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Steve, sorry to read about all your hassles … again! A few comments that may help others:
1) We (three motorcyclists) rode from Lambarene (Gabon) to Dolisie to Brazzaville in January 2009. It took us three days to make the 180 miles from Dolisie to Kinkala, after which the road is paved to Brazzaville. It had been raining and the road was big-time mud. Some trucks had been waiting for a week to pass thru the worst quagmires. Rebels said to be active and saw lots of gun-toting dudes but no problems. All in all a true adventure... 2) Took the ferry from Brazzaville to Kinshasa, no problem, one-day ride on paved road from Kinshasa to Matadi, DRC. 3) In Matadi January 2009 the Angolan consulate issued five-day transit visas in about 24 hours – easier than expected. 4) If you do get into Angola – the road directly south from Matadi to Noqui to Lufico to Tomboco is quite rugged and remote. Over a two-day ride from Noqui to Tomboco we saw maybe one or two other vehicles on the road... Doable and fun on bike or 4x4 (not 2WD) but the road from Songololo DRC to M’banza-Congo is said to be better. 5) Motorcyclists from Scotland and Denmark were denied in February 2009 Angola visas for entry for the south, from Namibia (Windhoek and the two main border towns in Namibia (Oshikango and Ruancana). They finally gave up and flew their bikes from Windhoek to Ghana. More info here … http://www.scotlandfromthecape.co.uk/#/namibia3/4532807789 And here www.scotland from the cape.co.uk 6) My Congo visa was about to expire while I was in Brazzaville. It was extended with little hassle. Good luck all. Mark |
In case someone reads this!
It's been a long time since I was on this thread, and I must apologise, I haven't given the results of my fights with beaurocracy!
1. DRC transit visa available in Pointe Noire This is bullsh*t! I don't know who we saw or where we went (clearly couldn't have been DRC Consulate), but the "visa" we were issued in Pointe-Noire wasn't actually a visa - god knows what it was!? We had a HUGE problem at the DRC border when we presented our visa... apparently whatever it is that we were given is valid for Congolese people to use to enter DRC, but not for tourists. 2. Cabinda closed to vehicles This is also bullsh*t! I don't know the reason the Angolan Amabassador chose to lie to us about this, but you can definitely still drive through Cabinda! We did, no problems! If you want to be completely boggled by how we found this out - read here (fighting with the Angolan Consulate in Pointe-Noire) and here (attempting to use fake visa to get into DRC)... I laugh now (sort of), but there was no laughing then, I can assure you! Hope this helps someone make better use of their time! Cheers Steve OverAfrica - overland, over Africa |
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Hello Folks:
I just returned from a business trip to DRC. In the past, I have obtained my (business) visa in Canada, the country I am a citizen of. No problems with that other than it takes a while - about a week for the DRC embassy to process it. This time, I headed off for Africa without getting the DRC visa in Canada - not a good move. I discovered in Kenya that the 'official' policy of the DRC is to only issue visas from the embassy of the country in which the applicant is a citizen. Fortunately, I already had one (expired) visa in my passport, and the staff at the DRC embassy in Kenya were very gracious, so, they gave me a visa there (same day!) - but reminded me that in the future, I need to get the visa from the DRC embassy in my country of citizenship. FWIW. |
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