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Democratic Republic of Congo: Lubumbashi to Kinshasa
Heart of Darkness
Featuring Josephine: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina012.jpg Frederik: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/dibaya027.jpg and our trusty steed: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...angu%20010.jpg |
Map of congo. Lubumbashi in the bottom right corner. Kinshasa on the left.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...public_map.jpg Or as depicted on our Michelin 746 map http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...-papers009.jpg The Michelin is a pretty good map but it has a few known flaws. One of the biggest flaws is probably the "Route National 1" in DRC.. as we are soon to find out... I am posting this report as I write, so please be patient :-) |
The story starts in Pionee... No, that's not true, it actually starts 2 years earlier, but I will come back to that later. So for now let's start this story at in Pioneer campsite just outside Lusaka (Zambia) where we treat ourselves on some home made French fries (but as you all know, French fries have got nothing to do with France, as they have been invented by the Belgians!)
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum006.jpg We deserved it as it had been about 600 days since we last seen set foot in our home country and we missed the food! The other reason was that we were not expecting to be eating good in the next month or two. After all we were about to go deep into the Congo (DRC but in this report I refer to the country as "Congo", not to be confused with Congo-brazzaville) As supplies would be very hard to get we decided to stock up on supplies. We bought food for an entire month. 3 meals a day. This would prove to be a very good decision http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum016.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum018.jpg I also gave the Landcruiser a last service, everything was working pretty much as expected, so just the regular oil/filter change. I also stocked up on some good oil (diff + engine) as this would also be hard to get there. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum024.jpg Fully loaded we left Lusaka. We always had a strange anxious/nervous feeling when entering a new country. But this time the feeling was much stronger. Was this the first time we were actualy nervous for entering a country? |
The border at Kasumbalesa was the usual chaotic affair. Especially the Zambian side proved to be an annoying experience. Many pushy touts and very crowded. The Congolese side on the other hand had very little touts. It was chaotic too, but much smoother then their neighbours.
We were warned about the "5$ dollar first entry" bribe at the Congolese side. This conversation was in French ofcourse: Customs Officer: "Hi, that'll be 5$US" - Me: "Ofcourse,but what is it for exactly?" CO: "Tourist tax" - Me: "Oh, I was not aware of the existance of a tourist tax?" CO: "Yes, but only on the first entry" - Me: "Aaaah, ofcourse how could I forget. I already paid this when I entered at by boat in Kinshasa a few months ago" <-- I lied, there is no such tax and I never paid such tax. But I did have the proof of my previous entry in Congo in my passport Co: *long silence* Co: *hesitating* "You still have to pay..." He lost, I won. He knew it but he would not give in ofcourse. I sat there for another 10 minutes before I was let go without any further words. This went smoothly... very smoothly! I was starting to think that all these corruption stories about Congo were overrated. Little did I know at that time... We actually bought insurance at the border. Not that we believe that it would be of any use in case of an accident. But just to avoid the bribes associated with not having any insurance. Next obstacle was the road tax for the short distance between the border and Lubumbashi. 50US$ for foreigners! I waited until a lorry was waiting at the barrier and then just drove past it and floored it. 50$ in the pocket :-) We are normally very principle about official (!!) taxes, we just pay them as they usually benefit the roads, etc.. . In this case it is known that all of the money for this road toll goes directly to Kinsahsa. Nothing ever returns to the maintenance of these roads, or anything remotely related to the province it is in. It shows: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum026.jpg |
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We arrived in Lubumbashi - "Capital du cuivre" (Capital of Coper) and were instantly stopped by the police. Checked all papers, checked vehicle, asked for "Un jus" (cold drink). Very pushy and aggressive. We got rid of them but two blocks further we got stopped again. Same story. This was getting tiring! We just stopped stopping altogether after a while. It was obvious that our white skin and strange number plates attracted a lot of unwanted attention! At the border we had been lucky to bump into a Belgian lady. She was living in Lubumbashi together with Soeur Bernadette, a Congolese "Maman" (literally translated = mother). She invited us to stay at her place. They lived in a lovely little villa called "Bonne Esperance". They take of orphans and constantly have 3 or 4 children living in the house. There was no room in the house, but we could stay in our rtt in the driveway. They were wonderful people, we really enjoyed staying there. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum042.jpg They also had no electricity when we where there. When we inquired about this (after all, this was central Lubumbashi) we were told about the odd system in Lubumbashi. Because the electricy factory is in such a bad state it cannot cope with the demand. Therefore there is always one area that gets no electricity. They change the area every week or so. The next few days we spent in Lubumbashi arranging all sorts of things. Money, Permits, information, ... The word went round quickly that Belgian tourists had arrived and our network of contact grew by the minute. Soon we were welcome guests in the Belgian Consulate and we moved to another house of Belgians working in Lubumbashi. They worked for CTB, the Belgian aid organisation. These contacts would prove extremely valuable during our trip. We also got in touch with the director of the big coper mine in Lubumbashi and were invited for a tour of the factory |
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Congo must be one of the richest countries in the world. They could have been the Dubai of Africa with what they have in the ground. Ever since their independance the biggest mining company in Congo is Gécamines. Once a hugely profitable company it is now only a shadow of its former self. Years of corruption and mismanagement have left Gécamines in a state of defacto bankrupt. All their mines are nothing more but ruins. Info about Gécamines: Gécamines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The ruins of these mines are now home to many "creuseurs". Usually young children who are digging in the remains of the mines for whatever is left. They work long days and have to give most of their profit to organised gangs. The mine in Lubumbashi also has a huge pile of mining waste. The pile is actually still so rich in cobalt and copper that a foreign company (Forest) is running a production factory. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum050.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum061.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum062.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum068.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum074.jpg And ofcourse the company car of the director was.. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum087.jpg |
A major showstopper for our trip was a Permit to travel trough Congo.
Nobody really knows what kind of permit one needs, let alone where to apply for it. But everybody agrees that a permit is required. Officially it has got something to do with the many mining areas to be crossed. We contacted the few people who have attempted travelling trough congo but they too never managed to get hold of the permit. One of these guys did get arrested and deported because he could not provide a permit. Our Belgian Consulate really tried hard to get this stupid little piece of paper for us, but to no avail. They even managed to get us invited with the governer of Katanga, but he too could not give it to us. After many days of trying we asked the consulate to give us some sort of official looking letter with an official looking stamp. We would chance it without the permit! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...-papers001.jpg The permit is on the right. It has no real value, it basicly says no more then "There are tourist from Belgium and they are travelling trough congo, please assist them in their travels". But then in official speak. On the left are copies of all sorts of other official documents. We had aout 30 copies of all of these. This is our DRC visa: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...-papers007.jpg It's time to hit the road! |
After leaving Lubumbashi one quickly arrives at yet another toll booth. 50$US again (!) for a short piece of horribly potholed tarmac. This time I stop the car a long end before the booth and walk to get my ticket. There is a big "queue" (read: a pile of people). I just stuck my arm trough the window without letting them see myself and give the equivalent amount for locals (1$US). They give me back a receipt and presto. Another 49$ saved!
The road starts out good http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum088.jpg But the asphalt soon stops and makes way for a graded dirt road. It is in pretty good condition. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum092.jpg We make good progress until we hit the end of a traffic jam. A seemingly endless series of big lorries stand still on the entire width of the road. We stop and are greeted with demands for "cadeaux", "un jus", etc... Mind you, these are not officials, they are just the truckdrivers. Josephine stays in the car while I walk to the front of the queue (a kilomter or so). In the valley there is a huge mud pit that just about swallowed an articulated lorry. This obviously happened quite some time ago. Next to it is another lorry stuck, leaning dangerously. Next to that one is yet another stuck lorry. And another, ... There are 5 lorries next to eachother. All stuck. This is now blocking the entire road. 20 man are digging away but when they see me they instantly stop and start shouting at me "Hé le Blanc!" "Mundele!' = mzungu "Le Blanc, Il va payer!" = The white guy, he is going to pay (if I want to pass) "Donner moi de l'argent" = Give me money There were about a 100 people on the side of road watching the spectacle and they started laughing at me and shouting all sorts of nasty things. This entire situation felt very treatening and I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. While walking back to Josephine some more friendly people talked to me. Apparantly they had been there for 4 days now without any movement. But they said small 4x4's could get past. Not without hesitation we started negotiating our way trough the parked trucks and around the mudpit. You could see that the crowd was just waiting for us to get stuck. Fortunately we got trough. Sorry, no pictures of this mess. The enviroment was just to hostile to start flashing expensive cameras. |
When we continued on the same road we would pass other smaller mudpits. These bogholes always had a "crew". When a truck arrived, they would throw in rocks so the truck could pass... for a fee ofcourse. After the truck passed they removed the rocks again. A lucrative occupation!
In our books this is just plain wrong and we refuse to support such behaviour. So we always charged trough in 4x4, hoping we would not get ourself stuck. We neared the first town: Likasi. At the town border we got stopped by an agressive bunch of policeman. They quickly made it clear that we did not have the necessary permit and therefore we were under arrest! Oops! 8O |
Superb travelogue! Looking forward to more (and more).
Mark |
Thanks Mark. It's always great to get some feedback. A pitty that this part of the hubb is so quiet.
|
We neared the first town: Likasi. At the town border we got stopped by an agressive bunch of policeman - 12 of them to be exactly. They quickly made it clear that we did not have the necessary permit and therefore we were under arrest!
Come to think of it. It is rather disturbing that I can say that I know what to do in such a situation. First thing to do is to remain calm and - politely - deny that you are under arrest. This may sound strange, but it is a simple test and always worked for me. If they are serious they will just take you to a police station. If they start discussing you know you'll be allright and they are trying to discriminate you but the goal is just to get a bribe. They started discussing. This was good. It was a heated discussion though and they clearly were not amused. It took us the best part of an hour to make them believe that our "official letter from the embassy" was a valid permit. They probably never saw a "tourist" permit before (does it even exist?) and we could tell they were not sure about their case. The official stamps did the trick. They turned their attention to the Landcruiser, checked al the lights, windscreen wipers, fire extinguisher (Yes, we had 2 8-) ), emergency triangle (Yes, we had 2 8-) ) and finally found a culprit: we only had 1 reversing light! I explained that in Belgium only 1 reversing light is obligatory (its true) and still refused to pay anything. Then things turned a bit ugly. Without a doubt they just wanted to make a quick buck from us and they were getting impatient. We heard somebody kicking the car, they started shouting and made it very clear that we are in Congo and that they were the boss here and we should listen and pay. They tried opening both doors at the same time (locked) and started shouting we were arrested and we had to go to the "police station". NOW! This was bad. No more room for negotiations. At all costs did we want to prevent ending up in a police station as that would mean bad news! As a final resort I called our embassy and they talked to the police officers. Their names and ranks were asked - which they refused to give. At the same time Josephine kicked into action. The people here that know Josephine can surely attest that although she is tough as nails, she is truly an incredible sweet girl. She got very angry at the police officers and got very cross. This made an impression. They kept us there for another half hour but lost interest eventually. Before we were let go one office said "Ce n'est pas la Belgique ici, tu es en Congo!" - "This is not Belgium, you are in Congo". He hissed and gave us a terrifying look With our adrenaline levels at maximum we continued into Likasi. We did not even drive for a full kilometer or we were stopped again by the police.. |
This time it was a jolly fat guy. He laughed when he stopped us, gave us a friendly hello and without skipping a beat continued that we had to pay a fine. "Malchargé" (badly loaded) he claimed. At the same time a truck passed with a dozen people hanging of the back.
