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The mission had very nice rooms on the top floor. Every room used to belong to a sister. With a living area, a seperate bedroom and a private bathroom. With bathtub and everything. The bathtub looked a bit green and the toilet no longer had a seat (who is this guy who keeps stealing all the toilet seats in Africa?). We could use one of the rooms to wash ourselves, but we would camp in our tent.
For a minute we thought they had running water, but they hadn't. There is a running water system in Ilebo, but there are no meters. Instead, people are charged depending on how large their building is. The usual corruption is probably included too. The mission had a staff of 3 but lived in a huge house, so apparantely their water bill was huge. They had thus cancelled the service. According to Omer almost nobody makes use of the water network any longer. Instead people operate 'commercial' taps on the street. You can go there with a jerry can, they fill it up and you pay per liter. In a way it is rewarding as you first have to work a sweat before one can take a shower. There was another guest in the mission. A father who was asked/sponsered by the UN to travel around and educate people about corruption and long-term planning. He held a talk in the small chapel in the mission, we sat just outside the chapel so we could overhear everything he said. It was very interesting. He talked about corruption, and how it would make it impossible for a society to have progress. He also covered the subject of the roads, he would encourage people to keep the roads in a good state in their villages instead of intentionally creating bogholes. He explained that in the short term they would loose 'income', but it would benefit them in the longer term if traffic increased (more and thus cheaper supplies, an actual functional economy). It was very refreshing to hear this and we really hoped his talk would make an impression. When his talk was finished we saw the people leaving the mission. 4 man had attended. That evening Omer had invited us to join them for dinner. We reluctantly accepted. Eating with 'the locals' is always in interesting experience, but very often it is just very bad food. As to not offend people and also as a precaution for us not to get sick, we tried to avoid these offerings in Congo as much a possible. We could see most people were happy when we declined as they have so little food already. We were pleasantly surprised, maniok leaves, something that resembled a stew and fufu (= pap for the South Africans, but made out of maniok). http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo032.jpg |
This is Josephine's diary. It is not overly detailed but is great to recollect some 'lost' memories. It is the base of this trip report.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dagboek012.jpg She made this illustration from the road to Ilebo http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dagboek002.jpg |
Day 19
Our car was packed and ready to go... we were waiting for a phone call from Barthélémy. When it finally arrived around noon, Abbé Omer told us he had notified the police that we would be leaving from the port today. We have no idea why he did that, as he knew how much trouble we've had with the police thus far. Anyway, on his little motorbike he guided us towards the port. Not surprisingly we were stopped by the police who were waiting for us. As our boat was waiting for us, we were not in the mood for a lengthy negotiation. So as soon as they had checked all our papers (our self issued 'permit' was still doing wonders) we played bluff and immediately asked for their names and ranks and claimed we knew their superior officer. This was a risky move and probably a stupid risk to take at the time, but it worked. Somehow we sensed by now how confident the police was and we could play the game along quite well. We couldn't believe our eyes when we finally saw the ferry. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo042.jpg It looked brand new! It wasn't.. A German (?) NGO had funded the restoration of the ferry recently. It had received a nice fresh coat of paint, but the money to rebuild the engines had gone missing. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo041.jpg |
The departure in the port of Ilebo was hectic (dodgy place!) so we could not really say goodbye to Abbé Omer. He waved us goodbye from the shore. I did not get along well with Omer. I cannot explain why. But in retrospect he did help us and my lack of trust in him was probably a mistake. Shame..
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo033.jpg Abbé Omer on the right. The trip across would take an hour as it was upstream. We felt very much at ease during that hour. We were disconnected from the shore, on a safe distance from everybody that wanted money from us, we did not have to drive. We just had to sit back and enjoy the ride. It was also one of the rare occasions were we got out of the dense forest and could have a look around. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo038.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo045.jpg The port of Ilebo http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo048.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo053.jpg A floating fishing village on the shores of the Kasai: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo050.jpg |
The boat crew:
Barthélémy http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo047.jpg The captain http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo059.jpg Once out of the port these two guys would use long sticks to feel how the deep the river was. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo046.jpg The mechanics http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo062.jpg This dugout canoe hitched a ride with us. For a moment I thought of charging them a fee... according to local Congolese tradition. I didn't ;-) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo054.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo055.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo057.jpg The beautiful, mighty, muddy Kasai river http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo063.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo065.jpg - http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo058.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo067.jpg In Ilebo we had asked for the road conditions on the other side of the river. Nobody knew. People here travel by boat, not by road. We were silently hoping that the roads would be perfect on the other side. We couldn't have been more wrong... Barthélémy gave us a letter for his friend, the captain of the next ferry. It was written in Lingala, but we could make out a few words. The letter was about us but we did not know what it said. Would it be some good words for us? Or would it be some tips on how to extort the maximum amount of money out of us? We did not ask about the condition of the next ferry... It was probably better that we didn't know at the time.. |
The 'jetty' on the opposite side of the Kasai river used to have a nice concrete ramp, but it had long disintegrated. To get of the boat we were litterally dropped on the muddy shore. Scary!
There was a little village here, and our hopes for better roads vanished as soon we left the village. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo068.jpg The road was no more then a tight single track. It is barely possible to pass trough here with a bicycle. After having verified that this is indeed the only track leading out of here we had no choice but to drive trough it. Half of the car was cuting trough the bushes. The amount of spiders and other critters that we took along for a ride was staggering. It was impossible to keep the windows open because of the debri that was coming in. It was also impossible to keep the windows closed because it was so hot. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo069.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo070.jpg This went on for kilometers on end. Spiders were atually building a web on the inside of our windscreen. And then we tipped over again. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo097.jpg |
The single track trough the forest went on forever. We had 'lost' a lot of time by taking the ferry and before we knew it got dark. We were still driving with one wheel on the track and the other in the forest. The darkness made it quite spooky. In the eroded bits the darkness made it very difficult to manouver our way trough. The mosquitoes were feasting on our blood.
We passed a few villages in the forest, but they looked very primitive and wild. Not the most welcoming environment. We decided to push on until the village of Basongo, which looked big on our map. It wasn't. There was no mission here, they also did not have a priest, or a father, or .. . But they did have a "Maison de passage". A little hut where people who'd pass trough could sleep. We could camp next to this house. The crowd was huge and the kids went completely berzerk as soon as we stopped in the village. When driving to the maison de passage a dozen or so kids (and a few adults) jumped on our wheelcarrier at the back. Josephine had to walk behind the car to keep them off. This would be a zero-privacy night again. It didn't matter much as it was half past 10 already and we just wanted to sleep. With the crowd around, it seemed as if going for a pee before going to bed was the biggest challenge of the day. |
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Day 20
Busy villages are not a good place to sleep late. We left Basongo at 5.30. Eventually the road opened up. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo072.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo074.jpg We were on top of a hill, and we had to find ourselves a way trough the valley to the next hill. The deeper we descended into the valley, the worse the erosion got. Troughout the years about 10 parallel roads - a few kilometers apart - had been made down the hill. If the road got too bad, they just created a new tracks. The soil was sandy. We had to drive 10 km's to find the latest track http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo076.jpg But that track too soon became impossible. We had to create our own track trough the high grass. Josephine would walk in front and I tried not to loose her out of sight. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo077.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo078.jpg In the valley was a shallow stream. We drove trough the water instead of using this bridge in case you were wondering. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo081.jpg The soil on the other side of the river was more firm and for a short while we could advance quickly in a beautiful scenery! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo083.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo086.jpg This short stretch was some of the more pleasant parts of the trip thus far. And open savannah where we could actually see something. Reasonable sandy tracks. We did get stuck a few times in the deeper ruts, but nothng dramatic. And most important: the people seemed to be more friendly this side of the Kasai river. We hadn't met any police yet either. |
With a bit of luck we'd be able to cross the Loange river today!
The loange river was the second and last ferry we would have to take. Barthélémy in Ilebo said the ferry was functional, so that is good news as it was the last possible showstopper for us. On top of that, The Loange river is the border of the Kasai province and the Bandundu province. For us that was a major milestone, as Bandundu is the last province we would have to cross. Kinshasa is in Bandundu! It was still a very long way, but a milestone nonetheless.. :-) With a bit of luck... Could it be that luck just doesn't work in Congo? The people here never really had any luck with the people that ruled them. They didn't have much luck with the foreign relations. Some of the worlds biggest and most dangerous diseases (HIV, Ebola, ..) originated here... that's not really what I'd call luck either. You could say that they are lucky to have all those diamonds, gold and whatnot burried under their very fertile ground... But that is exactly the reason that the country has been in a constant state of war for the last decades. Tough luck! We would not make it to the ferry today. Where the road descended down to the river, the Savannah abruptly stopped and turned into dense forest. The water had eroded a deep and very rough track here, we were very happy to have to do this downhill so gravity could help us down. At the last village people had warned us not to start the descent as a truck was coming up in the other direction. It is ofcourse impossible to pass eachother there. So we stopped on top of the hill and walked down. Sure enough, a big 4x4 truck was stuck in the tracks. They were carrying a GSM tower that was to be constructed on the savannah behind us. They had hired a team of about 20 man to assist the truck on this stretch. Armed with shovels and pickaxes they more-or-less levelled the road. We watched them for an hour and they had moved about 10 meter in that time. It was another kilometer to the top. This would take some time! So we walked back to our car and waited... It was 10 in the morning. |
It got dark around 6 in the evening. We were still at exactly the same place. The truck had moved up a bit, but not much.
We decided that we would go back to the last village and spend the night there. We asked the 'Chef du village' and he directed us to Germain, the principal of the school. We could camp next to the house of Germain, on the school grounds. Germain, the principal, was a great guy. Very friendly and concerned about everybody. He involved his wife in all the conversations, and she too was very friendly to us. Two of their sons were at university, one in Kinsasa, the other in Lubumbashi. He was not complaining, but he longed back to the olden (colonial) days when roads were functional. Apparently until 30 years ago there was a lot of wildlife here. Girafes, elephants and lions. His kids had never seen any of these though. All of the wildlife had been poached during the different wars. Germain's youngest son: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo090.jpg Germain's house: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo091.jpg Our house: http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo089.jpg |
Progress on day 20. Last village before Loange river (don't know the name)
It's been 25 days since we entered DRC (I started counting the days in this report since we left Lubumbashi) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day20.jpg |
Day 21
When we got up in the morning we were immediately informed that the big truck had still not made it up, so we were not in a hurry. We had some more nice talks with Germain and his wife. We wanted to give him something as he had been so kind to us. We carry a small photo printer, so we decided to take a picture of them and print it off. When we told him we wanted to take a picture from him and his familiy he ran off quickly.. Half an hour later he came back, in a costume and shiny shoes. His wife was dressed up nicely and even the kids had their Sunday's clothes on. They looked fantastic! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo093.jpg The (tatty and tired looking) mundele on the right looks fantastic too! :wink: 8-) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo096.jpg |
School grounds usually have a lot of kids around. We counted them and stopped at 400. That's more then 800 prying eyes. Not just kids though, quite a few adults too.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya087.jpg If I had to choose one picture to describe our Congo trip, that would be the one! We decided to drive back to the begining of the descending road, a few kilometers out of this village, in the hope to find some peace and quiet. That way we would also not loose too much time when the truck finally reaches the top. When the truck finally reaches the top. If the truck finally reaches the top. With a bit of luck. ... ... At 6.30 that night we were parked next to Germain's house again. The truck did not make it up today.. Germain's wife was so pleased to see us again as she could thank us again for the picture we had given her. She had shown it to all her friends and was very proud of it. Later that night somebody came to tell us that they were going to work trough the night to get the truck up.. So maybe we'd be able to move again tomorrow? With a bit of luck... |
Day 22
At 4 that night we were awoken by the sound of a truck engine nearby. Finally, the truck had gotten up the hill (it took them 4 days). It was still pitch dark, so we tried to sleep a few more hours. But the anticipation kept us awake. We said our goodbyes to Germain and had a quick talk to the truck driver. He was not amused. He started from Kikwit two weeks ago. He said if he'd knew about the state of the roads, that he would have never taken this job. The GSM operator is paying him well for the transport, but he has to pay the local 'helpers' to get him trough here, he will have to be lucky to make a profit out of this ride.. We plummeted down the hill and were grateful that the truck has just passed. They had broadened the road and levelled out the deepest ruts. We still had a struggle as the trucks massive wheels and ground clearance were no match for our little Landcruiser. Three hours and 5 kilometers later we arrived at the ferry... Oh boy... http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya089.jpg |
There was a police officer at the ferry, and one or two onlookers. But apart from that it was surprisingly quiet. The police officer ordered one of the onlookers to go and get the captain. We sat down and waited in police guy's little hut. He was nervous and young. We joked around a bit with the people who were asking for money and cadeaux. Annoying, but not as pushy and aggresive as we were used to by now.
