For visitors familiar with the five-star hotels of Africa’s main cities, Mango River’s reputation as one of the best places to stay in Juba, the capital of semi-autonomous south Sudan, can be misleading.

Not only does it have no stars, it is not even a hotel. Instead it is a camp, which mixes the bleak uniformity of an army barracks with a few other-worldly creature comforts, and, in the process, has become an emblem for the rough-and-tumble boom town.