That was the funniest thing we heard all day and we burst out laughing. He too joined in the laughing. Anyhow, back to reality so we just said goodbye and started to drive of. He jumped onto the driving boards and asked for "un jus" in a final attempt before letting go. The good gravel road continued for a short while after Likasi but continues to a mining town. That is ofcourse the reason that this road exists, the mine. The Route National 1 (RN1) - the highway to Kinshasa - forks of at a small village called Tenke. The track immediately changed in a sandy jungle track. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum096.jpg We passed a few small villages. No more trace of Police on this smaller road. What a relief! There was also barely any traffic. We helped a small truck that somehow managed to get stuck next to the road. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum100.jpg The road forked again a short while later at Tshilongo. The main track continued to other villages. The road we took was the RN1. It followed the railway and saw barely any traffic. Sandy and bumpy. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum105.jpg Our goal for our first day was the Catholic mission of Kansenia. About 250 km from Lubumbashi were we left at 7 in the morning. We were 20km away from Kansenia when the sun set at around 6. But we decided to push on. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum106.jpg It had rained a lot lately, but in the sand this caused no real problems. Until we hid some sort of a marsh. We passed many traces of other vehicles who got stuck here. The soil was very sticky pitch black cotton mud. We were tired and it was dark. We got stuck :roll: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum107.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum110.jpg 3 hours of digging. Sandpates, hi-lift, the whole lot. Sweating like a pig. We could barely hear eachother with all the insect buzzing around our ears. But we managed to get out. In the dark we were greeted by the priests in the mission. Before we could even say something they said "Il faut rien dire, on comprend!" - "No need to talk, we understand". They were friendly and gave us a bucket of water to wash in. We could park the car in their garden. We closed our tent at midnight. The adrenaline was still rushing trough our veins. |
Progress after 1 day of driving. This was supossed to be the easiest part of the entire trip. It would be the last day we would be able to cover that much distance on a single day.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day1.jpg |
Hi Guy's!
Great report! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to the next entrys! Werner |
Day 2
It's 6 in the morning when we hear a noise underneath our rooftop tent. It sounds like little kids giggling. It are little kids giggling! 15 of them are waiting under our tent. This is a spectacle they cannot miss. They try to be quiet but fail. We manage to stay in bed until 8 but sleeping is out of the question with all the noise. Prudence, Séraphin, Olette, Ami, Dombolo, Aimé, Yvette, Europa, Calence, … http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum113.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum114.jpg The mission is at the same time a (boarding) school. During our little muddy ordeal of the day before a bolt broke off from our wheelcarrier. We did not have a spare bolt of that size, but the mission had a lathe so they could make one for us. This had to wait until noon because then the generator would be running for an hour. We decided to have a rest day. That gave us plenty of time to reflect on the previous day. We like kids, but we were silently hoping they would have to go to class today so we could have some rest. Alas, it was a holiday so we were bombarded to babysitter for the day :roll: :wink: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum116.jpg The kids were just like kids everywhere, but somehow the begging had crept in already. They frequently asked for "cadeaux" and all sorts of other things. As is usual in many countries, the young girls have to take care of their littile sister from a very young age. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/lubum120.jpg |
The priests (Brothers actually) are nice guys. There are 4 of them, young and smart. All of them have studied in Lubumbashi or Kinshasa. After they finished the seminary they were sent to a mission. They cannot choose which one. We could hear the sadness in their voices when they told their stories.
They sampled the "world" when studying, they have a degree (one of them had a masters in engineering) and then they are sent to a mission. They know they will probably never have the chance again to live in a city. At the mission they take care of the kids, teach, etc.. A noble and rewarding job. But they carry all this knowledge that they cannot put in practice here. They have no computers, no tools, no electricity, no budget, ... Their living quarters were very comfy and clean for Congolese standards. They had a radio and a TV set. Because of their proximity to Lubumbashi they had a regular supply of newspapers. The priest-engineer was setting up a project to generate clean energy from a river. He had a recycling project. A radio project. An irrigation project, ... He had to run all these projects without any funds, without material. So many ideas, so little chances. They remained positive but you could see it in their eyes that they were sad. Without a doubt they would take the first opportunity to get out of there. It would be a great loss for the mission and the village but I couldn't blame them. In the way our talks went we thought we could hear them crying for help. To take them to Europe, to give them funds, to supply them with material. They did not speak these words, but to us it was clear that they really longed for those things. We were not able to provide this. It made us sad and we felt guilty. We thought about our experiences of the previous day. As mentioned before we always had this nervousness/anxiousness when going to a new country. Usually it dissapeared within minutes when we were welcomed by friendly people in a friendly country. We had been in Congo for a week now. Of which we only spent 1 day on the road. But the nervousness was still there. It seemed like so many Congolese tried their best to make us feel unwelcome. And the few friendly people we met made us feel totally out of place with their tragic stories. So many people expected that we would be able to help them. Could we stand it to keep dissapointing those people? We are just tourists passing trough.. it feels wrong. Was it wrong to come to Congo? Would it be like this for the rest of our trip? We are already exhausted after a single day on the road. The corruption, the roads... where we taking too many risks now? Never before on our travels did we have so many doubts about what we were doing. My motto always is "Better to be sorry about what you did, then to be sorry about you did not do". I am fortunate to have found a partner who thinks exactly the same. We made a deal: as soon as somebody 'had enough' we would turn around - no questions asked. We decided to push on, after all we have gotten this far already! |
Day 3
Our second driving day starts off great! In this area large areas are given in lease to cow farms. They are profitable organisations (mostly owned by foreigners) and maintain their own roads on their property. They can be used by the general public, although sometimes a fee is asked. As the main road is usually pretty horrible, we prefer the private roads. We make good progress on these beautiful sandy tracks. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina003.jpg We also pass a ruin of what once must have been a grand building. The walls are marked with logos from a Belgian University. This must have once been some scientific study centre of sorts. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina001.jpg |
Even though the road was good, it was still requierd to pay attention. Too slow and no 4x4 and..
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina006.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina009.jpg Stupid stupid stupid... but hey, it kept us busy for an hour! :roll: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina012.jpg At the end of the private road is a roadblock. No officials, but just some guy claiming we have to pay a toll fee. At that moment we did not know that this is generally accepted when you make use of the private roads. We were still a bit jumpy from our previous experiences with the police so we might have been a bit rude to the guy :oops: We got trough without paying :oops: He probably though we were completely nuts :wink: |
The difference between the private road and the RN1 was immediately clear. 2 kilometers further we got ourselves into this situation.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina013.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina017.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina019.jpg Bugger! Time to get the shovel out again... |
We were on a plain on top of a hill. It looked as if a B52 dropped a series of bombs. Huge craters everywhere. We could see another car in the distance.. we hadn't seen a car yet today. A lot of activity around the car, but no movement. Probably stuck as well.
We got out relatively fast only to get ourselves stuck in the next pit. The track between the craters was just to small and we slid into it. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina024.jpg We finally made it to the other car. It was a Landcruiser (ofcourse ;-) ) from an aid organisation. We did not talk much, we exchanged some road information and we let them use us as an anchor to winch them out. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina026.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina030.jpg They declared us crazy that we were planning to drive to Kin... nobody does that. But apparantely after the crater field the roads improves a bit, but it remains "très dur" - "Very hard". |
We passed a few interesting settlements. One village in particular struck me as extremely fascinating. It had a big boulevard with grand buildings on both sides. Everything was in a horrible state, but it must have been a prestigous place before. The same village had a big roundabout with remains of fountain. There was a walled compound (with little wall remaining ) with a church and something that must have been a monastery.
So many interesting things. I would have loved to walk around here, explore, try to find out what it all was. But we couldn't. Stopping would mean that an instant crowd would form and it would be a question of minutes before all the town's officials would be there. Asking for permits and generally demanding money. We didn't even take pictures whilst driving trough. I could kick myself for it now! Not only is this country rich in raw materials, it also rich in history, nature, etc... it has all the reasons why tourist would pay prime tourist $dollars$. But that will not happen anytime soon for sure.. :cry: Not all is bad though. Occasionally (and I must admit, it was a rare event) we meet nice people. Like this guy on his bike. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina036.jpg He stopped to say hello. He was a well educated person who previsouly worked as an accountant for a big company. The company is no longer there so now he survives like everybody else by trading a few things. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina038.jpg He was a good example of the older generation. Theygrew up in a prosperous (relative) Congo and have seen it go downhill. They still have the pride every person should have. The younger generation grew up in disastrously f*cked up country and lack the pride. Why should they, they know they do not get any chances? It is that old generation that longs back to the colonial time. They acknowledge there were a lot of problems in that period and that they were discriminated by the white colonisator. But at least they had a functional country. They had roads and schools. They had jobs and could buy supplies. And above all, there was stability. Now there is nothing but uncertainty.. waiting for the next war to start. |
The next 20 or so kilometer the road was better.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina039.jpg There is virtually no 4 wheeled traffic here, so no tracks exists. It is just a cleared out area in the bush. Usually with some eroded ruts to make it interesting. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina041.jpg We were pushing it a bit. We had been fighting with the road all day long without any real pauses. It was getting late and we were hoping to reach Luena today, where we know a Belgian brother was living in a catholic mission. We were pushing it a bit too hard I guess and made a mistake. We normally always walk difficult bit before driving it. This time I thought it would be ok. The ground looked unstable but I was sure I could make it trough by taking enough speed. I did not know, however, that a huge rock was blocking the track just behind a curve. I had to stop and we instantly sunk in. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina042.jpg |
We were tired by now, it was getting late again. I was angry with myself because I made this stupid mistake. And I fell sorry for Josephine as she offered - as usual - to check the road out before driving trough. This could have been prevented.