The policy guy then told us we had to register. We did not feel much like it, but hey, if he wants to copy over all of our details in his little book, why not. When he was done he asked for money as he had registered us. We politely told him that registration is not a paying service in Congo. It never had been. That's not true he said, it is an integral part of his job to ask for money from people who pass trough here. We had a chuckle but stayed polite and told him that if that is the case, then why is it not in writing anywhere. He then caught us by surprise by claiming it is written in the official police handbook! He got up, and got out this little black book. It was titled something along the line of "Official guidelines for Police officers in the RDC" (not sure about exact title). The first chapter were the 'ten commandments' of the police officers, the third item read: "Créer une base de données de tous les voyageurs dans votre regio" He read it for us and said: "Créer une base de donnes de tous les voyageurs dans votre regio" "Create a base of donations from all travellers in your region" We couldn't believe what we heard. Had they really constitutionalized corruption? If this was true we would have little choice but to pay. In disbelief we took the book out of his hands and read the phrase again. Yes, it was really written here... It took us a minute before we realised that it was not "donne" (pronounced "don", like in Don Quichote) but "donnée" (pronounced don-E). What was actually written was: "Create a database of all travellers in your region" We had to try very hard to keep our laughter down. At first we tought he just tricked us into it. But that was not the case, he genuinely believed it was written that he had to collect money from travellers. He had no idea what a database was. |
An hour later the captain of the ferry arrived. Barthélémy in Ilebo had given us a letter for the captain, but as we could not read the letter, we did not trust it. We decided to bargain first, and then give the letter.
The captain said he could bring us across for 75$US and 30 liters of diesel. And we had to supply two batteries to get the engine started. And some oil because the engine was low on oil. And if possible a diesel filter because his was clogged Hmm... The diesel we agreed on, 30 liters is a bargain compared to the 150liters from the last ferry. The price we ridculized and said it was waaaay too much. We discussed for half an hour or so, he was friendly but stuck to his price. Eventually we 'remembered' the letter. He looked happy with what he was reading. Eventually the price got down to 35$US. That is still an inflated price, but we agreed. Don't forget that the average annual income per capita in 2009 in DRC was estimated at 171$US. That's 15$US/month! Driving onto the ferry required 4x4 and we banged our gearbox (bashplate protected) hard while doing so. We almost cried when we saw the engine of this ferry. The 'machine room' was under water. Not really under water, it was a mucky oily substance. The engine was leaking badly. This ferry had been used to traverse Kabila's army when they marched in from the Rwanda border to Kinshasa a few years earlier. The captain told us how he was forced to work non-stop for 3 days to get everybody and everything across. Every little piece that Kabila's army could use they had taken. They left little more then a wreck. We had sent out somebody to buy diesel for us, he had to go two villages down the road to find some (on his bicycle). In the meantime we tried to jumpstart the boat. Our jumpleads were too short to get to it, so we took our batteries out (our Landcruiser is 24volt - 2 batteries). With our batteries connected the starter motor started turning. Turn after turn after turn after turn. Fast at first, but then slower and slower. Everybody was dead silent, hoping the engine would start. It wouldn't. They got to work, and took injectors out and doublechecked various parts. Another attempt was made The battery was getting really low and just when we thought it was not going to work the big diesel engine sprung to life. Hesitant at first, but after a minute or so most of its 10 cylinders were working. No mufflers ofcourse, this was a LOUD engine! The captain's smile was priceless, he was proud of his machine! He gave it some trotthle and then the engine sputtered and died. He came down and said they had forgotten to purge the fuel system. Air in the system and the engine had died. Our batteries were flat now, not enough juice left to turn that big starter motor. We tried to start our own engine, but even that did not work. Bugger! But, no problem, apparantly they had 2 batteries in the village on the other side of the river. We could 'rent' them for a small fee. Having no other choice we agreed. With a dugout canoe some guys got across in search for the batteries. An hour later the captain had purged the fuel lines and we had two 'new' batteries. They were worthless. They measured 10 volt at most, they were not charged! Another solution came up: somebody in the village had a solar panel, and we could rent it. They thought it would take 2, maybe 3 days to get it charged fully. Rather not.. |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya003.jpg
Sitwrap: -Our car was sitting on ferry - a ferry we hoped would not sink now -The ferry was not running -The ferry did not have batteries -By attempting to start the ferry, our batteries were now flat -Our car was not running -We could not push our car off the ferry as the ramps were damaged. If we wanted to charge our batteries, we needed a running engine and a functional alternator. We had to push start our Landcruiser, and we had to do it on the few meters of space we had on the ferry. Now seems like an appropriate time to talk about our brakes. As we had been doing extreme 4x4 work the last 3 weeks in mostly sandy and muddy areas, it does not come to a surprise that our brakes took a bit of a beating. As a matter of fact, we barely had any functional brakes when we left Kananga. And we have no brakes whatsoever since we left Ilebo. It's just metal to metal... and that does not brake very well. It hadn't bothered me too much until now, the big Landcruiser engine allows for great engine breaking and we are not driving any faster then 20km/h anyway. This made the situation a bit more complicated now.. :roll: As you can see on the first picture of this ferry, there is nothing at the end of the ferry to stop us from rolling into the fast flowing Loange river. 5 meters. That was the distance we had. The ferry crowd would push us as fast as they could, I had to build up enough speed to make the engine turn, once started I had to engage reverse gear, let the clutch go - gently without stalling the engine or slipping the wheels - and come to a halt before rolling into the river. 5 meters! |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya001.jpg
I was a tad bit nervous when the countdown started. I closed the door but left the window open and did not wear my seatbelt. Just in case... 3-2-1 and off we went. I dumped the clutch almost immediately. Way too early ofcourse and we came to halt. The engine was not running. On the second try I waited 'much' longer, but we did not have enough speed to turn the crank. I had about a meter of extra play. Third try was a good one. I dumped the clutch and immediately declutched again to throw it in reverse and with screeching tyres I reversed again just in time. I like a bit of tension, but this was pushing it a bit! The next hour we left the engine running with an increased idle to charge the batteries. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya002.jpg While waiting we had a nice view over the river. At one point we could hear drums in the distance, approaching quickly. It was a 'cargo' canoe. 4 or 5 huge dugout canoes tied together with a huge load on it and rowers on bot sides. Somebody was setting the pace with a drum. They were travelling downstream and were going really fast. That was one of the rare occasion where I saw the Congo I had dreamt about when I was a kid. We figured that after an hour of charing, the batteries should be loaded enough to start the boat engine. So we shut down the engine, took out the batteries and hooked it up to the ferry. KLIK - KLIK Nothing happened... |
Truly EPIC. I normaly don't read 4x4 reports as I'm busy enough reading motorbike reports, but I'm glad I've read yours, one of the best travel stories this year on the net.
I stumbled on your site a year ago when planning my little West-Africa trip, it was very useful. Bedankt, Tony Tony's Travels |
WOW!!!! and keep it coming is all I can say. Would make a great documentary.
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I take out the multimeter and it gives funny readings on our batteries. I am starting to fear that they are shot. :?
We have been on this ferry for over 4 hours now, and we have not really made any progress. Luckily we still have an ace up our sleeves. Our Landcruiser is a 24volt version. That means we have 2 batteries for the engine. (imagine you arrive here with only one battery?). But we also have two auxiliary batteries in the back, to run our fridge. There are a couple of reasons we had not used them up until now. Firstly these batteries are deep-cycle batteries, they are not made for cranking an engine, that could lead to damage. Secondly, to save space in the back I put the batteries in a location where they are very difficult to take out of. We would have to unload half of the car to get to it, It takes at least an hour to take them out. Not a fun thing to do in a car that has been standing all day in tropical heat. The idea of exposing all our belongings in this crowd is not really a good prospect either. But we had no choice now, so we started unloading our car on the ferry. Josephine on guard, me sweating inside. An hour later the ferry came to live again. It once again took a lot of turns of the startermotor before the engine would go.. these batteries too were now completely flat. I did not really see anything of our crossing (shame, it was a beautiful river) as I was trying to bolt the batteries back into the back of our truck. At 4 in the afternoon we reached the opposite side. With as much run-up as possible they pushed us of the ferry and I managed to get the Landcruiser started on my, rough, way down. We were greeted by a committee of officials. This was a province border (Kasai/Bandundu). |
We were invited in the customs hut. It had a little table and a wooden bench. And a big book. They registered us, asked for our permit (was ok for them), our insurance, etc.. When they were done they asked if we "had something for them"
Time for the usual routine, this gets tiring after a while. So I silently count to 3, smile and with a very sweet voice reply that I give them my friendship and appreciation and give them a blessing from God.. And that I am so delighted that such a professional and efficient custom service is provided (for free!) by the Congolese government to us, humble tourists. They ofcourse reply that they want something else. After which I put on a very sad face and ask why they do not want my friendship? This confuses them. That is the right time to get up, thank and greet them with a lot of words (not allowing them to talk back) and walk out of the door. But we were immediately redirected to another hut, the police hut. Same story there, same tricks. When we were finally ready to go, the first customs officer comes to me. He brings me my hat. I had forgotten it in his hut. These guys aren't bad, they do what they have always seen and done (ref. corruption). We are glad we remained friendly with them. We felt very much out of place again. Slowly we drove off, back into the bush. Our mood changed when we realized that we had just left Kasai behind. That was the hardest part of our trip. Once we reach Kikwit, we know there is a frequently used road to Kinshasa. And from the people on the ferry we learned that there is good track - maintained by Belgians - from Dibaya-Lubwe to Kikwit. A quick check on the map learned us that we would reach that 'real' road soon. Not today, but probably tomorrow, depending on the state of the roads. The road was pretty bad and the going was slow. But it was not as bad as the roads from the last days. Most of the time we were still driving off-camber, driving in and out of huge pits, around or over obstacles. Slow, first gear movement. But we did not get stuck. It was pretty surreal that Josephine and I were having a very animated discussion while negotiating these serious obstacles. We looked back to everything we have been trough in the last 4 weeks. pretty crazy stuff! We have litterally gotten ourselves stuck hundreds of times, but we always managed to get us out. We laughed at all the nonsense we talked when trying to avoid bribes. We felt really happy now, relieved. A great sense of satisfaction came over us. We congratulated eachother for helping eachother out when the going got tough. We congratulated our Landcruiser for being so tough. Then a horrible, dreadful sound. *BANG* tak-tak-tak |
I stopped immediately. I was pretty sure I knew what that sound meant. I turned my head towards Josephine and saw a confused, questioning look on her face. "What was that?" she asked. I did not say a word and got out of the car, looked at the wheels and saw nothing special.I walked to the other side of the car and saw this
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya004.jpg Everything seemed to pause for a minute. It was late afternoon and the worst heat had worn off, the sounds of the bush were omnipresent. We were alone. We were sweating. "Josephine, I think we have problem" |
All 6 flange bolts had sheared off and the axle had worked its way out. Diff oil was seeping out (and dust in).
