The Concorde was a regular visitor to Congolese jungle

Gbadolite Airport was built to handle the Concorde. And the now-retired jet paid repeated visits. Dictator Mobutu Sese Seko created out of the bush near the banks of the Oubangui River one of Africa's longest airstrips so that the sleek supersonic airplane could land in the fake French town he had fashioned out of the wild. Gbadolite may be the strangest settlement on the planet. Wide boulevards were dug out of the tropical jungle in the 1960s, near Mobutu's home, in a style inspired by small-town France.

The street signs were identical to those found in Paris, Marseille, or a town near the Belgian border. The town was dominated by two palaces, one of which was a massive complex of Chinese pagodas. Always worried about security, Mobutu ordered the biggest bunker in Africa erected in case of nuclear attack. An escape route to the neighboring Central African Republic was given via a 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) tunnel going to the Oubangui River. Gbadolite is a ghost town these days, robbed multiple times since Mobutu fled oncoming rebel forces in 1997, and the bush is swiftly regaining lost land.