We got the shovel out and starting working. 5 minutes. That is how long it took before the first people arrived. It quickly grew to a crowd of about 10 people. I was digging to get the sandplate underneath one of the wheels. To reach the right spot I had to lay flat down underneath the car in the mud. I was eating mud everytime I dug. Josephine at the same time was dugging underneath another wheel. "Donnez moi de l'argent" - "Give me money" someone asked 1st time, a second time. The third time he asked I was getting annoyed - understatement of the year ;-). I dropped my shovel and tried to get up. In doing so I bumped my head hard on the front axle (I was under the car in the mud, remember). *Laughter* I bit my thong and kept on digging. "Donnez moi de l'argent" Josephine asked the mob why they were asking us money "Vous êtes blanc" - "You are white" This conversation wouldn't lead anywhere useful... :roll: She told them that we had our own problems, that there would be no way that we would give them any money, and that it would be appreciated to just leave us alone as they were not really helping by talking to us while we were digging. They heard the magic word "help". help is usually associated with reward. So they offered to help us... but only if they would be paid for it. Now, we have our pride and can be very stubborn. When I take risks I know things can go wrong, and if necessary I will fix it on my own. So I told them they were free to help us, but only if they wanted to really help us. I made it very clear that I was not letting me blackmail into this. We returned to digging and they stood there and looked. We did several attempt of trying to drive out, without much succes. More digging was required. Finally somebody took the intiative and offered to help out. I told him I was not going to pay and he agreed. It took another hour to liberate ourselves. I offered the people that voluntarily helped some money to show my gratitude. That is just the right thing to do. They accepted but wanted more. We drove off... |
We lost a lot of time and we only had 20 minutes of daylight left. Our goal for that day - The mission in Luena - was another 50kilometers away. We would not make it. We would have to stay in a village
Quote:
We parked the car and got out. They offered us two chairs and asked us to sit. So we did. It was completely dark by now but almost full moon so we could see eachother well. And there we were: sitting on a chair with 400 eyes looking at us. Nobody talked to us, they just looked. You could hear people talking to eachother and pointing at us... usually followed by some giggling. These people obviously had no idea what was happening to them. Neither did we 8O The town's officials arrived and wanted to see our papers and we had to "register". They were friendly but very confused about what to do. We asked if we could have some water to wash ourselves which they immediately fetched... it was even warm! And we even got a bar of soap! But there was sill 200 man staring at us... . We hid behind the car and tried to wash us as good as possible. It started raining. A father approached us with a kid. The kid instantly started crying when he saw us. The father told us the kid had never seen a white person before. A few more kids were brought in to have them see the great mystery of white skin. Although we were hungry, this did not seem the best place to get our cooking gear out, so we smugled a packet of biltong and some biscuits up in the tent and went to sleep. The crowd stayed for a long time after we dissapeared in our tent. That night it rained hard. Our tent had developped some leaks. Every few minutes we could feel drops splashing on our body.. |
Our progress on our second day of driving (in blue)
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day3.jpg |
Day 4
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/akamina043.jpg Small eyes... dirty t-shirt. We got up with the first light at 5. We have a custom that we pay the equivalent of the price of a campsite if we can stay with somebody, so we paid our dues to the priest and we were off. The entire village waved us out and the kids tried to keep up with us for as long as they could. Staying in villages is great for security. People are friendly. But boy-oh-boy forgot about privacy! I slept ok, no surprise as I was exhausted. Josephine did not sleep very well. The adrenaline. The leaking tent didn't help either. We stopped a few kilometers down the road to make some breakfast. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina044.jpg I wasn't hungry. The adrenaline. For a moment Josephine thought about stopping and returning to Lubum. The last few days were really hard and we were still a veeeery long way from Kinshasa. As agreed before we would not try to convince eachother to push on. She contemplated the situation for half an hour with a warm tea. She is no quiter, she wanted to continue! She is my Josephine! 8-) :cheers: We were sucked into Congo. Deeper and deeper. |
thanks
Hi Fred, Josephine,
Unique story, heard about it from Jean and Hannelie when they were here some 2 year ago i believe, they visited you too right? You are probably one of the very few who made this trip, if not the only one! I do recognize some of the problems, we crossed the congo's following the coast line after some heavy rains! The ruts, mud pools, vegitation, the missions, the people, the barriers on the road, no idea whats around the corner, pushing it to get to the next village or mission before dark! Then it was sometimes nerve wrecking but once were back in civilisation I started missing it somehow :) Our trip through the west part was only couple of days or so, nothing like your trip. Chapeau! Keep on posting! :thumbup1: Noel exploreafrica.web-log.nl |
Fantastic
Excellent trip report. Please keep the updates coming...
|
Hi Noel, yes it is a small world. J&H honoured us with a visit too. It seems like yesterday.
About the trip: I am sure we are not the first/only one. There are so many people that do not post anything on the Internet. But I am sure there are very very few that did this traject. It has a reason ofcourse... We talked to many people on the road, and nobody could remember anybody who passed trough going all the way from Lubum to Kin. Thanks Zeroland. |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina052.jpg
We were still aiming for Luena. The road was ok but had lots of water in so called "flaques d'eau" - "Puddles". Often the road would be completely immersed. It could be less then 1 cm deep, but it might as well be 1 meter deep. We (I :oops: )had learned my lesson from yesterday so we really stopped before every obstacle. Josephine did the recce. And then we continued... carefully. It took a lot of time, but getting stuck takes a lot more time. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina068.jpg We came across another vehicle. Every vehicle we saw in the last few days was stuck it seems. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina046.jpg They were on their way to Kananga. Same directions as us. They had bought the vehicle in Lubumbashi but did not have the money to transport to Kananga, so they decided to drive. They were pretty deseperate by now as their "new" car getting damaged by the road and it took them much longer then anticipated. We would pass eachother a few times. We never knew if they made it to their destination. There is no trough traffic at all on this traject. All transport in the area is done by train. There is an old colonial trainline between Lubumbashi and Kananga. All transport is done via this train or by air. All in all it was a plesant day. Sun was shining (that's good because it dries out the roads), no major problems with police, and above all: it was the first day since we entered congo that we did not get ourselves stuck! What a feature! 8-) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina053.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina059.jpg We left at 5 this morning and arrived in Luena at 14:30. 50 km's covered. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina058.jpg |
We had received the contact details from Frère Louis via our connections in Lubumbashi. We had already called him, but unfortunately he was not home. He was at the main mission post in Kamina for some meetings. He was kind enough to inform his own mission that we were coming and to let us stay there.
And so we had a leisurely afternoon at his mission. We must say that at first we were a bit dissapointed. Thus far the missions were havens of peace and quiet. Were things were functional (sometimes) and clean (sometimes). Not so at the home of Frère Louis. He lived like the Congolese lived... in a rundown building without any comfort. He had a bathroom that hadn't seen a brush in ages,.. . It struck us as a bit odd, but later we would understand that Frère Louis is one of these rare people that does not care about himself, but only about the others. We would meet Frère Louis later on this trip and everything would become clear then. He was well organized though. He was the only one in town with transportation http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina060.jpg He uses this truck to get supplies from Lubumbashi to all of the project he is running in the area. The big wheels, the portle axles and the huge winch make it a capable bundybasher. It is expensive to run (fuel) so it does not see much action. He had two of these.. but one was broken. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina061.jpg |
While we were there several people came to visit. Among them was a friendly older lady. She had beautiful (homemade) clothes. She was responsible for the orphanage that was run by Frère Louis.
Her name was Henriette Raman Kitwa Jujinga. What a lovely name it is. She told us a bit of what she did. I can no longer remember how many orphans they had, but it was enormous! She also said that there were many many more orphans that they could not help. She invited us to visit the orphanage and suggested that maybe we could help. We declined :( Our moral was low already, we were exhausted and above all we knew that they would ask us for all sorts of things we could not give to them. The only thing we would have left behind would be dissapointment. I am looking at her phone number now in Josephines notes. I wonder how she is doing.. :( |
Progress after 4 days since we left Lubumbashi. Of which we drove 3
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day4.jpg |
Day 5
It rained again last night. The rainy season had really started now. Our tent is leaking badly. It seems as if every second raindrop just falls straight trough. Our mattres, pillow, etc... are all soaked. During the day it is hot and sticky. Too humid to let it all dry out. Mould is starting to form on our mattress now. Not nice.. Shortly after Luena we have to cross the Lubidi river. We were told there is a bridge, and indeed. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina062.jpg This would have been the end of our trip if the bridge hadn't been there http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina063.jpg The bridges were something we were very concerned about upfront. Congo has a lot streams and rivers and we knew the roads had not seen maintenance in many many years. If a bridge broke down, that could be a major problems. Up until now however we did not have any problems with the bridges. Some of the smaller bridges might have been dodgy, but all of them were passable. Most of the large bridges were fortunately made out of steel and in reasonably good nick. Take the bridge we just crossed for example. I find it amazing that is still there. Numerous armies have crossed the Congo in the last 20 years, chasing their enemies down to the capital. Now, I am not a military expert, but if my army was losing terrain to the enemy army and I have to retreat. The one thing I would certainly do was blow up all bridges after me. Had it happened but was the damage so small that it could easily be repaired? Or did they just not bother? Or did they lack the explosives and time to actually blow it up? Who knows.... but at least the outcome is good for us now! After the bridge was a long climb on a hill. The road was filled with rocks the size of small cars. Josephine had to guide me trough in 1st gear low. Very technical driving. All of a sudden we hear somebody approaching. Running. He does not even look at us and speeds past us. A few seconds later another young guy speeds past us. We stop briefly to check out what is chasing them but cannot see anything. This is odd... very odd. Congolese man are strong and explosive. But the only time we've seen prove of their strength is when they are working. We had never seen a Congolese run... just for the fun of it. We continued slowly and started to get worried when more men hurried past us. Something was up. |
Do you have the GPS logs for the route you took?
Thanks, |
Quote:
But I did not do anything with it as of when I copied it out of my GPS. I'll have to clean up and hopefully all is there. I will post whatever I have after this report is finished. |
The efforts of the rocky climb were paid of with a beautiful view. We rarely had an overview of the landscape we were driving trough as there were walls of jungle on both sides of the roads. Luena can be seen below.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina065.jpg The road immediately went down again. Fortunately the road was in better condition. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina066.jpg At the bottom of the hill, were water would accumulate, there was a boghole. The "runners" were there too. We could have guessed it. They looked happy. We gave them a hello and started exploring the possibilities. There were 3 routes that could lead trough the hole. The runners were quick to point out that we had to take the rightmost route. They claimed it was the best route and we would have no problems going trough there. We did not even try to walk it, it was obviously the worst of the three options. Driving in there would mean we would get stuck. Not for hours, but for days. We ignored their "advice" and started wading trough the other two options. The middle route had water up to chest height, but the underground was relatively solid. The left route was very muddy. It was not a very long patch of mud but we would have to drive on an angle and risked sliding sideways in the deep water. A tree was seperating the middle and the left route. Left seemed like the best way to go. Once we made intentions to clear the left route of sticks one of the runners got really angry. His face turned red and he shouted. he was really upset that we did not ask them to help us. After all, "we were rich and we could pay them to help us trough". We asked him why he was so surprised that we did not want to trust him with the duty of helping us trough after they had clearly given us false advice at first. The "runner" now got really upset and shouted even louder, gesticulating wildly. He seemed so convinced that we did wrong to him that we thought he was about to start fighting with us. He threw a whole lot of arguments at us that did not make sense at all. This was nothing short of extortion. This is how corruption crept into normal life here. These were not officials making abuse of their power, this was a normal guy who wanted a piece of the cake that he strongly believed was his. We got really mad at everything he said, but did not react. We were not in a position to make enemies there. The obstacle ahead of us made it quite likely that we would get ourselves stuck. We needed friends, not enemies. But we don't pay people to be our friends. We chanced it. Josephine walked across first and gave me directions. I slowly entered the mudpit in 1st low and creeped forward. There was very little traction and I started to slide sideways into the deep water. In a normal situation, this would the point that you stop, and reverse out again. And then try to build a dam to stop you sliding sideways and try again. But I could feel the the eyes of the angry runner in my back. I wanted to get out of here. Now! I floored it. Mud flying everywhere. Sliding sideways I made it far enough not to slide in the deep water but hit the tree in the middle hard on the side of the car. The tree kept us upright and we plowed trough. I could feel my hart beating wildly. Adrenaline pumping trough my veins. Josephine hopped in the car and we drove off. She was equally pumped up and we roared out our excitement. We couldn't care less about the dent. We didn't look back at the runners when we dissapeared in the jungle. How did a simple obstacle like this become such a nerve wrecking experience? |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina072.jpg
The goal for this day was Kamina. The central Franciscan mission for the Katange provice is there. Progress was slow but no major problems were had. Most of the road lead trough dense jungle. Great for a short while, but it's not like you get a chance to enjoy the scenery. We passed many bogholes and had to be on the constant lookout of obstacles. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina074.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina075.jpg Erosian can do strange things... sometimes it even creates a perfect piste! These bits were short but it was great to use third gear for a change! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina077.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina078.jpg In the dense forest we often bumped into things. We accumulated small dents. Our bullbar also took a good hit when drove into a cut off tree that was hidden in the bushes. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina087.jpg |
As said, there is no trough traffic. Everything is done by train or air. Trucks are sometimes used to transport goods to area that are further away of the railline. They usually run on a fixed traject between settlements. They never venture further.