This was not good. This was not good at all! We both sat down for a few minutes and stared at our rear axle. It was a sad sight. We are not superstitious at all, but maybe we shouldn't have been that positive? This was a scene out of a comic book. It is Donald Duck jumping on a bridge, shouting "look how strong this is". And in the next scene Donald Duck is seen falling in the water under the collapsing bridge. A guy on a bicycle stops and looks at the axle. He utters a long "ai ai ai ai ai ai" (think "The Gods must be crazy"). This makes us laugh and we repeat his "ai ai ai ai ai". He couldn't have expressed our feelings better. The bicycle guy says there is a village 500 meter further down the road. Tongue firmly in cheek I ask if there is a Toyota garage in that village. He gave me a crazy look. "Il n'y a pas de voiture ici!" - "There are no cars here!". We have got to do something, so I get out my limited toolbox and start removing the rear propshaft and try to close the diff a bit. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya007.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya006.jpg With 4x4 engaged we still have a front wheel drive Landcruiser. |
We manage to drive to the village, sun is low on the horizon by now so we wisely decide to stop here. We need to think about our situation. The usual 100 man crowd quickly forms. People here are still annoyingly curious, but they do not seem to be as angry as we experienced so much in the first part of our trip. Maybe we just get used to it more. Or know better how to deal with the situation.
The chef du village assigns us a spot under a tree and we set up camp. Our morale is low, very low! It's been quite the day! First the hairy decent down to the Loange river, then the whole debacle to get the ferry across, and now with our broken rear axle. We are exhausted. We are dirty. We are running low on water We have barely enough water to cook some pasta, but not enough to freshen us up. When asked if they have some water for us, a guy called Patty responds cheerfully that their village is blessed as they have a fresh water source nearby. That sounds great, I ask if I can fill up one of our jerrycans. This is no problem, but he asks if it can wait until tomorrow. I push him a bit as we would really like to wash the mud from our faces and have enough to drink. He agrees to show me the source. So of we go, armed with an empty jerrycan I follow Patty. Out of the village. Down a hill. Into a forest. This is a steep track! And muddy! I wish I put on my hiking boots for this, I was slipping around on my worn crocs. After a 10 minute walk downhill I start questioning Patty about this source, I thought it was nearby?!? "Ce n'est pas loin, presque la!" - "It's not far, we are almost there". It is a very narrow track trough the bush. I walk trough spiderwebs a few time and mosquitoes are having a ball! Eventually we arrive at a murky source down in the valley. I am knackered! 30 minutes down. And now we have to go up again. With a full 20 liter jerrycan! I have to stop every 10 steps to catch my breath and eventually Patty asks me if he should carry the jerrycan. I swallow my pride and my politeness and quickly say "Yes! Please!". Patty is fit and strong and jogs up the hill. I have problems just keeping up with him. We have a nice talk on the way up. A monologue really as I am out of breath all the time. He was a nurse and used to work in the first aid post of the village. He had been working for free for years as there was no budget to pay him. But now they ran out of budget for supplies too. The first aid post in the village had been closed last year. If people got ill here, they had to travel to Dibaya-Lubwe for even the most basic of things. An hour and half after we left we returned to the car. I was broken. This 5km rough hike was too much for me know. I did not have the strength to do these kind of things. The women in the village do this twice a day! Despite all the worries, I slept well that night! Josephine on the other hand.. she did not sleep well. If at all! A combination of the poor food and the stress resulted in stumach problems... withthe side-effects that we are all familiar with. There was a toilet in the village. A hole in the ground with a hut on top of it. But it was all the way at the other end of the village. And as a bonus there was a huge hairy spider, right next to hole that refused to bodge. Poor Josephine! :cry: |
Progress afer our 22nd day on the road. 27th day since we entered DRC.
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Last night we had tried sending a few SMS messages to our favourite mechanic at home (Hi Pascal! :wink: ). The GSM reception was an on-and-off affair and after a few hours of trying we managed to get a reply with a few suggestions we could try. That would be the first job of the day!
We had our spectators, but only 40 or 50, which is not all that much. Life in the village seemed to continue pretty much as normal. Women were grinding the manioc, kids were playing, men were talking in little groups. Upon closer inspection we saw that the bolts on the flange were broken off, leaving all 6 holes filled with the remains of the bolts. We had hoped that we could replace some of the bolts with bolts from the front axle (a tip from Pascal). But there was no way that was going to work. We could weld the axle in place, but there was no welder in this village. That would also destroy the axle and the hub, something I did not fancy. After all, if we arrive in Kinshasa, we are still 15.000km from home! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya005.jpg The locals suggest we take our entire rear axle out and transport it (by bicycle) to Dibaya-lubwe. Fix it there and then transport it back and mount it again. That's how the Congolese would handle the situation. We had instant flash-backs to the truck that had been waiting for a year for its repaired engine. Rather not! We could not fix this here. We had to go to Dibaya-Lubwe, the closest city. It's not that far, so we decided we would try to get there with front wheel drive only. We would take it slowly and carefully! We tried sending an SMS home to let them know we broke down. But we had no reception at all. Most of the GSM towers here are generator powered and only run for a few hours a day (to hard/expensive to get supplies in.. and too few paying customers too I presume). Our engine did not start. The batteries had not survived the ferry ordeal. We had to get a push to get the engine started. We scared the people with our insanely loud exhaust (broken off). Children followed our badly beaten truck. We were a miserable sight. Even before we got back onto the track we got stuck. There was no obstacle. Just a bit of soft sand. We needed another push to get going again. The road is nearly perfect. Nice and flat, a bit sandy. Yet still, we get stuck on a 10cm incline. That is ridiculous! With all the weight on our rear axle it acts as an anchor. The front wheels on the other hand are not that much loaded and battle to grip. A little bit too much throttle and they spin. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/kabombo075.jpg Out come the shovels again. For a 10cm hill! This is going to be a long, long day! |
This went on for hour, after hour, after hour. We would get stuck at the most stupid of places. The front axle alone just could not handle the weight and bulk of our Landcruiser on these soft sandy roads. We had deflated the front tyres and inflated the rear tyres. It helped... but not much.
This was a particularely hot and humid day. We were feeling weak. Josephine hadn't slept all night. And my little hike from the last night took away a lot of what was left of my strength. I had skipped too many meals now, the adrenaline was barely enough to keep me going. To make matters worse we entered a forest again and the dreadful ruts reappeared. This went well for only a very short time. We came to this enormous rut. It was uphill so we had to keep our momentum or our front wheels would start spinning. Drive next to ruts, offcamber on the hill next to it? Or drive straight into the rut, which would be very bumpy? Normally I would have driven next to it. No big deal, it would be scary for a minute, but doable. Now with only one opertional axle I wasn't too sure. I hesitated too long. At the last moment I chose to drive next to the rut but it was too late. We slid sideways and our rear wheel fell into the rut. Our car leaned heavily. Our chassis was grounded. Both left wheels were in the air, the rear right wheel was hanging in the void of the rut. We only had one wheel on the ground now. The back of the car was balancing on the reare axle. We were on the verge of tipping over. There would be no sidewall to keep us upright here. If we go down, we will end up on our roof. We get out and I got really angry! This is not the kind of obstacle were we would normally get stuck! I was angry at myself for not taking the safer route trough the rut. I was angry at Josephine for... I don't know why exactly. I was angry at everybody and everything! I was so frustrated! Josephine is a hero in these situations and she managed to calm me down. We had no other choice but to keep going. This would be one hell of an operation to get the car level again. We started digging to get some ground under the wheels and make a path to drive out of this. By now we were dirty. We hadn't had a decent wash in weeks. The dirt was everywhere. It was noon and the sun had no remorse with us. We were sweating like pigs. All the dirt that had accumulated on our body now turned into mud from our own sweat. With every movement the dirt would grind a layer from our skin. I stopped digging and got up. I was seeing stars in my eyes. I could feel the heat trough my hat. I looked at my muddy arms. I sank trough my legs onto my knees. I stayed like that for a few seconds. I wanted to get up. *poof* down I went on my back. |
I had hit a limit. This is exactly the kind of situation where I am at my best. Where I am able to keep my cool. Where I am able to remain optimistic. I have been able to keep my cool for over 3 weeks now. But I lost it here.
I had a heatstroke too. This is where Josephine shines. This time she kept her cool. She put me in the shade and prepared me a dehyrdration drink (we have those instant solutions in our first aid kit). She found our very last piece of chocolate for me. She said the right words to me. Peptalk. Thanks to her I quickly came back to reality. I wasn't very optimistic though. If somebody popped up here and offered to buy our car I wouldn't have hesitated. If we had the possibility to take a helicopter and fly out of here, I would have taken the opportunity. Both cases were very unlikely to happen! While I recovered under a tree Josephine organised our recovery. She asked help from somebody that passed by. He wanted money ofcourse, we agreed to pay him.. but only afterwards. These guys are strong! It took him an hour of digging at an insane rate to make a more-or-less level path so we could drive the Landcruiser out of this situation. Driving us out of this one was one of the more hair-raising situations, we were playing with the laws of physics. The god of gravity had mercy and we made it out. This 4x4 work with a front wheel drive car is not easy! We paid our helper, we paid him much more then we should have. He was angry and demanded more. We drove off. We discussed our situation. Physically I was a wreck. Josephine was not feeling too fit either. We knew the 'road' was not that far from here, but we would not make it the way we were going now. We agreed we shouldn't get ourselves in a situation like the one we just had. Take it easy. If we need help, we must organize it. We accepted the fact that this was going to cost us money. So be it. The track went downhill from here. As soon as we hit the valley we could not get up a stupid little hill. The front wheels were spinning wildly. Right! We talked to the guys who were looking at our ridiculous attempts of climbing this ridiculous koppie. They gave us a friendly impression. We explained our situation, our broken diff, etc... We stressed the fact that we were not working for some corporation or NGO. We did not have the budgets these corporations have. We mentioned that we were willing to pay for help, but not much. It's not because we are mundeles that we would pay them insance amounts of money. Our reasoning was that if they started a discussion at this point in time already, that they would cause us a lot of trouble later on. But they agreed. They wanted to help us and work at a 'normal' rate. We 'hired' three guys. Vita, Mufuta and 'papa' Bazil. They were overly optimistic and said we would reach Kapia that same evening! Kapia is the village where this track joins the 'Belgian' road. |
A really good trip report. Many thanks for sharing it.
cheers Chris |
The main job of our 'crew' was to flatten the road as much as possible. And give us a push if we couldn't get over things. They would level the road, 50 meters at a time and then we would drive as far as we could, etc.. etc..
