazzaville, where there is virtually little to no tourism infrastructure, which we were delighted to find. 

Without any official tour operators to help us assemble a team to take us to the lake, I resorted to visiting the geographic society headquarters in the capital, a research compound tucked away behind barbed wire and a locked gate. Inside, I met Congolese biologists who led me to one English speaker, who then connected me, via WhatsApp, to the mysterious "Italian." It was through this contact that we were able to meet Rachy, Arold, and DMX, the crew of Congolese who helped us navigate the language, formalities, and hardships along the way. I should add that they themselves had only reached the lake maybe once, maximum twice before! 

We journeyed over 5,000 kilometers up the Congo River on a long, slowly sinking motorized pirogue (Congolese narrow boat), loaded up with everything we needed for the next month to survive, including fuel, water, tins of fish and pasta, and endless chocolate bars. 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Irina Pana (@irina__pana)

We left at night, a dangerous time when hippos and crocodiles are most active and difficult to spot. Our boatsman kept flashing his lantern at the choppy, mosquito-infested waters in case a holographic eye could be seen looking back. 

We had no idea what to expect and little time to prepare. Zach and I went to the giant bazaar in the center of Brazzaville and loaded up on baby wipes! And we also purchased some second-hand clothes, refurbished surgeon scrubs, that I wore for the rest of the journey. 

We survived a dozen African wild bee stings, a joust with a deadly, 7" long centipede, a lorry truck that nearly fell off a cliff which was packed with over 40 people and would have crushed us to death if it moved one more centimeter the wrong way.

We also experienced close encounters with a leopard and a gorilla, dudes with guns and spears, passing through Ebola zones, nearly capsizing in a malarial swamp, story-telling of a semi-mythological dinosaur, and zooming along the Congo River on a steadily sinking dugout canoe.

After periods of boat travel down the Congo River and a few truly terrifying moments on the lorry truck that nearly fell into a swamp, we reached the final portion, the village where the last tribe near the lake lived. Here, we gave them money and cases of the local wine, the Baron de Madrid, and the Chief blessed and allowed our journey. 

Because the lake is sacred to the tribe, there are many taboos associated with it. For example, we cannot bring any religious relics to the lake. The tribesmen who accompanied us there loved to tell us a story of a poor Japanese guy who had mistakenly brought a cross with him to the lake, only to mysteriously die right after reaching home. 

In the final stretch, the jungle around the lake, a place that contains the largest population of overland gorillas in the world (about 130,000), we basically ran through thick jungle for 10-12 hours a day, sometimes for hours in the pouring rain, because we were there during the rainy season.

I tripped about 50 times an hour and fell on my face several times. My legs were covered in cuts and bruises from the countless times I slipped on the wet, vine-covered forest floor or plummetted through 4-5 feet holes covered in deceptive detritus.

During a rest stop, I wandered to the river's shore and began to sink into quicksand while the Congolese tried to take my picture.

It was the rainy season in the Congo River basin, and it poured for hours nearly every afternoon, so we marched entirely drenched, smoking our clothes and shoes over a fire in the evening. 

Along with our friendly tribesmen who accompanied us on the journey, we sang songs and chants in Lingala, drank whiskey, and caroused well into the night with our forest brothers, a group of 10 men who accompanied us from the village and who lovingly called me Guactelle (mother).

Lake Tele is sacred, and we had to receive the Chief's blessing to even reach it and follow various spiritual rules of conduct, including feigning any astonishment upon seeing the lake and not carrying religious relics with us. A village elder named Rimbo guarded our caravan at its helm with a 12-foot spear. 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Irina Pana (@irina__pana)

• How long was your stay there, and what were the most exciting things you discovered – in terms of wildlife, ecosystem, or local culture? Were there any surprises?

To summarize, Zach and I were out there about 3-4 weeks, and we discovered: 

- Wild African bees - each of us was stung at least a dozen times! 

- Tons and tons of Gorillas - the Congo basin is the area with the largest population of overland gorillas in the world (at around 130K).

- Quicksand - nearly ended up swallowed up by it several times! 

- Deadly centipedes.

- The local tribespeople who accompanied us to the lake thought that the white noise machine that Zach sleeps with every night was a black magic fetish object, and we had to show them that it was a speaker, then use it to play dance music around the campfire and sing together, thus dispelling all doubts! 

- Our cook, DMX (not his real name), got malaria on the journey and just brushed it off as if it was a bad cold! 

- There were French baguettes for sale almost everywhere, sometimes right next to the machetes! (complete with free ants!)

- The Congolese were incredibly warm, and many times on the Congo River, we had to stop because of the rain, and tribes unknown to us or our team were taking us in and giving us a place to stay. 

- I met a chief somewhere on the journey who spoke fluent Romanian! He had studied agricultural engineering in Cluj in the 70s, and on his walls were portraits of his trips to North Korea.