It is also a seasonal activity. They drive until the rainy season starts and the roads become impossible. This was the start of the rainy season. We came across a stuck truck (can you see the constant here... every vehicle we pass is stuck :wink: ). They were offloading the load onto bicycles. There are very few trucks here, and none of them wanted to take the risk to pull him out now that the rainy season had started. The truck would be here for several months until the mudpit he was in would dry out. Upon seeing us they got a bit excited and asked for all sorts of things. Whiskey and mobile phones mostly. That was a welcome (?) change from the usual demands for "Un jus" or money. They also asked for water and we poured water from our own bottles into their bottles. We had to throw away our bottles afterwards because of the horrible smell of cheap whiskey that came out ouf their bottles. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina076.jpg |
Approaching Kamina we could see people were dressed better. They actually waved to say hello. We saw kids in school uniforms. We were nearing a major town.
We rolled into Kamina and had a warm welcome by several "frères" (Brothers), among them Frère Louis, the belgian brother that hosted us in Luena. The other frères were Croatian. They all have their missions deep in the brousse, but this week they had their annual gettogether. The missions was big and well organized. They had all the facilities, even a workshop. They were responsible for almost everything functional in Kamina. Churches, school, farms, factories, ... They had several trucks and each brother had his own 4x4 to sevice their mission. In these circumstance only 1 vehicle is considered. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina085.jpg The 40 series was discontinued and no longer had an engine. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina084.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina083.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina086.jpg |
The last few times we started the engine we could hear the batteries were having a hard time turning around the starter motor. Upon checking we noticed that the alternator was shot. The batteries would have 1 or 2 more starts in it, but then it would be finished.
This couldn't have happened in a better place ofcourse. The mechanics from the missions dismantled the alternator and found the brushes to be worn down. Spares were ofcourse not at hand, but they found an alternator from a broken down hilux and used those brushes. It worked perfectly. Up until now this fixed alternator is still in our Landcruiser. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina079.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/547/kamina081.jpg The guys in the workshop were really friendly and extremely proud of their jobs. Nice people! We felt like we were in heaven at the mission. Everybody was friendly, we had the opportunity to take our first shower since leaving Lubumbashi. And they had beer! Yeah! :) That night we talked for hours with Frère Louis. Our little adventures here dissapear in the nothing compared to everything he went trough. He had been in DRC for over 40 years, he stayed during all the wars. He had to abandon everything and run for his live three times as teams were sent out to kill him. But he always returned. Many books could be filled with his adventures. He is also responsible for most of the bridges Katanga. He build hundreds of bridges himself. He has a small working budget from Franciscans, but he funds most of it all by himself. He has put every last penny in the Congolese people. That is why his house in Luena was so rundown. He also told us about the Mayi-Mayi rebels that still roam the jungle. We were not prepared for the horror stories we would hear. I still have problems giving these stories a place. They are not just stories though, he gave us a 100 page document with his interviews of victims. If you thought, like us, that cannibalism was something that belonged in comic books and dusty museums about Africa. You are wrong. :cry: A few excerpts from his document.. |
Fred,
You bugger. I'm meant to be replacing the head gasket on the KTM and packing the jeep for next weeks desert trip. Now I'm going to spend most of the day checking for the next installment. Keep it coming. Hi to Jos. |
It's alive! :clap: Hi James !
Don't even think I am feeling guilty from keeping you from your work. Especially as you mentioned you are going on yet another dessert trip while I am still stuck in rainy Belgium. :devil: Hope all is well with you & Lee. |
I was not sure if I was going to post this installment, but I feel it is an important part of our experience in Congo. Nevertheless:
WARNING !!! If you are a sensitive person, skip this post. You can continue reading the rest of the report and you will not even notice you did not read this post. It contains background information on DRC but it is pretty horrific to read and not for the faint hearted. So, some excerpts out the witness stories Frère Louis gathered. The reports are mixed in Dutch and French. I will quote them and (freely) translate into English, apologies if I make mistakes. I removed the names from the documents for privacy reasons. 20/04/2002 (this is during the "Second Congo War" : Second Congo War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
21/04/2006 Quote:
Quote:
-- I just selected some random pages of the 131 page long document and copied these excerpt. It is an endless accumulation of horror witness reports. All of this happened on a large scale, and only covers the area where Frére Louis operates in. When the war ended (+- 2002) most of these activities stopped in this area. The May-may retreated north where they are still operational (the East Congo drama... still going on). These things were regularly going on until 2 years before we drove trough the area. It was still very fresh in the memory of everybody we must have met on the road. This also explains the huge amount of orphans in these areas. -- Let's put this in a bit of perspective: Frère Louis told us some of these stories while we were sitting in the comforts of the Kamina mission. He told the stories as if it was a daily occurance.. and that was actually the case indeed. At that moment we were shocked, but thought this was something of the (distant) past. And it was - at least in this area. It is only until after the trip, when we started reading his document, that we started to comprehend the large scale of the massacres that had been going on here. We were here in 2008. The last reports of cannibalism in this area were from 2006. All of the people we met in the DRC must have been confronted, one way or another, with these horrible events. I never heard anything about this in the international news |
Damn, I made a mistake in my report and skipped a day. Apologies. After our little ordeal with the "runners" we actually struggled on until we reached Kabondo Dianda.
So, Our progress after day 5 was: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day5.jpg And now after day 6 we got to Kamina (75km from Kabondo Dianda... takes a full day of driving) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day6.jpg So, the corrected overview is: Day 1: Kansenia Day 2: Rest day Kansenia Day 3: Unknwon village Day 4: Luena Day 5: Kabondo Dianda Day 6: Kamina Sorry :oops: |
We stayed another day (day 7) in Kamina and talked for hours with Frère Louis and got ourselves organized again.
Day 8 Our stay in the mission in Kamina was really great. We got our alternator fixed, had great conversations with the brothers, drank as much beer as we wanted and had some good food. We even managed to dry out our tent. When we wanted to leave we wanted to pay for the repairs, the accomodation and the beer but they refused. They were so happy to have visitors. Genuinely great people, the fathers Franciscan at Kamina. They have my greatest respect! We were invited to join breakfast and received lots and lots of information on the roads that we would be taking in the next days. They never drive all the way to Kananga (next big town), but they know all the roads and backroads in the area. Not surprising, as most of them were built by them. It's funny how a brother in a white gown explains the best way how to take certain obstacles and which gears to use. They must have been one of the most experienced 4x4 drivers in Africa! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga001.jpg The landscape opened up a bit. Until now we were mostly driving trough jungle forest. Now we entered a more steppe-like area. The road was still mostly sandy, with muddy patches in between. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga003.jpg We approached another big farm(ranch?). The Route National went around the farm but was in a horrible state. The farm had a network of excellent dirt roads that could bypass a large part of the RN1. We were stopped at a "toll booth" but upon mentioning that we were friends of the Fathers we can pass for free. We travel fast now, great little sandy tracks trough the steppe. Yihaa! Until we reach the next obstacle... one we did not expect! |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga011.jpg
I can see you thinking... what the * is that? That were pretty much our thoughts too. We were still on the private roads of the farm. The alternative, the RN1, was really horrible, so whomever needed to pass trough here preferred to take the private roads, even if that meant paying a fee. But the farm wanted to prevent trucks from taking their roads, as they erode the sandy tracks and destroy them. The road led trough a large marsh and spot in the middle they build that "thing". It was about 2,4meter high. Great way of preventing trucks from passing. But with our rooftop tent on we were about 2,6meter high. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga004.jpg Tough luck... |
It was midday. The sun was particularely fierce today and we had little shade. Returning to the RN1 was not really an option for us. We checked out the area and driving around it was no option either.
We started by digging into the ground underneath the construction. It was well thought out as the base was a metal plate. We cleared the plate of all ground... another 5mm won :roll: The tyres were let down to 0,5 bar but we were still too high. We opened the rooftoptent and removed the mattres, pillows, ... . http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga007.jpg The front cleared now, but the back of the car was still too high. We let out all of the remaining air out of tyres (0bar)... still no go :? So I climbed on the roof and Josephine took the wheel. We counted to three and I jumped on the roof while Josephine moved forward for a few centimeter at a time. And counted to 3 again, etc... It scraped a bit, but it worked. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga010.jpg Once we passed we got the compressor out to inflate the tyres again. I really did not want to damage the tyres here! First tyre, Ok, switches the hose to the second tyre and then *poof* the compressor died. :tantrum: These kind of things really eat at you. Patience is virtue, but when you are trying to move forward so desperately you really don't want a compressor to die! Checked the fuse, checked cabling, checked overheat protection. Everything look allright?? This is the moment were you kick a tree (it hurts) out of frustration. We had three flat tyres and we only had two spares. We needed that compressor! So in the midday heat I started to dismantle the compressor. The compressor was bolted on the roof, so I had to work on the roof... no shade there.. |
Don't you just hate it when that happens?!!
Thanks 2cvfred, I'm glued to this every day when I get home. Keep it coming |
The problem with the compressor was electrical. A cable inside the compressor worked itself loose. As expected it was that one cable that is almost impossible to reach. :twisted: Eventually we got it fixed, managed to inflate the tyres, put everything in the RTT again and we could continue.