This was actually working rather well! My depression from earlier that day was already forgotten! Imagine you are walking on the street, minding your own business. And some chap comes up and explains he has a problem. He asks you for help. You agree and travel with him to his destination. You have no idea who this guy is. You have no idea when you will go home again. You did not inform your family that you would probably not come home that night. That is how we recruited Mufuta, Basil and Vita. They were an energetic bunch and did their work with a lot of enthousiasm. Cheering and singing when we had gotten trough another 'obstacle'. They were proud of their task too, and explained it to all the people we passed. We often had a few extra helping hands. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya018.jpg L'office des routes from Congo actually owes us a lot of money as we were reconstructing the roads! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya017.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya015.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/549/dibaya016.jpg |
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After a few hours, the enthousiasm wore off from our crew. They too started to realize that this was very though and slow going. The road hadn't improved either. Especially Basil, who was already a bit older, was getting tired. By the time we reached a looong hill we were barely moving again. The group of people that was following us grew larger and larger. But they were not helping with the digging. They occasionally helped with the pushing. This was partly because of Mufuta, Basil and Vita had told them they alone were allowed to help. This to secure their fee. At least, that is what we guessed... they talked Lingala to eachother. We had also told them upfront that we would pay for 3 guys, not an entire village! We are not quite sure how, but after a while other people started helping. Did our 'crew' tell them they would share their fee? Or did they just help because they wanted to? I don't know... but we could really need the help. We were running in the last hours of daylight again. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya009.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya013.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya014.jpg |
We had removed our spare wheels. This allowed more people to push.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya012.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya011.jpg The later it got, the more people arrived. And the louder everybody got. Our 'crew' had by now grown to 20 something strong guys. they only had 3 shovels, but they worked in teams. And as soon a piece of road was 'ready' they all gathered behind our Landcruiser and pushed. They sang working songs to give the pace. People were clapping in their hands. Every 5 meter we progressed was a reason to celebrate. People cheered and dansed. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya020.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya021.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya022.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya023.jpg |
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I cannot help myself from moving rythmically behind my keyboard whilst typing this when I think about the ambiance. You could see people going completely wild of excitement everytime we kicked up mud with our spinning tyres while slowly creeping forward. I could feel the trusts at the back of the car from the pushing people. This hill was steep and the ruts were bad. Most people helping us now were from the next village. They had a vision, they wanted to get us in their village for the night! It was sometimes though, but they kept their - and our - spirits up. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya026.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya030.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya027.jpg |
When we reached the top of the hill everybody was going nuts. So were we! We couldn't believe we had actually gotten up here with a broken rear axle. That was some seriosuly difficult terrain!
It was a now few hundred meters downhill and people climbed on our roofrack and hung on our doors for the ride. We were too enthousiastic to say anything about it now. We could stay next to Papa Likas's house. He was the guy who took the lead in the last climb. A somewhat older guy, and clearly one of the 'richer' people in the village. He might have lacked the degrees and the education, but we could tell he was a clever and wise man. We were offered two chairs (funny how this form of politeness exists everywhere in congo). They were very funny affairs, huge thrones made out of heavy wood. We felt like the king and the queen. We were offered food - foufou and some fish - but we politely refused. It looked ok, but we did not want to risk getting ill now. We were too weak already (Josephine still had serious stomach problems). As usual we could see the people were actually happy that we did not eat, they didn't have too much. Our supply of water was low again. The 20 liters that had cost me so much energy yesterday was almost gone. Very, very carefully we inquired if they had a water supply. There was indeed a source, but "c'est très loin" - "it is very far". When he says it is far, I believe him! They bring us a small supply of rainwater to freshen us up. We will have to ration our remaing water. It struck me how difficult it is to get water here. People would have to walk hours and hours to reach a source. While at the same time the forest is so humid and sticky. I checked the GPS. We had moved no more then 5km today. I had reached my limit today. Although I felt ok now, I could feel that I did not have any more reserves. Josephine was the hero of the day, without a doubt. But she was suffering from her stomach problems. The village had become quiet again. Darkness had hidden the little huts in the forest. People could be seen, gathered around little fires. We saw a larger group of people gathered around hut. A strange kind of singing could be heard.. a very sad and mysterious sound. Papa Likas explained that a child was very ill and did not have long to live. People were praying. When asked what illness the child had, Papa Likas replied "On ne sait pas" - "We don't know". There are no doctors here. Another child from the same family died last month. We had a great evening with dancing and singing and all looked good and fine. And then Congo slaps us in the face again with its hard reality. |
Progress after day 23 on the road. Day 28 since we entered DRC. I did not bother trying to add our progress on the map. The scale of the map does not allow for such small markings :roll:
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Day 24
I really had to force myself out of our tent that morning, despite the noise off the village. My muscles hurt and my eyes preferred to stay closed. Mufuta, Vita and papa Basil had returned to their own village for the night, but they would come back. We sat down with papa Likas. He offered his help and we gave him the same explenation we gave earlier to the first members of our crew. He agreed with the conditions. He suggested we 'hire' 5 extra guys, including him, from his village. We knew we needed that kind of manpower to push 4 ton of Toyota trough the jungle. They would join us until we reach Kapia. Apparantely the road there is much better and we would be able to drive on our own to Dibaya-Lubwe from there. Papa likas made a drawing of how the road went all the way to Kapia. The first few kilometer would be slightly downhill until we reached a river. From there the road was uphill all the way to Kapia. The first part of the hill would be the hardest as this was in a forest with the usual ruts. Halfway to the top the road leaves the forest and we would be in much easier savannah. "Nous allons y arriver avant midi!" - "we will get there (Kapia) before noon" As soon as Mufuta, Basil and Vita arrived we were on the road again. Our batteries were now officially dead so we needed a push to get started. It was key not to turn of the engine now! Our crew loved the raw sound of our broken exhaust! We advanced quickly. Our crew was hanging on the sides of the car while two guys were walking in front, making quick improvements along the way. The way we progressed our first few hundred meters made mea actually believe we would make it to Kapie before noon! We must be the two most naive people in the world! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya032.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya034.jpg It had been a while since we saw serious rain. Frequent showers yes, but not cloud bursts. Until now. Just when we arrived at the river in the bottom of the valley fat raindrops were falling from the sky. This usually means trouble. Our crew searched for cover in the forest while we sat in our car whilst a could emptied itself violently right on top of us. We could see the mostly dry road transform in a muddy stream. The hard compressed mud was gleaming. |
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This rain couldn't have come in a worse time. The road was now extra slippery and we already struggled so much with grip - or the lack thereof. Our crew worked hard to construct a road that would provide us an as level as possible path with as much grip as possible. It took a huge amount of energy for every meter we worked ourselves forward. We could see our crew was losing its motivation and we feared that they would just give up or demand more money. It was Josephine that discovered the magic of our camera. These guys loved the camera! Everytime the camera came out they posed and they work like crazy to look cool on the pictures. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya037.jpg I stalled the engine. I felt really bad about it as they could not pushstart us uphill. Only downhill. I let the Landcruiser roll backwards for a few meters and it still wouldn't start. The lost few meters would cost us hours to get up again. I did not want to go backwards any longer. So while our crew continued clearing the road, I started to get our auxiliary batteries out again. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya041.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya040.jpg Everything was just so hard now. Getting the engine started again had cost us an hour. The original enthousiasm was completely gone, we were moving forward at a rate of a meter per hour. The hill was about 700meters long. We stopped progressing at all when we had to go trough a small detour around a tree. It was small but steep incline. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya044.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya042.jpg |
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With the rain also came the little moisture flies. Millions of them. tiny little flies. They favoured our eyes and ears and loved our nose. Annoying little thingies! We tried everything to make the road better in order toget us up this little hill. We had at least 10 attempts to climb it, but it just didn't work. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya048.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya051.jpg Since we left the village early this morning we had covered 4 kilometer. Of which the first 3,8km were done in the first two hours. The rest of the day we spent on this hill. The last 3 hours we hadn't moved at all. Darkness was setting in again, we weren't going anywhere today.. The crew wanted to return to their village for the night. We would be camping here. Just when our guys wanted to leave the news came that the sick child in the last village had died. A messenger was sent to the surrounding villages. This meant a lot of people would want to visit the family of the kid, so there will be a lot of traffic on the roads that night. A creepy thought to be camping spot in the middle of this situation, all alone on the Congolese jungle. Kapia became a mythic place for us. Our own Atlantis. The hidden city that nobody knew where it was. We started having our doubts if we would ever get our car out of this jungle again. Tomorrow is another day.. We opened our tent in the place where we were stuck. All the batteries from our flashlights were empty (from last nights rythmic struggle) so we helped ourselves with a candle. The rainforest was insanely loud and peaceful at the same time. I would have loved this place otherwise, but it was hard to forget in what kind of trouble we were. |
Progress after day 24... Day 29 since we entered Congo.
None at all really... Camping in the jungle http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day22.jpg |
Day 25
Our 30th day since we entered Congo. That needs to be celebrated! But not with any drinking. We are out of drinking water. It had rained a lot that night and our tent was still leaking. We had given an emtpy water jerrycan with papa Likas last night and he said he'd return with a full one today. But what we were mostly looking out for was that tirfor he was talking about. They knew, that a guy in their village used to have a tirfor, but they had not seen it in the last years. Likas would try to trace it down. We were delighted to see our crew again, not only with a full jerrycan of water, but also with a tirfor! But it didn't come for free.. :roll: The owner wanted 50$US to 'rent' the tirfor. This was an odd situation as we did not agree with that price, but the owners was not here to discuss it with him. We decided we would be wanting to spend 15$US - which is a lot of money! - and papa Likas thought that the owner would agree with that. I had already taken the auxiliary batteries out again early in the morning, so we could immediately start the engine and try to finally get out of this pit! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya049.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya054.jpg It worked!! This was a big morale booster. A booster we desperately needed! Likas and Mufuta were delighted too http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya057.jpg |
Centimeter after centimer we creeped forward. This was faster moving then what we managed yesterday! Even if it was going so slowly, the psychological effect cannot be underestimated. The previous days we would be be digging for hours after which we blasted forward for 50 meters and then had to start digging again. That is pretty depressing.
But now we were constantly moving, incredibly slow, but every 5 minutes you could see progress was being made. It was hard work though. Our crew did a great job! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya060.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya061.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya062.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya067.jpg |
Because of our involvement with our 'crew' we did not have too much trouble with the begging here. Apart from that I believe we had been very lucky to break down here.
:scratch: Let's rephrase that last sentence: "We could have broken down in a much worse region then this, people were generally nice around here." By now we had become part of the road. Early in the morning we had the kids that passed trough. They were very curious but they could not stay long as they had to go to school. You could see the dilemma on their faces, every fibre of their body wanted to stay around and check out these white guys, but they would get into serious trouble if they did not show up in school! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya059.jpg We felt sorry for the bike transporters that had to pass trough here. They had such a hard task at hands already, and then we created an extra obstacle by blocking the road with out truck. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya064.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya065.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya058.jpg |
After the little detour there was a short level piece of track before going steep uphil again. I took as much run-up as possible and launched myself up the hill. This won us 20 meters or so.
Josephine: "What was that noise?" Me: "What noise?" Josephine: "That tak-tak noise?" Me: "Don't know" I had heard the noise too but I did not want to think or worry about it. Not now. The road was too steep to even attempt driving up with our front axle alone. We would use the tirfor for the remaining 500m. The length of the cable gave us about 10meter of progress with each go. Then the tirfor had to be released and a new tree had to be found to continue. 500 meters. 10 meter at a time. Everybody knew this was going to be a big job. But once we would make it open we would be out of the forest and onto the savannah, were it would be possible to drive on our own steam again. That was a big motivation. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya066.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya068.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya069.jpg My respect for these guys is endless. It is incredible how they could manage such hard labour for hours on end. If the motivation got low, the camera always cheered them up again. They barely eat or drink. At this rate I would have died already... twice. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya072.jpg This last pictures gives and idea of the angle we were working at. "Tonight we would surely reach Kapia!" |
The guys were getting hungry. We could not blame them. They did not have food, and the nearest village was 5km behind us. Our food stock was low too, but we still had porridge. We bought a lot of porridge as it is very nutritious and takes little space in the car. I don't like porridge very much but we had eaten it every day since we were on the road.
We cooked up a big pot for them. They loved it. To make it a bit tastier we gave them our pot of sugar, so they could add a bit to their porridge. We were still cleaning up our cooking gear and by the time we returned the sugar was all gone. They just ate a full kilogram of pure sugar! About halfway up the hill we ran out of trees. The trees had made way for thick bush. But nothing strong enough to hook up the tirfor... :scratch: Nothing is easy in Congo.. We cut down a tree. The procedure for the last 250meters changed a bit: Dig a deep hole in the middle of the road. Put the tree in the hole. Close the hole. Attach the tirfor and winch the Landcruiser 10meters forward. Dig out the tree. Close the hole. 10meters further, dig a deep hole in the middle of the road... And repeat. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya075.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya076.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya077.jpg |
When we just started with the tirfor that morning everybody was optimistic. Kapia seemed so close by. Everybody worked extremely hard for 10 hours non-stop and we had only progressed 500meters. So mouch trouble for so little result. We still hadn't mae it up the hill and out of the forest, although we were close now.
