crossing Congo -DRC where
 

is there any other crossing point other than Brazzaville-Kinshasa? as I hear that sometimes you have to wait days and then it costs $150-200!! I am driving a Landrover so need a bridge or ferry. How about further down river? any help much appreciated

Bridge
 

Hi!

Do you have a double entry visa for Angola?
If... you could go from Point Noir to Cabinda to DRC and then just upstream the river (i think it was pretty close to Matadi...) there was a bridge.

Have fun!

Werner+Claudia

Not sure I'd agree with the "it's all about bribes" statement. We managed 12 months travelling through West Africa without paying a single bribe & without encountering any hassle as a result. Simply lots of patience & a friendly smile..

Anyway Brazzaville-Kinshasa.. here's the extract from our web site detailing our crossing experience last year. I know there have been problems recently with the ferry breaking down however. The costs are for a LR plus 2:

Brazzaville - Kinshasa Ferry Crossing - An experience in itself. Certainly not the horror story that we had heard it to be. Costs: 6500 CFA (€10) p/person and 25,000 CFA (€38) for car & driver. Timings: 1030 hrs, 1230 hrs & 1430 hrs each day. No car ferry running on Sundays. Mandatory ‘disinfection’ of the car on entering DRC - we heard that this could be avoided, but we bartered for ages and were never going to get out of it. We did manage them to get the price down from US$60 to US$40. It looks like an official organisation (Red Cross). Customs/immigration process very slow in DRC; no problems, just slow, so allow plenty of time. The whole crossing took us 7 hours of which only 40 mins was spent on the ferry!

yes I got a double entry visa issued in Abuja last week but only for a maximum of 5 days stay!!!. I found a post mentioning a crossing down river from Brazzaville at Louzi (?) leading in from a road from Mindouli, i think thats how is spelt

This link may help....

Langebaan Sunset: Crossing the Congo – Alternative route in detail with map & GPS data

thats perfect thanks for that

Ben

Two weeks ago we crossed through Brazzaville - Kinkala - Boko - Manianga - Luozi - Kimpese. It was smooth and easy (apart from an annoying drunk official on the DRC side who took forever to write some random things in a book).

The Luozi ferry can easily take a 4WD (they ship trucks back and forth without problem) and the road out to Kimpese is easy. I think the ferry is free too. When we crossed (on bikes) no-one asked us to pay, and it seemed like none of the passengers or the other car on board paid either.

Ben

Another option to try
 

Hey guys

Yep - you can try another option too as long as it is dry. Its close to Boko and takes you across at Pioka. Its closer than Luozi and the ferry can take 1 car (2 max). It cost us 20 litres of diesel (€16) and took 10 minutes. No real problems apart from the fact the roads are in a poor state and you need to be careful in a few places. Luozi is also a good option from what we here.

Read about and our experience with pictures at

Langebaan Sunset: Crossing the Congo – Alternative route in detail with map & GPS data

We also posted the GPS route and waypoints at

Latest news / About us - Langebaan Sunset - Stonehenge UK to Cape Town SA - 2010

HTH

Nick