3 hours wasted to cross an obstacle that isn't supposed to be an obstacle... :O Of all the problems we had in Congo, this was the most ridiculous one :roll: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga008.jpg Stupid Belgians! (-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cockerill_%26_Cie. ) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga016.jpg We continued trough grassy fields.... which were on fire! 8O At the beginning of the rainy season/ end of the harvest they burn their fields but they did have some issues with the firecontrol I must say. We were just hoping that we wouldn't drive straight into a fire. For the next hours we saw nothing at all really... http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga018.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga019.jpg Also note the total lack of tyre tracks on these pistes. The only tracks that exist are bicycle tracks. |
It took somewhat longer then expected, but we reached our goal of the day. The missions of Father Stoïn in Kimpanga. One of the Croatian fathers we met in Kamina.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga022.jpg His church was still smelling like new! The inside was still a work in progress. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga023.jpg Upon arrival in 'his' village all of the children ran to meet us. They sang and danced. What a welcome! Although I wished they wouldn't have danced on our wheelcarrier... :roll: A big crowd followed us trough the village and onto the mission. Father Stoïn must have been a popular guy. We did our talks with the village people (happy people!) and were already getting scared that this would once again be one of those zero-privacy nights. Father Stoïn had given us a letter for Jean-Marie, the 'housekeeper' of the mission. It was a multi page letter, probably with all kinds of instructions. One of these instructions must have been that we were to be left alone. Jean Marie talked to the crowd and told them that we were very tired and needed rest. The crowd accepted that and went home. We parked our car in the compound of the mission, with a beautiful view over the hilly landscape. For the first time since we entered Congo we had a night for ourselves. We cooked up an improvised spagetti and opened up one of our 'emergency beers'. God, what a magnificently beautiful place this was. Complete with the sound of drums in the distance. Father Stoïn, you have our eternal gratitude! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga020.jpg |
Progress after Day 8 on the road. In Kimpanga.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day8.jpg |
Day 9
Today would be a bit of a step into the unknown. Until now we were still in the Katanga province, we had excellent contacst with the Franciscans that operate here, but they do not operate in the Kasai province. Also, the only person we had found that had travelled these road was an Israeli guy wo attempted to cross Congo a few years ago. He got arrested at the border between Katanga and Kasai because he did not have a permit and got deported. He had to fly out from Mbuji Mayi. Today we too would cross the border into Kasai. We only had a vague contact in Mbuji-Mayi, but nothing in between here and Mbuji-Mayi, and nothing afterwards either as a matter of fact. This made us a bit more nervous as usual I must say... The deeper we got into Congo, the less traffic there was. It's been days since we saw another vehicle on the road. Roads were getting more and more overgrown. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga024.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga027.jpg We like to think that the scenery here was fantastic... but we can't tell as we did not see much today.. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga029.jpg |
Progress was slow and we had to stop numerous times to inspect bridges.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga030.jpg You cannot tell from this picture, but the iron beam underneath the iron plate was broken in two. We had to drive next to the plate. On the far side this meant we only had half a tyre on the bridge. We were a well oiled team by now. The procedure was always the same. We both got out to inspect the bridge and decide on a traject. Josephine would give directions and I drove over. It usually took no longer then 15 minutes. In most cases we did not bother taking pictures, a shame because there we some beauties of bridges there ;-) All in all we were very happy with the bridges we encountered as most were made of steel. We still had some bad memories from the wooden bridges in the 'other' Congo (Congo-Brazzavile) when we crashed trough a bridge last year http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...ntenoire84.jpg |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga032.jpg
There are many bridges here and the road barely exists. We start to get difficulties with the erosion. For kilometers on end we drive at angles of 25° to 30°. We have to take it very very slowly http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga033.jpg At one of the "flaque d'eau" I think it is not necessary to walk it first. I drive in with a bit of speed and our right side sinks away deeply. Water came in via the right window and the left wheels were of the ground, spinning wildly and giving us a mud shower trough the left window. I have the good reflex to steer into the pit.. we barely manage to stay upright. The interior of our car, ourselves included, are covered in mud. Great! It was getting late and we started making mistakes again... time to stop before it gets dark. We did not make it into Kasai province today after all... |
We stopped in the first village. A car in the village.. with white people in it. Now that is an attraction ofcourse. And if they are covered in mud from head to toe it is even more interesting.
I do not have to explain we drew a bit of a crowd? But people were actually quite nice. They offered us to use their shower (a tree with a mud wall before it and a bucket) and after an hour or so they actually left us alone. Later that evening some kind of custom officer came to see us. He wanted to see our permits and whatnot. We kindly told him to bugger off and come back tomorrow. Surprisingly, it worked. Next day we were gone before he came back ;-) As soon as it got dark we got into our tent and looked outside. We could see several fires in the village were people would gather around and sing and dance (mostly women). Small groups of men were having discussions. Peaceful village. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga035.jpg The village chief (on the right ;-) ) |
Progress after Day 9. In an unknown village just before the Katanga/Kasai border
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...c_map-day9.jpg |
Day 10
The border of the Katange province and Kasai is at the Lubilanji river. A big river with a big bridge. We dare not take pictures here as "border" zones are considered of military importance and it is an excellent reason to get arrested. Surprisingly there is no checkpoint at the bridge... There is a hut, but it was not manned. Instead they seemed to have moved their checkpoint closer to their base a few kilometers down the road. It is a torough check. Police, Army, Customs, .. They check it all. Insurance, permit, etc... We manage to bluff us trough the permit issue again. When they run out of excuses to fine us, they just give up and plainly ask us for money. "Just because". We refuse ofcourse. It takes over an hour, we get angry a few times, we flatter them a few times, ... The usual. In the end they are angry but let us go. We were afraid of Kasai and their people. They have the reputation of being hot tempered people. But until now they seem to be much more relaxed then the people in Katanga. |
It's a long driving day again and when we finally arrive in Mwene-ditu we are knackered. We try to find a mission to stay in. Mwene-ditu is large city, it has cars and is an important stop on the railroad. It also feels like a very dodgy place.
Some of the streets resamble an extreme 4x4 course. Extreme erosion mixed with open sewers. We manage to find a catholic missions that wants to take us in. We can park in their compound, but the street in front of their gate is eroded away. There is 3 meter level ground in front the gate and then a 3 meter deep pit. It takes a 1000turn manouvre to get us in. The roads simply aren't made for cars here. (They used to..) We have a few hours of daylight left and we get to check the car. The protective plate underneath the gearbox is badly dent and hanging half loose. A few extra dents and lots of scratches. Could be worse I guess. We also noted that we are starting to get low on fuel. With our 270liter onboard we hoped to do at least 1500km, that should have gotten us to Mbuji Mai were we were sure there was Diesel. It is only 120km to Mbuji Mayi from here, but with what we have it might be a close shave. Our consumption was in excess of 20l/100km. We do not want to risk it, so we try to buy some diesel here. We saw there was a big depot at the railroad. We ask for advice with the local father. He warns us that if we were to go ourselves, the prices would be at least double because of our white skin. He offers to buy it for us. We are a bit hesitant but we give him 80$US. That should buy us 40 liters of diesel. The father dissapears for a few hours (!) and returns with two 20 liter jerrycans. He wanted to immediately pour it in our tanks but I wanted to check the diesel first. The smell was funny... not very diesel like. It had a red/brown colour and lots of debri. This was not diesel. It might contain a bit of diesel, but it was mixed with something else. This was a very difficult situation as we suspected the father to try to fool us into buying this stuff and making a buck. But at the same time he was our host. In the end we refused the "diesel" and he gave us back our money. But he did not return the jerrycans. A very strang situation. We did not feel at ease. Maybe we are starting to get paranoid? |
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Day 11
When we are leaving Mwene-Ditu the next morning we are stopped by a manifestation. It is a burial. A body is carried in the front of the large group of people. Behind it are weeping women and shouting men. Some of the youngsters are pumped up and when they spot us they draw their attention to us. We are not sure why they were angry at us, but we did not stay around to ask them. We get stopped again at a police checkpoint. They ask us to pay the "Tax provincial". There is no such thing and we explain it them. They are the sleazy kind of police and our discussions are getting nowhere. They keep asking for money and make some discriminating comments towards us. After half an hour of this I lose it. "J'EN AI MARRE" - "I'VE HAD ENOUGH" I shout so loud that even Josephine looks scared at me. She would later tell me that my eyes had turned as red as my face and that I looked very, very dangerous. Complete and utter silence follows for a few minutes. After which one of the police officers asks me for money again. Luckily one of the other officers was more impresed by my shouting and had opened the gate. We blasted off. I was really starting to get sick of getting extorted by every one we met. I hadn't returned to normal before we were stopped again. This time it was a toll booth. The usual cadeaux/jus were asked to which I replied in a not so polite manner. The actual toll we had to pay. Foreigners had to pay 10 times the fee of the Congolese. I got out of the car and told them what I thought about corruption in Congo and why I thought nothing was working here. A 10 minute monologue. They were not impressed but I was happy I got it of my heart. We paid the stupid tax. It was an official thing and we got a receipt. Between Mwene-Ditu and Mbuji-Mayi there is an asphalt road! :D http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga038.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga042.jpg So, why is there an asphalt road in the middle of Congo? Not connected to the rest of the road system (due to lack of road system). There reason is simple: Diamonds. This is the main diamond center of Congo. This has attracted many people ofcourse, but the local people barely benefit of the natural wealth of the region. Officially it is the third largest city of Congo, after Kinshasa & Lubumbashi. Although by now it is probably the second largest city with over 2 million inhabitants. It also a politically important region. Most of the recent political problems start here. When Mbuji-Mayi "blows" the rest of the country usually follows shortly after. The diamong mining companies ofcourse need transport. Most is done via air, but the heavy supplies (fuel) are brought in by train. The nearest train station is in Mwene-Ditu. Hence the tar road between Mwene-Ditu and Mbuji-Mayi. It makes a great place to walk on... few cars in the area, so there is little traffic. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga044.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga049.jpg |
As mentioned before, problems in Congo usually start here, in Mbuji-Mayi. It has the reputation of "une ville chaud" - "a hot town / a heated town". Were hot refers to both the climate, as to the atmosphere. Literally everybody we met told us to avoid the city if at all possible. It should be home to some of the worst police and is generally considered unsafe.