It got dark again. Nobody wanted to stop now, you could tell from everybody's face how tired they were. Papa Bazil started a song and the work continued. Everybody sang. No more joking, no more pausing. Just working at a steady pace to get this damn Landcruiser on top of the hill. Papa Likas told me it was his greatest wish to hop on to the back of our car when we made it to top and ride together with us to Kapia. There his task would end and would finally be able to go home to his family. We shared his wish! Late in the evening we made to the top, I still had the engine running since this morning. We were nervous. I put it in 1st and let the clutch go. We moved! *TAK*TAK*TAK* |
Everybody was shaking. Our helpers because of all the sugar they ate. We from anxiety.
Who were we kidding anyway. We had heard the tak-tak sound before and we knew what it meant. I guess we were just hoping it would have been a dry birfield or something. Whishfull thinking. A quick run trough the the front driveline components showed the the noise came from inside the front differential. Trying to drive now only resulted in noise, no more movement. Our front diff had completely packed up. We switched the engine off and it became silent. Very silent. You could see the dissapointment on the faces of our crew. We had a deal with them, they would bring us to Kapia, no matter what, and we would pay them for the service. They were afraid now that they would not get paid (or paid less) as we would obviously not reach Kapia. We had to decide very quickly how and how much we would pay. This is so difficult! We had no idea what a reasonable amount would be. We did not want to pay them too little. Because they deserved an honest wage and we certainly did not want to make enemies here. On the other hand we did not want to pay them to much as that would only open the doors for corruption and create the impression that 'white people' always pay too much. We decided on 150$US for all of them. 150$US divided by 8 = 19$US per person. For three very long had working days. Josephine asked me if I would be happy with that amount? I wouldn't. I'd feel insulted and angry probably. But in Congo that is a lot of money. This was so difficult! We gave the money to papa Likas and thanked them for all their work. We also gave them our axe, for which they were very grateful. We barely used it anyway. Our crew then dissapeared in the darkness, leaving us all alone on the savannah. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya079.jpg Papa Bazil, Mufuta, Vita, Papa Likas, Masambe, Bony We knew we had a bit of problem here, but we did not discuss it too much. We were tired and hungry. There is nothing we could do now anyway so we opened up our tent and made ourselves a nice meal. We cooked some pasta, opened a can of tuna and used our last package of instant mushroom sauce. Whatever would happen tomorrow, we might as wel do it well fed. 20 minutes after our crew had left we heard some very loud "YAHOO's" emerging from the forest. We recognized the voices. Probably they had waited with counting the money until now, and the result seemed to make them very happy. We paid too much.. It was a beautiful night again, as we were in the savannah now we had a clear view of the sky. The African sky can be so magnificently beautiful. We only had a candle to provide us with some light. In different situations this would have been the perfect bushcamp. A strange sense of rest came over us, in a way we felt relieved. We were happy that we would no longer have to struggle with only a functional front axle. |
Progress after day 25 on the road. Our 30th day in DRC.
These progress report are becoming useless really, as we had not really progressed today (700meter) http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day22.jpg |
Day 26
We slept until the heat of the sun chased us out of our tent and cooked up a strong breakfast of my favourite porridge. It was time for a sitwrap: - Our car's bodywork was badly damaged - Exhaust broken off - Two broken batteries - Rear drivetrain broken - Front drivertrain broken - Our gearbox was no longer connected in to our wheels = not possible to jumpstart. Not possible to move. - Running low on food - Running very low on water, less then 2 liters. - Nobody knew where we were. The last time we were able to contact somebody was in Kananga. 2 weeks ago. - No cell phone reception. We hid all valuable things (camera, GPS, ..) in our car. We left a note inside our car with a description of our intentions. We blinded the windows as good as we could. We put on our hiking boots and a hat. We took our passports, our 2 mobile phones, some immodium and dafalgan and some sunscreen. We filled a bottle with our last remaining bit of water. We locked the doors of our car We walked out... |
this is better than Hitchcock. thx for sharing!
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- We: "Bonjour Maman! Ca va?' - "Hello 'maman', how are you?"
Maman: "Bonjour, ca va un peu bien. D'ou venez-vous comme-ça?" - "Hi, We are a litle bit ok. Where are you coming from?" - We: "Lubumbashi" Maman: "aaaaaah ?!?!? C'est trop loin! Et vous allez où?" - "aaaaah ?!?!? That's too far! And where are you going?" - We: "Kinshasa" Maman: 'AAAAAAH !?!?!" - We: "Au revoir et bonne continuation!' - "Bye, and a have a safe journey" Maman: *silence* (eyes and mouth wide open) They were the first people we met since we started walking. 2 ladies with a kid on their back. It must have been the weirdest sight to see two wite people walking here, coming from apparantly nowhere. With no luggage, no transport, no nothing. And then these white people claim they all the way from Lubumbashi - They did not ask how we got here, so we were not lying! ;-) This must have confused them! I am sure they would understand when they saw a broken down car a few kilometers down the road. It was a 2 hour hike to Kapia. It had been a while since we made such fast progress. Kapia was just a small village on a crossroad, we actually walked passed it at first, it was that small. We talked to a few people. The bad news was that nobody here would be able to help us. The good news was that in Dibaya Lubwe, there was a mission. And the father there had a Toyota Landcruiser. The chef du village gave us the phone number from the father. In kapia there is barely any cell phone reception. On top of a little hill in the middle of the village is the only place where - sometimes - there is some repection. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/img_7491.jpg It took us a dozen of attempts to actually make a call (reception kept dropping) and get the father on the phone. It was a very bad connection. We could make out that his 4x4 was in Kinshasa to get it fixed. Then the connection dropped again. We figured that going to Dibaya-Lubwe was the only way to find help. 30km would be a very long hike. There are a few bicycles in the village and we try to rent them. But they only want them rent them with a 'driver' So we get chauffeured on the back of a bicycle. The luggage rack exists of nothing more then 2 iron bars. There are ofcourse no steps to put our feet on. I am not sure who suffered most, our drivers or we. It got tricky on a long downhill when my driver said that we were going too fast because of all the weight. I shouted to him that he should brake. He then replied that he did not have brakes! Nice! They brake with their bare feet on the ground. |
Our biketaxi's dropped us off at the Catholic mission of Dibaya-Lubwe were we were greeted by the father (whose name we have forgotten). He did not seemed to be very interested in us. He had received the SMS message we sent from Kapia but he did not reply because he was not sure if we were travelling on a bike or in a car. Strange reasoning.
His Landcruiser had its injectors replaced in Kinshasa at the time and he was about to leave to Kikwit himself for his annual 'holiday' by bushtaxi. He eventually hooked us up with some guys who own one of the few trucks in Dibaya-Lubwe. They wanted to drive to our car and tow us into the mission, but when asked about the price they were vague. "Pas beaucoup" - "Not much" they said. As they looked and acted very dodgy we insisted but this was a very difficult topic apparantely. The father eventually persuaded us that we should trust them. That would prove to be a mistake. 30 minutes later they come to pick us up. We then spend the next hour picking up people and goods. There are not a lot trucks running here and they never leave empty. Many people grabbed the opportunity to transport them or their good as far as Kapia. But this was a paying service ofcourse and the way the drivers handled it was not pretty I must say. It was a rough ride and they ride these old truck hard. Very hard. It's hard work for the driver. The seat had long desintegrated and this gearbox required doubleclutching trough A LOT of gears. Cool truck though. I don't want to know how much this beast consumes. Actually I did want to know as we would be paying for the diesel! When we arrived back to our truck papa Likas was waiting for us. He had brought us water and a branch of a banana tree full of little banana's. He also wanted to talk to me about what we thought was best. Whiskey, brandy or cognac. This flabergasted me. I could not produce an answer to that question at that time. At least we knew what he was planning to do with the money he earned from us.. Fortunately the truck too was 24volt, so they could jumpstart us with our leads. We would need a running engine to power the steering. Ever since we arrived in Kapia everything went very quickly. We had been lucky to find a vehicle that could tow us so smoothly. We just hoped we could trust these guys as they were very dodgy. The fact that they owned a truck was obviously a status symbol. They showed of their power and wealth too. Smoking a lot of cigarettes, flashing their new mobile phones. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...baya%20080.jpg |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...baya%20081.jpg
We told the truck driver not to drive too fast on the way back. "Polé-polé" (swahili for slowly-slowly). He might not have been the most pleasant person, but he did know how to drive his truck. At a slow tempo he towed us all the way into Dibaya-Lubwe and dropped us off at the catholic mission. We used our kinetic strap for the tow, that reduces the jacking about when he takes off. It was a scary ride at moments. Driving a few meters behind a truck, with no brakes. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/...baya%20084.jpg It was close to midnight when arrived at the mission, but there was still a lot of action going on. We obviously drew a crowd. But at the same time the weekly bushtaxi to Kikwit was about the leave. It's a regular Toyota Landcruiser, like ours, who does this run - loaded to the brim. The only person we 'knew' here - the father of the mission - was about to leave with this taxi. Then the discussion about the money started. The drivers of the truck were still very vague about how much we owned them. They eventually told their price: 650$US !! At first I thought I misunderstood them, after all their French was not that good and mine is far from perfect too. But no, they really meant 650$US. This made me angry, very angry. We had to make a split second decision here. If we hestiated too long, they would think we were considering the amount and talking the price down would become very difficult. If we pissed them off too much we were making ourselves very vulnerable. We very well knew we had nowhere to go and we would be needing the help of the people here to get us going again. 0.1 seconds later I started shouting in a very African way. Gesticulating with my arms. Clearly indicated that their price was completely ridiculous (it was!) and we would never pay this. A heated discussion started. This drew an even bigger crowd. It was pitch dark and we were in a city we did not know. Several hundred people were around us and some of them were getting quite upset. They saw an opportunity to earn a lot of cash. We could not give in to it now, it would make our situation impossible if we ever wanted to get our car repaired here. Josephine would later tell me that this was a very scary situation. I was too much in an adrenaline rush to even notice at the time. The father - clearly very annoyed as he wanted to leave - eventually came to negotiate before things got out of hand. We had calculated that the the truck used 50$US in fuel. We offered to pay 75$US, still way too much. The driver was very dissapointed, he probably had visions of what he'd be able to buy with 650$! It took the father an hour to talk the price down to 100$. We agreed. We saw the father off and thanked him for his help. He gave us permission to camp in the - unfenced - garden of the mission. There was a small workshop at the mission. The only one in town apparently. We could make use of that to get our car fixed. Still with a big crowd around us we set up our tent and tried to go to sleep. It was a miracle that we were able to get our car towed to the mission in one day. We were glad we could sleep in our own tent that night and that we did not had to leave our car in the jungle overnight. Getting our car going again would be another story. We might be stuck here for a while. We did not make any friends in Dibaya-Lubwe today. |
Progress after day 26 since Lubumbashi. 31st day in Congo. Visa expiring in less then 3 weeks. Dibaya-Lubwe
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day26.jpg |
:D Your adventure is incredible !!!! :helpsmilie::helpsmilie:
Congo is on the other hand....:funmeterno: :censored: HELL :stormy: But adventure is what it is, you're in it wishing not to be....when satisfied/glad you succeeded. I'll have a cold beer for you and your girlfriend/wife (if she's not doh...marry her!!! she's an :innocent: ) Blasted through you posts for close to 20 hours.....It's snowing/freezing rain :freezing:, so no riding today :nono: Thx for sharing. |
Day 27
We did not feel like getting out of our tent today. It was very unlikely that this would be a fun day. We had to arrange to get our car fixed here and I had no idea where to start. There was nobody we knew here that could help us. When we opened our tent the crowd was there already. Approximately 100 man and children. They crawled in eachothers necks to get a better view inside our tent. That is not a pleasant way to start your day! Even before we are good and well out of our tent the truck driver we had a fight with last night approached us. He was shy now and friendly. He told us he was a very good mechanic and that he wanted us to hire him to fix our car. Sorry dude.. no way! With all the onlookers still there we talked to the driver of the father of the mission (temporarily out of work due to lack of car). He was a mechanic too (everybody is a mechanic here) and wanted to help us. To us that looked like the best bet. In a city where there are no cars it is very hard to find a mechanic that has some experience with Landcruisers. At least we were sure this guy had seen one of these from closeby. with our experiences from last night fresh in our memory we first discussed about the price. It is quite common to pay 'per job' for these kind of things. The idea is that we would try to get the rear axle fixed so we can drive to Kikwit, we would try to get the front axle fixed there or in Kinshasa. For this the mechanic asks 200$US. That is more then he would earn in a year. He explains that he would have to rent tools and it's not just for him, but for an entire team. Eventually we settle on 50$US for the labour. We are still grossly overpaying them, but we feel we have no choice. After the negotiation I plainly ask them if they had asked so much money just because we are white. They felt uncomfortable with the question but confirmed. I am not a mechanic. But neither were these guys. They had the skills to make everything work, but they did ugly things. They only knew two tools: a hamer and a screwdriver. And the screwdriver was mostly only used in combination with the hamer. The entire process I had to keep watching them to make sure they did not round any more bolts or hamer my axle to pieces. The moment I turned my back I could hear them banging away. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya086.jpg Once the hub on the rear axle was removed, they had to remove the broken bolts. There is no electricity in Dibaya-Lubwe. The generator of the mission was broken. They did not have an electrical drill anyway. But they did have a manual hand operated drill. It must have been quite the tool 100 years ago, but nowadays nobody would even consider to use this to drill into metal. Needless to say the the drill bits were not of the best quality either. They would drill out the holes and tap new wire into them (1 size bigger). Our hub was buggered anyway so I let them do it. It took them an entire day of turning that drill! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/dibaya085.jpg By the end of the day all bolts were cleared, new threads were tapped and fitting bolts (of horrible quality) were found. It had gotten too dark already to re-assemble everything. Tomorrow morning they would be able to fit them and by noon we would be ready to go again! Great! |
Day 28
I wish I could say that we got used to looking into 100 faces first thing in the morning. But I can't. It annoyed us immensely to have this crowd looking at us. From the minute we opened our tent in the morning until we close it again in the evening. They 'work' in shifts so they do not miss any action. We really looked forward to drive out of here again. It was just a few more hours of work to get everything assembled. The hub was fitted again and the oil on the diff changed (lucikily we had bought diff oil in Zambia!). At 11am sharp we asked our mechanics to give us a push and the engine promptly sprung to life. That is a good sign already! Carefully I drive backwards a bit. Ok! Forwards a bit. Ok! I tell the guys I am going for a quick test drive around the mission. We drive out of the gate (the mission had a gate, but no fence) and... *TAK*TAK* |
Josephine and I looked at eachother. We laughed. That would have been too easy, wouldn't it?
