Jelle Veyt has been waiting in the Republic of the Congo for a chance to get home to Belgium. His first flight, from Pointe Noire, had been cancelled when the airports in the country closed. Thankfully, on April 2 the Belgian embassy notified him that his government had set up a flight home for the next day.

However, there was one complication: the flight would be from Kinshasa in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Veyt rushed back to Brazzaville and took a special boat over the river into the DRC. The permissions required were organized by the Belgian embassy and Veyt made it safely to his flight.

By April 4, after five months of cycling through Africa, he was back in Belgium. He will now have to self-isolate for 14 days and “let it all sink in.”