It is true that the climate is really hot and sticky. Tropical climate at its best. The humidity seems to drive everybody nuts. But we needed fuel. Via the friends we made in Lubumbashi we had the phone number of a Belgian guy who works here in Mbuji-Mayi for CTB (Belgian aid). We don't know him, and he does not even know we exist. We gave him a call and explained the situation. He agreed to help us out and we were supposed to meet eachother a the filling station in the center of town. The atmosphere in Mbuji-Mayi is impossible to describe. It seems like nobody here has normal discussions. Only heated discussions. You can hear it in their voice, as if they are constantly angry at each other. We saw a few fights when driving trough town. We negotiated a dozen or so police checks before we arrive at the Total filling station. It's the first real 'pump' we see since leaving Lubumbashi. We fill up and leave a staggering amount of cash behind (2$US/liter). 10 minutes later a Landcruiser with a Mundele in it stops, we quickly shake hands and Christian quickly introduces himself. Equally quickly we drive off again. We follow him into the compound of CTB. They have a nice office here, with bathroom and all. Unfortunately the water system is down for two weeks now, so no water. Christian has a day off today and already made plans for the day, so he cannot stay with us. But we are free to camp in the compound and use their facilities. They have two "guardiens" (guards). Christians recommends us to stay inside. We are thirsty so we ignore Christian's advice and go out on foot to find us a cold beer. Plenty of bars here. It takes a bit of negotiating before they let us take the beer with us. It is in glass, and they need to recover the empty bottles. We have to pay a deposit and promise to bring the glass back. People who visited the Congo's will surely recognize the "Skol' brand. Not a bad beer actually. There is a brewery in Mbujy-Mayi and only the beers that are brewed here have the diamond in the logo. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga050.jpg That night we lay in our tent, looking at the stars and listening to the sound of the city. It does not sound like any other city at night. We hear heated discussions and a few fights. Also some gun shots. |
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Day 12
We did not want to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time when leaving Mbuji-Mayi. As "the wrong time" takes about whole day long here, we ask one of the guardiens at CTB to guide us out of town. The road to Kananga, our goal for this day, is not really connected to the city. The neverending expension of Mbuji-Mayi has swallowed the road and now one has to drive trough the kilometers of shacks to get to city end. Once again we are asked to pay toll, we do not complain too much this time as the previous toll had brought us a nice tar road. Not so this time. The road was not horrible, but it was not exactly good either. It certainly wasn't maintained. The scenery on the other hand was stunning. It was great to finally see a bit around us as we were usually stuck in dense jungle or high grass. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga053.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga055.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga063.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga056.jpg |
The going is though and slow. About 50km before Kananga to road is blocked. The bridge is gone.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/akananga061.jpg This happened very recently. People there pointed us to a detour. We had to take bicycle tracks all the way to Kamwanda (+- 30km) where there is another bridge and then continue from there. We set off on a much to narrow track trough dense jungle. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga041.jpg It was getting late already and we were not sure if we would make it to Kananga today. Depending on the state of the bicycle tracks, we would have to stay in a village again. The first village we encountered seemed deserted at first, but as soon as we entered the village we saw people coming at us from all sides. They had machetes and sticks and were shouting. "Des Blanc. Argent!" - "White people. Money!". They were all over the place. This was not good! I floored it and sped out of the village. A rock hit the back of our car. What in gods name was that all about? Very few Congolese had made us feel welcome now, but this was plain agression! It scared the hell out of us. We passed another village, and once again a mob formed as soon as they heard us coming. Machetes flying round, racist slogans shanted. Once again we did not give them the chance to get near us and blasted out of the village. They tried following us. This was turning ugly, if we would get stuck here we would be in big trouble, these people did not want a chat! With half an hour of daylight left we knew we had a problem. We tried sending our coordinates to the homefront with the instructions to call the embassy if they did not hear from us within the hour. Despite us having bought SIM cards of the two major GSM operators, we did not have reception. With our hearts racing we neared another village. |
Hey,
What a fantastic read! I'm thinking about doing something alike, but I don't know about Congo, though. Keep it coming! |
Now seems like a good time to pause the report :twisted: and have a little flashback to the period before we entered the DRC.
We made the decision to tackle this part of DRC when we were in Egypt. It would take us about 4 months to drive from Cairo down to the Zambia/DRC border. We immediately started our quest for information. It would soon become clear that very little information was available. We did not know of a single traveller that did this traject in the lat 20 years. We knew of two who tried (both on motorbikes) in recent years. One crashed after a few days and got evacuated. The other got arrested and deported. Both didn't get very far. So we had to be creative and think of other sources of information. A small overview of some of the responses we received from different instances we contacted 1) MONUC. The UN mission in DRC (United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). They have almost 20.000 people on the ground, they must have some information. Actualy their website has some useful information. We contacted the "Cellule Infrastructure" and received the following reply (excerpts): Quote:
This stretch we already passed by now. Quote:
We still haven't reached the Loange river... great prospect ;-) And then the most worrying bit: Quote:
These 'Coupeurs de route' are lawless gangs. 'Road bandits'. They have a nasty reputation in that they have little value for human life. Rape is a common working method for them. These people I wanted to avoid. On the other hand, one has to read between the lines here, and it was pretty obvious to me: monuc did not have a clue what was going on in the area. They just did not have reliable and up to date information. Do note that monuc is mostly active in East Congo (Goma, Kisangani,..) not in the more 'stable' south/south-west were we are travelling trough. 2) Coca-cola company: If there is ony thing you can find anywhere in the world it is Coca-Cola. They should know how to get their goods in the country. We had no response on mails, so we called them up. Their answer was pretty short: They do not have a distribution network outside the major cities in Congo 8O And it proved to be true, Congo is the first country we have visited were Coca-cola is hard to get once you leave the major cities. 3) About a dozen of NGO's, all answers were negative: they did not have any information 4) Journalists from press agencies and the author from the only guidebooks that exists on the DRC (Sean Rorison): We received a few interesting adresses and contacts in cities, but nothing on the roads. They only travel by air. From a few journalist we received warning on recent events of aggressive attacke by "coupeurs de route" in the area between Kananga and Tshikapa. 5) Foreign affairs office of our own country and several other countries (US, France, ..): they told us we would die if we only thought about the DRC ;-) 6) The Congolese "Office des routes". I was not expecting an answer from them, but they did reply! From a personal mailadres somebody from the Congolese ministry told me that they had no information whatsoever on the condition of their road network. But they would appreciate any information that we could obtain! The moral of the story was: nobody knew anything about the road conditions. The worrying bit were the "coupeurs de route". Different sources talked about them, and always in the Kananga-Tshikapi area. This seemed like the area to avoid. We had already decided to drive to Kananga but then go north from there to Ilebo as to avoid the Kananga-Tshikapi area. In my last post I told we had to make a detour because a bridge was out. Guess in what area that brought us? |
With our hearts racing we neared another village.
We tried to sneak in the village but failed miserably. Same thing happened again, confused looks at first, as soon as they saw us they shouted at eachother and then came storming after us. What did we do to these people that they wanted us so badly? Like thieves in the night we raced trough the bush and stopped as soon as we had cell phone reception. We sent our coordinates home and called our Belgian friends in Lubumbashi to see if they could give us a contact in Kananga. They responded quickly (Thanks Valérie!) with a phone number of the "procure" (mission) in Kananga. But no answer there... :-( From what we saw on the GPS it would be at least another 2 hours before we would arrive in Kananga. It was getting really dark by now. We had no choice, we had to reach Kananga! These were some of the scariest moments in my life. Everybody we crossed here was mad at us. We sent our coordinates to the home front every 10 minutes or so. Relentlesly we continued. It got pitch dark and the road was really difficult. We could not afford to make mistakes now, but we also did not feel like getting out of the car to inspect any obstacles. The dark was actually good for us as people would not see that we are white. This seemed to make a major difference in the reaction of the people. But we made it. We were so happy to reach Kananga and at the same time scared to death that people would react the same here. Fortunately the town was quiet and actually looked friendly in the moonlight. Due to pure luck we drove straight into the compound of the procure and at that into safety. The friendly father-abt allowed us to camp in the garden. He looked genuinely surprised if we told him about our bad experience but at the same time it was as if he was avoiding the subject too. We put up the tent, got out our chairs and opened one of our "emergency beers". We just sat there a long time without saying a word to eachother. The sky was beautiful and the sounds of all the insects was magnificent. |
So, what was that all about?
In all honesty, we don't have a clue! I only know that this ranks very high in my top 10 scariest moments. Everybody has their limits, well this was over mine. I do not want this to happen to me again. - Where we just panicking for no reason, paranoid by all the (mis)information we received? Did we create the danger in our minds? Maybe, I really can't tell. We discussed this afterwards, and we did not make up those mobs that charged at us. They had machetes. They did chase us. We have a few theories though: - These villages were on a newly created "detour". Normally no motorized traffic would pass trough here. Bicycles only. Maybe they saw this as new way to generate money, and they wanted their part of the cake. Although somebody should explain to them that this is not a good way to ask for a toll fee. - We had the feeling that they were focussing on us, not only because we were in a vehicle, but because of our skin color. Did a white person do something wrong here? Where they trying to seek vengeance? I wouldn't surprise me if a white person in car ran somebody over, or destroyed something and then fled away. - Some fetish reason. Witchdoctors have a lot of influence here. If they had casted a spell of some sorts. Or predicted that something bad would happend if a white person would pass trough here. - ... I guess we will never know. |
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Day 13
This was the half way point and up until now we at least had minimal information on what was ahead of us. That would end here. The only thing we knew was that the bac (ferry) at Tshikapa was not working - confirmed here in Kananga - and that the road to Tshikipa was not only suspect for "coupeurs de route" but also in a horrible state (mud!). The alternative was to go north from here to Ilebo were apparantly there was a ferry. And worst case we could try to put the car on a boat on the Congo river to Kinshasa. Nobody here in Kananga had gone all the way to Ilebo by car. Until about halfway there were some missions, but they were considered 'cut off' due to the state of the roads. Especially the last part of the road into Ilebo was said to be impossible. But most of it was hearsay anyway. People don't travel much overland here. We were halfway and it looked like what we just did was the easy part... Yesterday's events had gotten us exhausted and we decided to stay for a day in the safetey of the procure. We tried to get some sleep and do some cleaning up in the car. I also had to tape/bolt various bits and pieces back to the car. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/ilebo001.jpg Staying at the procure also gave us the opportunity to meet some interesting people. They also had their own radio station. Because they had a huge antenna this was one of the most important radio stations in the area. For a lot of people the radio was their only means of information from the outside world. They were well equipped and the radio crew was young and extremely motivated. They did an interview with us, but we asked them not to air the interview immediately but instead wait 4 days. If it would be aired immediately it would be a matter of minutes before the entire police force came for their "share". Also with yesterdays events in the back of our mind, we wanted to keep the aspect of surprise. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/ilebo004.jpg |
Day 14
Kananga looked like a beautiful - but rundown -city, but we did not really visit anything. At this point we just wanted to stay low profile and keep moving. We set of direction Ilebo, not knowing what to expect. The roads has a bit of an erosion problem http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga064.jpg On the above picture you can clearly see where our axle was touching the middelmanetjie. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga065.jpg This was all jolly good if both tracks erored equally. This was not always the case and we got into a habit of driving at some extreme angle. Often scraping the sidewalls. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga069.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga068.jpg How long ago was it that road was actually "up there" where the grass is. |
Thanks for this exelent post!!!!
Respect! |
Great yarn, Fred. I'm going to post a link to it in the SA4x4community's overland forum section.