The mechanics pushed us back into the mission. The fixed hub was still ok, but our little mishap had probably damaged something inside the differential as well. That is bad news as this meant we had to replace parts. A manual drill would not provide a fix here! So be it. The mechanics took out the differantial. The planetary gears (do you guys know what I talking about when I use those terms? not sure of the correct terms in English) were completely shot. The sun gears had some chipped teeth but could still be used (hopefully). We needed two new gears. They did not have two new gears in Dibaya-Lubwe. We called up the father of the mission, who was on holiday in Kikwit. In the mission in Kikwit they had a bigger workshop and had better access to supplies. I eventually talked to a mechanic in Kikwit. He promised me to call me back in an hour. Two hours later I called him back... he had forgotten. Another half hour later came the news: no such parts to be found in Kikwit, but they could be ordered from Kinshasa. It would take 2 to 3 days to get them to Kikwit(by air). And then we had to foresee transport from Kikwit to Dibaya-lubwe. The cost of the transport alone would be immense and it would probably take in excess of a week. Plus, how do we get the money to Kinshasa? You cannot buy things on credit here! Time for plan B: we started inquiring if there wasn't another Landcruiser close by, from whom we could 'borrow' some parts. It appeared that a remote mission, some 40km from here had a Landcruiser that had engine problems. We might be able to source some parts from them. Unfortunately they could not be reached as they do not have cell phone reception there. It was our best bet so we made a plan. We would rent a little motorbike for our mechanics, they would ride to the remote mission and hopefully they would be allowed to dismantle the axle of that landcruiser to 'borrow' the parts. If that would not be possible, they would ride on to Kikwit and try to find some secondhand parts there. In the best case they would be gone for 2 days. In the worst case it would take weeks. Between the time we knew which part we needed until the time we had finalized our plan with the motorbike was 4 hours Time flies when you are improvising. We had the great prospect of spending some leisurely days at the mission. Our crowd would be thrilled! |
How many kilometers has the car done already, it probably wasn't new when you started this trip? Do you have an explanation for the diff breakdown, and could you have prepped it better beforehand? In short, is there anything to learn here for future expeditions?
Keep up the good work, love reading your adventure (and I'm probably not the only one):clap: |
We had bought the Landcruiser in Belgium with 280.000km on the clock. By the time we arrived in Congo it had done 400.000km. I'll include some more details on the reasons of the breakdown in the following installments..
Thanks for the feedback! It's appreciated :-) |
That night we felt like we had deserved a beer. We found the beer in the other catholic mission, the one from the sisters. Upon entering their mission it was like entering another world. They had a nice vegetable garden and flowers. Their house was clean. The sisters did a lot of work here, mostly as nurses in their hospital and orphanage. They made some extra money by selling beer. They were the only place in town that had a regular supply and, most importantly, they had a fridge(on gas)!
It was heaven to be there. The sisters were really nice and smart ladies. Good mannered with a healthy dose of humour and interest. It felt so good to be able to have a normal conversation for once. A conversation that did not leave us guilty as would normally be the case. A conversation the not lead to begging. A conversation where we did not have to think about every word we said. We crawled in our tent. A 100 people made sure that we would not feel too much at ease. Day 29 We did not have anything to do today but to keep out of trouble and wait for our mechanics. We slept until the sun transformed our tent into a sauna. Upon opening our tent we were greeted again by the looks and laughter of our crowd. The first thing we heard today was somebody shouting from a distance "Eh Mundele -Donnez-moi de l'argent!" -"Eh mundele - give me money". A very good morning to you too! We would move our chairs regularly around the car, trying to escape the onlookers. Minutes later the crowd would then move too so they could see us again. They always kept a distance of 20meters or so, but nobody talked to us. From time to time they would shout something (usually begging). We tried to be as uniteresting as possible... After a while I got really fed up. I took my chair and put it close to them. I sat down, facing them. I looked straight into their eyes. They looked straight back. I just sat still for half an hour, hoping they would get bored of looking at me. Or possibly even embarrased. But I lost. They did not loose interest. I tried talking to them, explaining that we would really appreciate if they stopped looking at us as we would like to get some rest. I avoided the word privacy as it an unknown concept here anyway. I only got blank stares in return. From the back of the crowd I could here somebody shout "Donnez-nous de l'argent!" -"Give us money". Shortly after followed by "Ce n'est pas vorte pays!" - "This is not your country" This made me so angry. He was right ofcourse, this was not my country. I was nothing more then a visitor. I had no other intentions but to explore their country and meet the people. But they did not want me here. They wanted my money, but not me. We did meet a few interesting people though. A teacher from the local school came to see us. It was a math teacher. He had heard that I am a computer engineer. He had a question for me. He had heard about Internet and how it was such an interesting tool. But what is Internet exactly? I asked if they had computer here. They did not. He knew there were computers and Internet in Kikwit, but that is several hundres of kilometers from here. He kept me busy for many hours. I tried my best explaining him all the different components and concepts. Everything from a modem to a webpage. I drawed him diagrams and everything. But I am a bad teacher I guess.. I could see he had difficulties understanding it all. How do you explain Internet to somebody who has never seen a computer? He took my notes and said he would teach his students about 'Internet'. |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit011.jpg
We constantly had the company of Anton. People called him "Le fou" - "The village fool". He was no fool though. Apparantely he was a very intelligent guy who had studied. It could be told from his vocabulary. But he kept talking and talking and talking. Always in a very dramatic way, swinging with his stick and jumping around. He would sometimes drop dead on the floor and stay put for 10 minutes and then he would jump up shouting loud. The kids loved him and were scared of him at the same. Children would sometimes throw rocks at him. He was truly very annoying (and he had an incredibly smelly breath) but I took a liking to him anyway. At least he was honest. He dared to talk to us. We appreciated that. But he was still very annoying. We will never forget his words: "Les blanc, les noirs, les rouges, les jaunes, nous avons tous le même sang" - "The whites, the black, the red, the yellow, we all have the same blood" http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit012.jpg Another guy comes to visit us "Venez avec moi. Police!" - "Come with me. Police!" |
Wow. What an amazing story.
I feel ill at ease flying a plane from Lubumbashi to Kinshasa - simply because of the hassles and corruption that I have to put up with at the airports at each end of the journey (not to mention the thunderstorms as well...) - and you two drive the route by road? I am speechless. For me - after almost 20 years of working as a pilot in war relief in many different countries in Africa - it is fascinating to hear that the hostility and constant exploitation that you have experienced exists not only in the 'big cities' where all the relief agencies and the NGOs are, but also in remote parts of the country where it is rare for the local residents to see a foreigner. Often, I have wondered whether my perspective on Congo is distorted as a result of too much time spent at airports and at NGO offices. Now, I see that this is not the case. I look forward to reading the conclusion of your journal. Thank you very much for taking the time to write it, to post all the pictures, and to share your unique and invaluable experience with all of us. I am quite sure that this post will become a 'classic' on HUBB. Michael |
Another guy comes to visit us "Venez avec moi. Police!" - "Come with me. Police!"
It's a guy wearing slippers and tatty clothes. We are not impressed and ask who he is? "Chef de la police de Dibaya-lubwe" We know where this is going to lead to so we tell him that everybody can claim they are police, does he have anything to prove his function? He hasn't. We tell him "au revoir" and ignore him. This annoys him tremendously. The look on the faces of the people around us tell us he was probably right and they can't believe we just turned our back to the chief of police! He leaves again. He was furious. We befriend Monsieur Shinandi. He is an older man in a lovely old-fashioned suit. He is the school prefect of the area. A very clever and friendly man. He actually apologizes for the attitude of the people towards us, he tells us he is embarassed about the situation. He also ask us to try to understand how hopeless life is for people here. That is the reason they act this way. We do understand, but we also explain that is not the same as accepting it. Mr. Shinandi accompanies Josephine to the town's market to make sure we get honest prices. It's nice to have some fresh food for a change. Eggs and tomatoes. Meat is available but it did not look very tasty so we skip it. Mr. Shinandi tells us a lot about the poor condition of the schooling system in Congo. There are almost no funds and the little funds there are dissapear before they reach their destination. Education is supposed to be free, but parents need to pay the teachers as the teachers are not being paid by the goverment. Most families can only afford to send a few of their children to school, not all of them. He was genuinely worried about the future of his country. Without education the new generation is lost. These youngstes are the future rulers of Congo, and the only thing they learned is corruption. He also tells us about the abusive nature of many teachers, mostly in rural areas. Young girls are regularly forced to have sex with the teacher in return for good results. There are massive amount of child pregnancies. These children barely have enough to survive, let alone to raise children. Their parents send them to school with the hope of having chances on a better future, but instead their lives are ruined. They don't stand a chance. Mr.Shinandi also takes me to a bank to exchange some US$ into Congolese Franc. Most things can be bought with dollars, but eggs or bread and small consumables are paid in CF. In the bank they cannot help us... they have no money. :roll: We eventually end up at the farmers organisation. They provide micro-loans to farmers. They wanted us to go trough a mountain of - self-produced - paperwork first but eventually give up and change the money. At a horrible rate for us. It is strange how people try to give the impression that everything is organized. They try to give that impression by using as much paperworks as possible. Walking around town with Mr. Shinandi is a pleasant and interesting experience. He is well respected here and because of that we are left alone. When we return to the mission a man in a police uniform is waiting for us. It's an impressive uniform with several stars on the shoulders. |
Fantastic stuff, thoroughly enjoyed the photos and 'local' colour! Keep it coming
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In front of us was the same guy that claimed he was "le chef de la police". He had dusted off his uniform. Looks like we made a little mistake there. We apologied for being so rude earlier and at the same time explained that we had so much problems with corrupt police before. He on his terms apologied for not being in uniform earlier and for his corrupt colleagues. This was actually a nice guy, he registered us and then chatted a bit. We probably shouldn't have been so rude earlier... but who knows how he would have acted then?