Another surprising thing I learned while on the Congo River is that GPS will not help you navigate. Instead, our Congolese crew would periodically ask tribal people along the shores if we were heading in the right direction, and it was easy to get lost because the river split into many small tributaries at times, but the human-powered GPS did not fail us. 

 

 

 

 

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• Can you tell us more about the Mkolo Mbembe legend and its importance to the local community?

Regarding the Mokele-Mbembe, some of this may have been lost in translation, as our guide was not fluent in the local tribal language, but to the best of my knowledge, I understand that the locals believed that until recently, there were two mokele-mbembes left, and they lived at the bottom of the Lake. One had recently died, and now only one was left. 

Despite their belief in this creature residing in the black, very organic waters of the lake (it felt like swimming in a giant cup of tea, the water was rich with centuries of decaying tree and plant matter), neither the forest people nor Zach and I had had any qualms with swimming in its waters. As soon as we reached its shores, we went into the lake to wash off weeks' worth of sweat. 

The lake is sacred to the tribe, and young boys undertake a rite of passage by doing the same journey we did to the lake. Among the many taboos we had to follow (most of which we never learned, again, because it was difficult to communicate with the forest tribe): 

- You had to feign excitement when you reached the lake

- Women could not be menstruating near the lake

- You could not carry any religious objects with you-

- Maintain a respectful attitude toward the lake 

• Looking ahead, what other remote or underexplored destinations are you hoping to visit? Are there any upcoming projects or adventures you're particularly excited about?

I would love to return to Vanuatu and explore the islands there in more detail. I found the people there heart-breakingly kind and happy, and community-driven. I stayed with a tribe of subsistence gardeners on the island of Tanna right after they had been hit by two big cyclones and a crazy strong earthquake, and I was deeply touched by how they worked together to overcome what must seem like incredible hardships to us.

I'd also love to return to the Pacific and explore more of the islands there, namely Kiribati. There are also some hard-to-reach spots in Indonesia I have my eyes on, particularly a tribal community run by women chiefs.  

• You've traveled a lot and had some unique experiences. What's your favorite thing about traveling, and how did you start?

Oddly enough, no one in my family travels much, so they all pretty much thought I was crazy when I first started my travels. I'd been obsessed with the idea since I was a very small child (my favorite book as a kid was the "Atlas of Exploration").

After living in Taiwan for a year, I had saved up enough money to go with confidence on my 9-month overland journey from Thailand to Romania, but I was so worried my family would die of fright that I held off telling them until I was about three months into the journey, living in Delhi! They thought I lost my mind, but to keep their fears at bay, I wrote a 350-page blog about my trip, and over time, my family became my biggest supporters! 

My favorite thing about travel is how time changes. A day stretches on into what feels like a week because so much colorful stuff happens! You might wake up in a hut, in a tree, somewhere, only to journey, by donkey, down a riverside trail, to then end up amongst a family having lunch, to hear a story or two from them, then journey to another village, in a whole new ecosystem, all in one single day! The richness of experience is unparalleled and makes regular life eventually seem gray and bland. 

My first trip alone abroad was as a physics student to Germany on a fellowship to study at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and I quickly caught the bug! 

• Please tell us a bit about your other travel experiences – how many countries have you visited so far, and which places left a lasting impression on you?

I've been to 60 countries by now. I regard travel as a slow, overland pilgrimage where you show up on the world's doorstep and are sometimes invited in for a glimpse into how other people eat, cook, and live.

Lately, my obsession was with the Pacific islands - I wanted to see the most remote communities on earth, and this desire brought me to the doorsteps of Tuvalu, the northern islands of the Cook Islands (first foreigner there in 7 years), and the unvisited tiny islands in Samoa, as well as parts of Vanuatu, where I met the leaders of two famous cargo cults, the John Frum Movement, and the King Charles cult. I also introduced ChatGPT to the Tanna tribe in Vanuatu! 

I'll never forget the Himalayas in Nepal - I travelled the Annapurna circuit, which brought me to elevations of 5,700+ meters, mostly on my own, walking 14-15 hours a day, and that remains a most powerful memory. I also had the good fortune to meet a Shaman in Nepal who sort of "adopted" me and let me be a fly on his walk, so I followed him around for a few weeks while he travelled around the capital performing spiritual house cleanings, and eventually journeyed with him to his home somewhere in the middle of Nepal, where I stayed with his family. All his neighbors were also Shamen! 

• Is Romania on your travel list?

Every time I visit Romania, I always return with more questions than answers! From my first trip back in early childhood to the unforgettable return after my 9 months overland from Thailand to Bucharest, I've returned to my homeland time and again to try and understand my origin and who I truly am. 

Romania is a riddle to me, a place that feels deeply familiar yet strangely foreign due to my long absence growing up. It's hard to explain, but there's no place I feel more at home in than in the mountains of Transylvania, and the food always warms me to my bones.

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We previously interviewed Irina Papuc here - Work & travel: Romanian-born Irina Papuc, a full-time digital nomad running a fully remote company

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photos: Irina Papuc/Instagram)