Tony |
As said, traffic is always local. They somehow manage to get cars into larger towns and then drive it around town, but no trough traffic. So cities/towns/village that are not on a river or on the limited railroad network have very limited supplies.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga070.jpg Up to 600kg of goods are transported on these bicycles. They do not 'ride' them, but push them instead. You can see there is a stick connected to the bikes handlebars. This is the major transport method in Congo. It is probably one of the most 'popular' (this does not seem like a good wordchoice) jobs. There are fixed routes and people often travel in groups. For security reasons but also to help eachother on the hills. At regular intervals on the main "bicycle" tracks there are "service stations". This is usualy a small hut where one can eat a meal of fufu. They would also have a pump and some basic tools to fix flats. We saw many of these overloaded bicycles before, but on this stretch of the road it seems to be the only means of transportation. It must be very hard work to get these loads over the sometimes very rough roads. The 'drivers' are away from home for weeks on end and probably barely make any money out of it. We never had problems with these guys, they were much to busy with their job. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga071.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/548/kananga072.jpg This also meant we were no longer driving on real roads. But on bicycle tracks... |
Some notes from Josephine (posting and reading from the same account as Frederik)
Quote:
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We were pretty optimistic and hoped to reach Ilebo in two days. That meant that on the first day we had to make it to Pembeyangu, were we knew of a mission.
Bicycle tracks are not suited for Landcruisers... so we got stuck. The villages usually had the worst obstacles. In this one village there was a big boghole filled with water. We drove in but did not see the pigs that were taking a bath so we slowed down to give them the time to get out. Big mistake. We were stuck. The water came to the bottom of the door. This particular mudpit had a bit of a funny smell. It was the favourite place of the pigs so it probably contained a fair amount of sh*t. It sure smelled like it. The entire village gathered round us while we got out, knee deep in sh*t. They did not offer help. We started clearing the wheels. Josephine hurt her foot on a stick, the pain could be seen on her face. The people thought this was extremely funny and burst out laughing. This was very humiliating for Josephine and I could see the anger on her face. We looked at eachother and understood that this was not the time to get angry or start discussions with 50 or so people. We continued to work. As I bend over to clear the mud from underneath the car my pants get wet up until my ehrm.. 'privates'.. . Once again this is the funniest thing these people have ever seen. Hilarity ensues. This was very humiliating to us. Eventually they offered to help us if we pay them. I tell them that I do not have money. They did not move an inch. It takes the best part of an hour to get us out. To their surprise we stop again and I get out and walk up to them. Very calmly I explain that we did not like it when they laughed at us. I asked them how they would react if they hurt themselves and we would laugh at them. The acknowledged that they would get mad at us. I asked them if they would want us to help them if they had a problem. The acknowledged this. I said what they would think if we asked for money before we would help them. They called us racists and immediately demanded money from us. I then saw a side of Josephine I hadn't seen before. She got very cross with words and gestures. I will not repeat what she said here... it wasn't pretty I must say 8O Much to the amusement of our adience. To some of the people in the village our message must have gotten along, and they guided us around the next boghole. Half an hour later we stopped to eat lunch. We were still shaking after the humiliation, we felt helpess. We opened a can of Coke (still from Zambia) and a jar of pickled onions to eat with our bread. Those 'horrible' people did not have a Coke, even if they had the money to buy it, it was not avaialble. They did not have pickled onions either. And between the two of us we ate as much bread as an entire family would eat for an entire day. We tried putting things into perspective. Maybe we shouldn't be here after all? http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu007.jpg That is not the same pit/people from the above anecdote, but it is very similar. We must have crossed 20 or so villages like this. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu008.jpg |
The progress we hoped to be making today did not materialize..
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu011.jpg This was the thoughest going we had thus far since we left Lubumbashi. While the road had always been difficult, the inbetween bits used to be ok. Those inbetween bits did no longer exist now. The erosian was pretty bad and we were creeping forward http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu009.jpg Every obstacle meant a new dent or other damage http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu012.jpg To make matters worse we drove straight into a tropical storm.. |
In a fast pace the clouds appeared out of nowhere, in a matter of minutes it became as dark as the night. Winds picked up and jungle forest made terrible noise. Thick drops started banging on our car. Slowly at first but exponentially growing in size and number. Lightning almost immediately followed by deafening thunder. The hard rain stirred the ground and released many smells.
God, I love those tropical storms! A little less today though, as the track we were driving on quickly became very mudy. The ruts filled with water and became streams. Visibility was down to nil as our windscreen wipers couldn't keep up. This slowed us down even more. We slid and slide.. sideways more then forward. We came to another village, refreshingly we had the road for us alone, as everybody had taken cover for the rain. The usual bogholes were present but we could drive around it... or could we? What looked like a viable bypass was nothing more then a meter thick layer of soft and sticky mud on top of a puddle. Our landcruiser sunk in deep. I got out and within seconds I was drenched, I could barely breath because of the water that ran down my face and into my mouth. This was useless I couldn't see a thing. We had to wait until the rain stopped. Luckily those tropical storms go as quickyl as they come and after an half hour wait the downpour transformed in a little drizzle. We have gotten ourselves properly stuck I must say. Up unto the axles. Out came the sandplates and the shovels and I started digging. The village too had noticed the rain had resided and quickly came to see what was going on. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu005.jpg No surprisingly nobody they offered their assistance, they even had some shovels. But they wanted money first. By now you probably think we are just stupidly stubborn and naive. We probably are, but we refused to give in to corruption. I once again told them they were free to help, but we would not give them money. So I continued to dig on my own with an entire village as an audience. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...beyangu006.jpg It took three more attempts to drive out before the village priest (7th day Adventist by the way) encouraged a few strong men to help. After a small discussion between the priest and the men they helped us eventually. We did not promise them anything. Good! Almost two hours after we drove in we succesfully managed to back out. The priest then lead us trough his village (milimeterwork between the huts) around the bogholes. We offered the priest a small fee for his spontaneous help. We were grateful. He was in trouble now as he had to split up the money between the helpers and we could see a discussion had started already. Covered in mud we continued... the hope to get to Pembeyanga today has long vanished. Darkness was starting to fall... |
We were a in a miserable state. We were both soaked and there was mud everywhere, exhausted and stirred by todays experiences. Hungry. And above all nervous as to where we would stop for the night. We passed a few villages, they looked very poor and rundown. On the GPS we saw we were nearing a somwhat larger settlement: Kakenge. In the dark we did another 5km (about an hour).
Kakenge was indeed a large settlement and our luck turned as not only was there a catholic mission, it was a nice catholic mission! A fenced of compound (2 meter high walls.. who were they trying to keep out?) with inside a beautiful garden and two simple but clean buildings. The only brick buildings in town. Four fathers lived here, all Congolese but most of them had studied abroad. One of the fathers, Frère Polydore, had lived in Rome for 8 years. He had the humour and the way of talking of an Italian, a funny guy. They let us camp, have a shower (bucket) and they even let us use their dining room in all peacefulness. Just what we needed! Today we spent 15 hours on the road in our struggle forward. What a day... They also gave us the news that the road to Ilebo would progressively get worse and even impassable... |
I can see the soles of some ones boots poking out of the mud in the last pictures, his he one who laughed???
Epic journey and report, thanks. |
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Hello, I could not send a PM for some reason, but I just wanted to let you know that this post is amazing. I crossed the congo myself several times in the past, mostly from Kinshasa to Uganda and CAR. I am presently in North Africa with a 4x4 camper, what is the largest vehicle you can see traversing the route you covered in the Congo, having the most recent knowledge of it? I would hope to visit this amazing country again.
Also, do you have a list of waypoints for the missions and other places you visited along this route? Thanks a lot, and safe travels! |
Day 15
We slept until late today and only got on the road at 9. Silently we hoped to reach Pembeyangu today although the road would have to better as yesterday. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo007.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo006.jpg The road was not better then yesterday. Erosion became a real problem and we spent most of our time "underground" http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo010.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo011.jpg And then we tipped over... |
We had been driving in akward angles a lot, and a few times already we could feel two wheels lifting off, but until now we managed to always end up on our 4 wheels. Until now..
We had two wheels in the air and we were resting on our side. Luckily the eroded sidewall made sure we did not fall too deep. We knew it would happen sooner or later but the sound of bending sheetmetal still scared us a bit. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo016.jpg It was nothing spectacular (sorry :oops: ) but nevertheless, we were in a situation were our wheels were 20 cm off the ground. We do not have locking differentials by the way. We got our shovel out again :roll: and starting to add ground underneath our wheels to make them grip again and made the next few meters a bit more level hoping that we would righten ourselves again. It worked like a charm but it was a great amount of work. Damage was limited to a few extra dents. Still exhausted we continued, still in bizarre angles. Then we tipped over again.. |
"Annoyed" would be a correct word to describe our mood. We could still see were we tipped over last time and we knew how much digging it takes to get the car righted again.
No choice... out came the shovel... and eventually we got out again... and it did not take another kilometer before we... tipped over again... and again.. And again. At this rate it would take years to get us to Ilebo, we had to find a way to keep moving. Now, most of the road was ok to drive on. The little indicator on our dashoard learned us that we could keep driving until about 35 degrees tilt angle. It were only occasional patches were the angle would become too big and we'de be on our sides. We figured that if we would keep enough momentum, that we would slide forward on our side and "bounce back" on our wheels. So, that is what we did. We kept the speed up and if the road dipped too much we would tip over. Because of the higher speed the impact on the side was much bigger. But that, combined with the forward movement created a "jo-jo" effect (do you guys know what a jo-jo is? Not sure if it is called the same in English). Move forward. Tip over. Slide forward a bit on the side of the car. Bounce back. Wheels touch the ground. Move forward. And repeat. Some of the longer steep section were maybe 100meter long. We would "bounce" numerous times to get trough this. When we got trough we had a fixed procedure: - Depending on what side we tipped over, the person sitting on the opposite side would get out of the car first. - Armed with a hamer and spanner "20" go to the other side of the car - Bang and bend the door back into shape so it would open again - Both of us would walk back the part we just "bounced" trough, picking up all the parts of the car that fell of. Usually the mirrors, various bits and pieces of the filling cap, the sandladders, indicator lights and the odd bits of our roofrack. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo017.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo018.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo019.jpg Strong car! This technique is probably not described in any "4x4 driving techniques" handbook. :wink: |
That day we did the "tip over thing" at least 20 times. After a while you stop worrying about the dents, but I can still hear the sound of the impacts.