Despite having had nothing to do today, we had a busy day. It was with great joy that we heard a little motorbike approaching. We had not expected our mechanics back so quickly. They had found us two gears! They looked worn, but at least they had teeth. They did not come cheap, but it was not like we had a choice here. It was too late to start fitting them now. Tomorrow... That evening we paid our daily visit to the mission of the sisters and went to bed early. We wondered when 'our wrowd' would get bored of us when they saw of us in our tent. Day 30 Our mechanics started working from early in the morning to get the diff mounted again. This gave me plenty of time to think about what went wrong. Why did we break down? The short answer is: we pushed it too much! But it is no surprise. It is more of a surprise on why this did not happen earlier. We had driven over 80.000km since we left Belgium. Trough Africa and Asia. Fully loaded (almost 4 tons) on some of the roughest roads in the world. We had quite a few things overhauled in Cairo and one thing I had noticed but did not change was a small chip out of the planetary gear. The same gear that was now completely stripped. The whole ordeal with tipping over and sliding on our sides was not really benificiary for our driveline either. We would be spinning our wheels fast and they would all of a sudden gain full traction again. Repeatedly. This kills drivelines. If we would have been able to drive slowly trough here, this would have made a major difference. Yes a winch and lockers could (!) have saved us a lot of damage. But that is an aftertought. It would be the only 2000km's on our 100.000km trip were they would have come in handy. There is not a single landcruiser who drives around the interior of Congo without a winch by the way. I'd say this is exceptional damage on an exceptional road. The front diff we just forced by trying to pull ourselves over the big hill. The brakes, batteries, bodywork... collateral damage. Would another vehicle have done a better job? Maybe... probably not I would think but I honestly do not know. But the Landcruiser 75 is certainly the right choice of car for travelling here. It is the only car the NGO's and missions use. It is the best bet for finding spare parts. We must have walked about 10 kilometers from where our car was stranded to the 'improved' road. So close! The seal of diffhouse was badly damaged and could not be used again. The only thing that could be found was silicone sealant for bathroom tiles. That would have to do... we hope! As soon as the diff is fitted again they wanted to pour the oil back in. This was the same new zambian oil we had already used, but now with hundres of little pieces of metal and a fair amount of dust. I did not want that in my axle! No problem according to our mechanics and they set out to buy oil in town. They came back with Monograde SAE-90 oil. In the fineprint it specifically said "not for use in motorized vehicles!". This was the best we could find and it was more expensive per liter then fully synthetic in Europe. We would use it and change it as soon as we found better oil. We did a test ride and it worked ok now. We still had no drive on the front axle, but the road from here was supposed to be good enough not to need it. Tomorrow we would try to get to Kikwit! |
Day 31
We looked at our crowd when we got out of our tent. We certainly wouldn't miss them! We paid our dues to the mechanics and the housekeeper of the mission and set out to find Mr Shindani to say goodbye. The mechanics, they didn't lie when they said it would a team. They might not have been real car mechanics, but combined they had all the knowledge required. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit015.jpg Very carefully we started our journey on the maintained dirt track to Kikwit, 270kilometer from here. We could not remember when we last covered such a distance in a day! We passed trough Kapia, the village were had tried to make a phonecall. We stopped at the people we had met there earlier to thank them and give them an update on our situation. The sky was clear, so the phone reception was better now and everybody was making use of this to make their calls on the 'GSM hill' http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit001.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit003.jpg |
The road was maintained by CTB. Belgian govermental aid. Like the 'mistery' roads we came across earlier, these roads are mostly handmade. The reasoning is to give as many people as possible an opportunity to have a job. But the CTB had been clever enough to use a few machines to compress the earth so the roads would not be destroyed instantly. At times it was still a bit rough, but compared to what have been trough it was truly heaven.
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit005.jpg We stopped from time to time to check our rear axles. It was already leaking pretty badly. That kitchen silicone sealant does not really work. Our hearts skipped a beat when we got our front axle stuck on a middelmannetjie. This meant we had to 'force' ourselves out of there. I really did not want to break down here again. Stressfull moments! We briefly stopped in Idiofa, a bustling town, to fill up on diesel. The fuel light had come on. The first time since we left Lubumbashi. The only diesel we found came out of a dirty bucket. We apologied to our Landcruiser and bought it anyway. And then we saw something that we hadn't seen in weeks. |
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit006.jpg
I must admit I don't like asphalt. I enjoy driving on dirt roads. Josephine does not always agree with me regarding that matter. But this time I was properply pleased to see this. It would take the stress out of our rear axle. And it was good to know that our 4th and 5th gear were still there! ;-) The road is Chinese made. You can recognize the chinese from a distance by the big straw hats they wear. Everywhere in Congo people, especially kids, would shout "Chinois" (Chinese in French) to us. For many Congolese everybody who is not black is "Chinois". That is due to the large community of Chinese living in Congo. The relationship between China and Congo is worrying to say the least. I will not bore you to death with the details, but if you are interested, do a google search on the deals regarding the mining concessions and you will find plenty to read. In short: China has lend Congo many billions for rebuilding their infrastructure. Almost all infrastructure works are then outsourced to.. Chinese companies. The chinese companies bring their own - underpaid - workforce and provide little to no employment to the local population. In return for the loan China gets huge mining concessions. Astronomical 'signature fees' were appointed to the officials who signed the contracts ofcourse. The whole deal is immensly beneficial for the Chinese, but the question is what is in it for the Congolese? And what happens when the 5 billion is spent? They'll have a few nice roads and bridges. But what about maintenance of this infrastructure? After a few police checks (no more talks about the permit here... ) we arrive din Kikwit. So many people on the street! Such a big city! We got lost a few times but eventually arrived in the mission of the Frère Oblats (Oblates). A very energetic Congolese, Frère Jean-Marie welcomes us. We had also hoped to meet Frère Léon, a belgian missionary, but unfortunately he was in Kinshasa. The mission has Internet access (via satelite, only a few hours a day) and a guest house where we set up our camp. When the darkness fell it was striking how little light we could see in this big city. Kikwit has an estimated population in excess of 300.000 people. But there is no electricity. The rich can afford to run a generator for a few hours a day, the rest has to make do with candles, oil lamps or nothing at all. |
Progress after 31 days since we left Lubumbashi. 36 days since we entered Congo
Kikwit http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day31.jpg |
Thank You
I have just spent about 5 hours reading your entire trip report to date. You tell it absolutely wonderfully and the pictures are great. I'm looking forward to reading more. So many echos of Tim Butcher's "Blood River" in your story. Congratulations on your fantastic adventure.
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This has been riveting. I have been following your thread on here and on Expedition Portal. Wonderful stuff! Thanks for sharing. I think my favorite part has been the "and we tipped over, and again, and again, and again" Cracked me up when you said that your idea of getting through it likely would not appear in any 4x4 magazines!
Well thanks again for sharing, it has been very pleasurable to read. Cheers |
FWIW, troll's posts (and those that bit the hook) removed. Troll banned. Please report offensive material (button on right of post) and a mod will look into it. We are experienced in knowing what sh!t looks like and will delete/ban where necessary.
Keep up this great ride (drive... :thumbup1: ) report! cheers Chris |
An incredible story. Gripping! Now I MUST do some work. Well done on seeing it through.
cheers, Paul |
Thanks Chris! And sorry for putting this in the Ride instead of Drive tales. I did not do it intentionally. I prefer it this way anyway, it gets more exposure. :oops2:
Noel, Paneuropean, I can only agree about the expected lifespan of these roads, you can clearly see the layer of tar on these roads is very thin. Works fine for a while, until the first potholes start appearing. With the kind of climate they have in Congo I don't give these roads 5 years. A very fine example of this can be seen in Gabon. The roud south (or was it north?) of Mitzic is brand new. Half has been built by a European company, the other half by the chinese. Where the roads join, you can clearly see that the Chinese top layer asphalt is half of the european built road. Only time will tell ofcourse. One could reason that a bad road is better then no road. But in this case I am not really convinced. BTW, paneuropean, I think your job would be my dreamjob! :thumbup1: |
Epic Journey through Africa
I have been thourougly enjoying following this trip report.
Keep it coming. |
Yours is a great story - please keep it up.