Then, out of the blue, there was a road! This was completely absurd, as this road led to nowhere, but here it was, a recently build road about 10 meters wide. The forest was cut and cleared, the ground was made level and smooth as silk 8O http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo021.jpg Where did this come from? We drove onto the road and immediately started sinking in. I floored it to keep momentum and we crept forward, leaving deep ruts behind us. We felt really bad when that happened. Somebody put a huge amount of effort in building a road here. And then comes along this stupid tourist and he just pulls two big ruts spot in the middle of this road. We did not stay around to take a picture of our ruts, we were a bit embarrased. The road dissapeared as suddenyl as it appeared before. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo022.jpg What the ... ? |
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The road was pretty varied. Jungle track. 'Bouncing track', weird patches of newly constructed road, etc.. I am not sure which kind of road we liked more... or disliked more.. . Often we had to wait to let the bicycles pass, sometimes they had to wait to let us pass. Not surprisingly we would not make it to Pembeyangu today either. They gave us too much hope in Kananga that we could make it in one day. It was obvious that nobody there had recently travelled on this stretch. Or maybe they had travelled it on foot or on a bicycle, and they do not have a clue how difficult this road is with 4 wheels instead of 2. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo035.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo012.jpg We stopped in the biggest 'town' in the area, Domiongo. It took a bit of searching to find a cathalic mission, it was on the outskirts of the villlage. Once again we were greeted friendly and had permission to camp in their grounds. We sat together with the fathers and talked for many hours. They told us about the mysterious roads. Apparently some NGO (they did not know the details... or they told the details and we forgot) has funded the construction. Several teams started working at several locations. The different bits were supposed to connect at one point. As of recent, work had nearly stopped... no more budget. It was unclear if more budget would become available or not. In any case the idea of the construction was to invest all the money in labour instead of buying an expensive CAT. Great idea ofcourse, that way all the money stayed in DRC, instead of filling the pocket of some bigwig at CAT. If you look at the road it was quite a feat. They thought about drainage and everything. Unfortunately they could not compress the earth enough with the tools they had. We already started a few ruts, it would only take 1 heavy truck to completely destroy these roads again. These roads would not last a rainy season. The major complaint of the fathers was the upcome of all sorts of other religious movements (we talked about 7th day adventists before, but other movements were active in the area too). They claimed that they grew in popularity because of the animated ceremonies. But these movements did not have the social network and organisation behind them as the catholic missions. People would no longer work at the farm of the mission, would drop out of school, etc... Apparantly 'alternative' religions were also gaining in poularity, like fetishism, .. Anyway, we talked about many other things too, it was a pleasant evening with interesting people. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...arilebo033.jpg In the evening the fathers would run their generator for a few hours. It was in a little hut very close to our tent. The hut was half submersed from the rain water. All of a sudden the generator shorted. Smoke and blue lightning came out of the hut. One of the fathers ran in the hut, barefoot (!), with a stick and hit the offending cable until it got disconnected. Brave father! |
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We came across a small motorcycle. You'd see them from time to time, it is the most luxurious transportation people have here. They are litte chinese 50cc (or 125cc) bikes. We stopped to let him pass and he stopped to greet and ask us if we had some oil for his engine.
All over the world there is an unwritten rule that in remote or difficult to travel areas people help eachother. That is why in the sahara everybody says hi to eachother. That is why in the Mongolian steppe people drive for kilometers just to check up on you. People help when needed as they know they will be helped when they are in need. We very much honour this unwritten rule and will always assist when we can. So when this guy asks for oil, I do not hesitate and take out a my spare can of oil. I warn him that this is oil for diesel engines, but that does not matter to him. It is probably the best oil he would ever find to put in his little bike. As I am pouring oil from my can in his can the passenger of the bike starts begging with Josephine. I am not impressed when Josephine tells me. And when the bike owner too start to ask for money, it really pisses me off. We are helping this guy and still he begs for more? So I pour the oil out of his can back into mine and tell them to sod off. In our car and off we go. For almost a month now we were in a serious fight with Congo. We were fighting against corruption. We were fighting against the roads. A constant battle. Congo was giving us a serious beating, but we stood strong and did not give in. Slowly but steadily we were winning this battle against the Congo. But while we were so busy battling the roads and the corruption, Congo sneaked in from behind. It had transformed us into loud and angry people. With no remorse, no compassion, and a total lack of rules. What happened to the unwritte rule of the road less travelled? The rule we nohour so much? All out of the door.. Congo had beaten us a long time ago already. Just like it had beaten most of its own citizens.. And we didn't have a clue |
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The road from Kananga to Ilebo goes mostly trough forest, but Pembeyange is situated on top of a hill in a beautiful plain. Really pictoresque. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...anga%20074.jpg Upon our arrival in the (small) village everybody went completely nuts. Children cheered and ran after us, we had our usual crowd again. As they guided us trough the village towards the mission it showed that people here do not have notions about cars. They led us between huts, trough gardens, ... This was the way they always took to walk to the mission, but they failed to see that this was impossible with a car. As we did not want drive over peoples houses we backtracked and had to find ourselves another route to the mission. In the meantime the children had great fun climbing on our wheelcarriers. The wheelcarriers are not made for this kind of weight and one of them broke off... great! This was so much fun that the now targetted the other wheelcarrier. Josephine had to walk behind the car to keep the kids off. Unfortunately the father of this mission was not there, but his apprentice was. A very young guy, fresh out of school. He was not happy to be here, that much was clear. He did nothing else but complain and he would whine on endlessly. He was not a bad guy, but was wan't very good company either.. oh well. The mission had a small toilet hut. A hole in the ground affair with a roof on top, the roof was very low, which made it difficult to 'do your thing'. When Josephine made use of the facilities she could hear something rustling in the roof. When she look up she was face-to-face with a thin green/brown snake. I had never seen Josephine run so fast! From her description it could have been a green mamba? When told to the 'maman' who took care of the mission she too was scared and with great care she chased the snake a way. "Très dangereux" apparantely. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo001.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo004.jpg |
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Day 17
It is only 50 kilometers to Ilebo from here. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo006.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo007.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo009.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo013.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo014.jpg |
We came across a truck that was parked in the middle of the track. Luckily the surrounding area was pretty open, so we could pass it.
Us: "Bonjour, ca va?" - "Hi, how are you?" - Them: "Ca va un peu bien " - "I am doing a little bit ok" -> typical Congelese answer this! Us: "Votre vehicle est en panne?" - "Did you truck broke down?" - Them: "Oui, mais ils vient avec des nouveaux pièces" - "Yes, but they are coming with spare parts" So we chat a bit and we ask what their problem exactly was. They left Ilebo for Kananga with a load of building materials for a rich guy in Kananga. Their engine had completely seized. Their cargo was transferred onto another truck and they had taken the engine out and transported the engine to Kinshasa to get it rebuild. In the meantime the truck 'crew' stayed onsite to safeguard the truck. But they were very happy as they just received news that the necessary parts for the engine were now ordered in Germany, so the parts would come arrive in Kinshasa in a few weeks time! A fascinating story, and they told it as if the was the most normal thing in the world. Fair enough. We said our goodbyes and asked them one more final question. How long had they been here? "Un peu plus qu'un an maintenant" - "Just over a year" |
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http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo016.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo024.jpg The following pictures were from within the car when we just tipped over. As it happened again we were just sitting still for a minute before getting into action again. The kids would curiously came and see why this car was on its side, and why the passengers wouldn't come out. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo026.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo027.jpg And then they would ask for money. |
The rest of the day we spent mostly underground... and quite a lot of time was spent on our sides. Got stuck a few times and our spade saw some hours of work today.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo017.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo018.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo019.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo020.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo021.jpg We were too exhausted to be happy that we could finally see Ilebo in the distance. We knew nothing about the city. We would have to arrange a ferry here to get across the Kasai river. Or worst case, arrange a barge to Kinshasa. |
Our exhaust broke of just at the exhaust manifold. Probably due to to all the flexing on these roads. All hopes of arriving somewhere without getting noticed were out of the door with that.
Quite to our surprise there was no checkpoint at the entrance of Ilebo. But actually that is not too strange, as nobody ever takes that road. Ilebo has a bustling harbour city feel about it. Lots of activity on the streets. We got a lot of stares, but people seemed friendly. We headed straight for the catholic mission and were greeted by Abbé Omer. The mission was the former headquarters of Belgian sisters (Josephites?). They had fled a the country a few times, and after the last war they did not return. The building was given to the Catholic mission. It looked like a nice building, but the decay had started. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo031.jpg We discussed our plans with Abbé Omer in the garden of the mission (it must have been a wonderfull garden back in the days.. now it looked a bit rundown). The good news was that there was good ferry here that could take us across the mighty Kasai river. The bad news was that nobody every uses that ferry and it does not see any regular action. Omer knew the guy who was responsible for the Ferry, a chap called Barthélémy. He even has his phone number, but he does not have credit on his phone. No problem, he can use ours. A conversation in Lingala starts, it takes about ten minutes until we run out of credit on our phone. I actually think they talked 1 minute about the ferry and the other 9 minutes about other things, but anyway. Here was the deal: - Price for a two-way trip is 50$US But, - we have to supply our own diesel the engine of the boat. 150 liters is required (!). that's about 200$US (Diesel here is cheaper because they have a regular supply via boats from Kinshasa). - we have to supply two batteries to start the engines of the boat - the ferry is on the other side of the river and they would only be able to get it across somewhere next week That's just great! We immediatelly uttered to Omer that that was a ridiculously high price, one we would never pay. And that we wanted to cross as soon as possible. preferably tomorrow. What followed was a very difficult negotiation. Abbé Omer insisted that he acted as an intermediate person. According to him to protect us from getting ripped off (because we were white). I was actually convinced that he was playing a game with his mate Barthélémy to make some money out of us. It took us many hours on the phone to finally convince this Barthélémy to come to see us to discuss the price. He would come at 8 the next morning. Later that evening Omer suggested that we he would have to inform the police of our presence (c'est normal!), it took us a lot of persuading for him not to 'give us in'. So there we were, staying in a courtyard of the mission.. with a gate that was so badly bend that it would no longer close. Hosted by an Abbé whom I did not trust (Josephine had a better feeling about him... she is usually right about those things). Waiting for a guy who wanted 250$US to ferry us across a river. Did you know that, by law, all state operated ferries in the Congo are free? Yeah right |
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Day 18
We got up at 7 - sleeping late! - so we would be ready to meet Barthélémy at 8. We felt so stupid, we should have known better. How lang had we been travelling trough Africa now? He showed up at 11:30. He had a bunch of official documents with him. Documents that actually looked legit. It described the running costs of the ferry (dated recently 2004 I think). And indeed, 75liters was stated as the amount of fuel required for a one-way trip. They would have to charge us a two-way trip as the boat was currently on the other side of the river, and they had to get it across first. Ofcourse there are no other passengers. There was not a lot of room for discussion there. The 50$US fee on the other hand was not legitimate at all, he knew it, we knew it. But as these guys rarely get paid by the goverment it is generally accepted that they ask for a fee. We got it down to a reasonable 25$US(still too much). This would pay for the entire boat crew and they would 'rent' 2 batteries for us. We would buy a barrel of diesel (cheaper then per liter) and have it delivered to the port directly. We had a very long discussion about the payment, he wanted everything in advance as he had to pay for the diesel. We did not want to give a total stranger in Congo 225$US, without a contract (not that it would be worth anything), without having seen the boat, ... . He eventually agreed with a 100$US downpayment. We hoped we could trust this guy! He would cross the Kasai river tomorrow in a dug-out canoe with the boat crew to go and get the ferry. 'Somewhere in the afternoon' we would then be able to cross. I did not trust Abbé Omer. I did not trust this Barthélémy. I did not trust our deal. But we did not have a choice.. |
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