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Great story, please keep it coming
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Fred,
What's taking you from continuing your story! You are keeping everybody waiting mate! This is not yet the end, is it? cheers, noel |
Hello
I've moved a couple of posts from here to the HU Bar. Please continue your "Off Topic" and "Inappropriate for this thread" discussions there or offline. This is a ride (or drive...) report sub-forum where people take a lot of time and effort to tell their tales, without being interrupted by off topic chatter. If you like Fred's report, say so (we all like praise; in this case it's highly justified). If you have any other views please voice them elsewhere. Thanks, Over and Out |
Day 32
We felt at ease here in Kikwit. We could feel the stress of the state of roads making place for the stress on how to get our car back in a proper condition again. Energetic Frère Jean-Marie came to us with a suggestion to use his mechanics. He had two guys who did all the maintenance stuff on the mission's vehicles. Fair enough. They made an inventory of all the required parts and set off to see if they were available and how much they would cost. This left us waiting at the mission's guesthouse. They had simple rooms for 15$US a night but without mosquito nets. So we camped in the yard and used the rooms to have a toilet and a shower (what a luxury!). Every morning we were in Kikwit we would get a visit from the same souvenir seller. It's the first time we met somebody who sells souvenirs in Congo. Not surprisingly as there aren't many people to sell souvenirs to. It was an older guy and he had this determination that souvenir sellers have. We are always very hesitant of showing interest as that means they will not stop trying until you buy something. But we gave in in the end as he had some cool looking stuff and he actually entertained us quite well. We showed interest in a chess game but could not agree on a price. Later that day the mechanics came back with a list of parts. Most of the parts were not available in Kikwit and would have to be ordered in Kinshasa. And the others were just plain expensive. 200$ for a chinese-made battery, this reeked. We honestly asked Frère Jean Marie about this and he seemed to be a bit embarrased about the topic. He did not deny the prices were inflated but he shrugged at it and said we could afford it anyway. That was a bit dissapointing because we couldn't. Then came a phone call. It was Paolo, an Italian working for CTB. We had received his contacts earlier and sent him a text message that we were in Kikwit. Paolo, being Italian, has this Italian way of talking and handling things. Flamboyant is the right word I think. He was the right man in the right place for sure! Paolo is one of these guys that breath Africa. He had lived and worked for many years in Africa, seemingly only in the most horrific troubled areas. He lived in Kikwit now. He would help us to try to get a second opinion on the parts and at the same time invited us to stay at his place. That night Paolo took us to a restaurant. The only 'restaurant' in Kikwit that served something else then fufu. The only restaurant per se. People here do not have a habit of eating out. The restaurant was a bit hidden away in a flooded backyard and consisted of little more then a few plastic chairs and tables and a makeshift braai. It was owned and run by an older Lebanese guy. He had this horrible cough and looked terrible as if he could drop dead any minute. A younger Lebanese was there too, he had recently arrived 'for business'. I did not ask about his business. I probably did not want to know. But he was a nice guy and even brought a Sheesha. These three were the only 'white people' in Kikwit. They would come together almost every night for a greasy meatskewer with french fries. It's the only thing there was. I loved it. Why is that they only really hanged out with the three of them in a city of many hundred thousands? Paolo was married to a Congolese (she lived in Kinshasa) so he even spoke the language. The real reason is that once you befriend Congolese one gets caught up in the 'favour' mentality. You cannot deny a favour to a friend. Paolo, as the responsible for CTB had a 'business' to run. He would have hundreds of friends instantly and very soon the first 'favours' would be asked. Jobs, material, money. It would make it impossible for him to work here. He was friendly to his staff and treated them with respect. But he did not befriend them, because it would make his life impossible. Day 33 The souvenir seller came back and we barthered and joked for another hour but we did not agree on a price. Together with Paolo we went to the Technical School of Kikwit (not sure of the name, not the one of the Jesuïtes). This is where youngsters get their education as mechanics. The teachers had tons of experience and should know Landcruisers in-and-out. After some negotiation and thanks to Paolo we finally agreed on a price. It was less then half of what we were orignally asked for by the other mechanics. And they would start the work that same afternoon in the yard of CTB. First job was to dismantle both the front and rear axles. The front to see what was broken. And the rear to fix the leaking seals and see if we could find some planetary gears that were in better condition then the ones we bought in Dibaya-Lubwe. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit018.jpg Front diff had the same problem as the rear one. Only here both the sun and the planetary gears would have to be replaced. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit017.jpg These would need to be ordered from Kinshasa and flown in. That's not easy task to get organized. By now we also nearly ran out of cash. |
We had contacted the homefront with the question if they could find a way of getting money to us. Western Union and the likes would only do transactions to Kinshasa, but not to Kikwit. The fees Western Union charges are also pretty ridiculous. In the end we managed to get in contact with a Belgian lady in Kinshasa who owns a big company there. Our familiy would transfer the money to her Belgian account. As soon as she had received the money she would hand the money in US$ over to a contact we had in Kinshasa. That contact would then buy the parts we need, box it and put it on an airplane to Kikwit. Easy! :roll:
That night we were introduced to Timothé, Paolo's cuisinier. Timothé had this angry way of talking and looking, but friendly at the same time. He had special skills. Paolo (and his predecessor in Kikwit) had learned him the art of Italian cooking. He could cook up a pasta - from local ingredients - that an Italian would not critisize... and that is a feature! He was probably the best Italian chef in DRC! Day 34 The souvenir seller was back that morning, he was in a bit of a hurry because a UN convoy would come for a day visit today. A quick round of haggling but we did not agree on a price. We made use of the privacy Paolo's house provided to finally relax a bit. It's been a hectic month for us! Josephine decided that now was a good time to get rid of my beard and the carpet on my head. After 40 days of neglect, I couldn't agree more http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit008.jpg While we waited for the money transfer and the parts to arrive we explored a bit of Kikwit (without a camera, we were suspicious enough already). In the city center 'on the hill' is an area that must have once been a very posh area. I could see the plush gardens and big villa's in my imagination, it was now transformed into rundown buildings. Green walls and makeshift corrugated roofs. There was a recent asphalt road connecting the RN1 to the airport and across the only bridge over the Kwilu river. Most of the other roads had varying kinds of decaying asphalt or just dirt. On the asphalt road in town there were 'road works'. A big pile of sand was blocking the road with just a narrow path to get a car trough. They had made a toll booth ofcourse. Paolo told us the pile of sand was there now for over 4 years. They would constantly dig away and move the pile back and forth. There were no works, the road underneath the sand was perfectly fine. Next to the river were a few 'bars'. A few plastic chairs and a cooler with hot drinks (no electricity-no money for ice). The owner of the bar was really glad to see us. He was complaining about business, the prices of basic goods had gone up recently and even less people now had a budget to go for a drink. The price of eggs had gone up too. Josephine went to buy eggs at the small mission of the sisters. They too were complaining as they actually had too many eggs. They did not dare to reduce the price as that would make the other 'eggsalesman' angry. But it was clear that people could no longer afford eggs now. The sisters kept a monkey as a pet. It was a vicious monkey. Strange pet! The mechanics fixed what they could without the missing parts (the gears, one hub for the rear axle + all the bolt required for the hub). We got hold of two new batteries. Indian made this time. 100$ a pop. They were junk but it worked for now. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit019.jpg Day 35 - 36 - 37 The souvenir guy came every day, a bit of haggling, a bit of talking. But we could not agree on a price. We waited and generaly had an enjoyable stay in Kikwit... Paolo is one the most interesting persons we ever met. You should hear his stories! |
Thanks Fred:clap:
I've been missing the updates lately Best travel story I've ever read by far |
Got to say Fred, you've some balls mate.
I would never consider going to a country like the Congo, especially after reading your fantastic story. I'm a biker and those tracks/roads look fantastic for my trailee, but I'd like my limbs left on my body and would point blank refuse to pay anyone, therefore would never survive. You pair are very brave people and i hope it all works out well for you., brilliant read! Harty |
Day 38
Guess who was there that morning? Yep! We talked about that nifty looking handmade chessgame, but we couldn't agree on a price... The whole money transfer thing went pretty smoothly. It is quite amazing really. We just rang up a lady in Kinshasa we have never met and asked her if she could give us a 1000$US please. She obviously waited until the money was on her Belgian account but she then gave the money to some other guy in Kinshasa. Another person we had never met who was now walking around with 1000$US of our money in Kinshasa. Shopping around for spare parts based on a list with spare part numbers. (we had. the Toyota EPC on our laptop). He used our money to pay for the parts, pay for the airfreight into Kikwit and holds on to the rest of the money until we come and pick it up later. An amazing amount of trust was involved in these transactions! And all of that thanks to the contacts we created in Lubumbashi. Amazing! Great thanks to Paolo, Erwin, Thièrry & Valerie! The airplane that flew our parts in was one of those two engined LET L-410's. They have a really bad reputation because of the many crashes they make. Everybody here tries to avoid them as much as possible. One of the latest crashes made the International news (the crocodile crash): Aircraft crashes after crocodile on board escapes and sparks panic - Telegraph It was now just a matter to get all the parts mounted. As usual, that did not really go as planned. We had ordered a new hub and new bolts to keep the sideshaft in place. But they shipped us the bolts (and the important conic washers) for the Landcruiser 79. Which are different in size from the 75. I was not going to drill my brand new hub to make them fit so we had set out again to find some second-hand bolts. We eventually found a few that fit, it would be good to get us to Kinshasa, but they would have to replaced again in Kinshasa. What a great prospect: even more time to be spent in a greasy workshop! We still hadn't found decent quality oil. I had really tried my best to find diff oil where it was not explicitly stated "Not for use in cars". The local mechanic said they never change the diff or gearbox oil on new cars. The oil that's put in from the fabric is superior with the oil they can replace it with. They just top up, but never change. When a diff has to be openen, they recycle the original oil. That brought us on the topic of cars the NGO's and the missions here use. The cars that are deployed in the jungle have a lifespan of no more then 15 to 20.000km. After that they are completely shot. Bodywork, drivetrain, everything. Not surprising really considering the state of the loads and the payloads. Paolo was quite fanatical in his choice for those vehicles: Landcruiser 7x only! The Landcruiser 10* are often used as well, but they don't last on the rough tracks (too much bodywork). He once worked on a project were they had sponsored Mitsubishi's. They were written off after just 2000km. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/kikwit016.jpg The teacher and his apprentice. |
You know it's time to clean your car when...
http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/zinder002.jpg Plants start growing on our sidesteps! Tomorrow would be the big day. Kikwit to Kinshasa can be done in a day, a 6 to 8 hour drive, depending on the weather (and consequently the state of the road). We'd start early as the closer you get to Kinshasa, the dodgier it gets. Not that it's really dangerous, just the usual problem areas that accompany large cities. We just hoped that all the repairs would hold up. We had already said our goodbyes to everybody we met in Kikwit. Day 39 Our favourite souvenir seller was there again. By now we actually got quite fond of his chessgame. I cannot remember his asking price but after all these days of haggling he was still at the same price! He hadn't dropped his price with a single franc! We could talk to him for hours. Providing arguments to drop his price, but at the end of the conversation he would just keep repeating the original price with a smug smile on his face. An amazing guy this was. He knew we were leaving that day so we made him a final offer. Way more then what it was worth and what we were actually prepared to spend on something we really didn't need. He accepted, and while he counted his money he moppered about how he couldn't feed his wives and children. He gave us fat wink at the end. We got tricked into buying something we didn't want for a price we did not want. But he did it so good we didn't even feel bad about it. ;-) It was time to go. The final stretch to Kinshasa. We had to get organized again in Kinshasa. Fix up our car a bit better. Organize a few visa's. Organize the bac (ferry) across the Congo river to Brazzavile and generally prepare for our final trek north, back to Belgium. 15.000km north, all the way trough Africa. We knew that road north, we had already taken it earlier in this trip in the other direction. This would be our third North-South crossing of the African continent in the same trip... a sad one as it would also mean our 'big trip' would be almost over. The asphalt road leading out of Kikwit was pretty darn good. And pretty darn straight too. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/zinder011.jpg But only a very small part of the road is tarred. Most of it sandy, but it is maintained (by the UN mostly). Some stretches are fast, some are rutted and the known bogholes usually have good detours. Despite this being one of the best roads we had travelled over since entering the Congo, we were still a bit nervous. For the first time since long we had set a goal for the day - Kinshasa - and we would be dissapointed if we did not make it today. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/zinder016.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/zinder014.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/zinder012.jpg |
39 days after we rolled out of Lubumbashi, we limped into Kinshasa. People who have driven around Kinshasa will surely recognize the tension that is always present in the city, to us it felt like coming home. This "Kinshasa tension" is so much tamer the "interior-of-Congo tension". Strange how perceptions change during a trip. The previous time we were in Kinshasa we were pretty impressed with this 'tension' and did not feel at ease at all. Granted, it might have had something to do with the elections that were going on at that time.
The other reason it felt like coming home was because of the great reception we had from Erwin & Diana. We had met Erwin in Lubumbashi (he was visiting there) and they lived here. Not only were they genuinely nice people. They also knew how to cook a genuine Belgian meal. Never before have I enjoyed "hesperollekes met kaassaus" before! http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/zinder018.jpg Note the Skol without the diamond on the label. The nervousness and anxiousness I discussed all the way in the beginning of the trip finally dissapeared. That nervous feeling when crossing a border of a country had up to now always dissapeared within minutes after meeting the first people. In Congo it had taken 44 days. |
Progress after Day 39 since we left Lubumbashi. Day 44 since we crossed the border into DRC.
Kinshasa http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day39.jpg |
Day 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45
We had a lot of things to do in Kinshasa. We did not have a visa yet to get out of the country (Congo-Brazzaville). And to avoid having to drive all the way to Franceville in Gabon we already applied for our Cameroon visa too. Gabon did not want to give us a visa for reasons not really clear to us. We would have to apply for that visa in Brazza. This whole process takes a few days. Then there was the car. On the road from kikwit to Kinshasa we had noticed our rear differential was leaking again. Problem is the seal and the liquid sealant they use here. Normally there is a rubber gasket, but nobody stocks this gasket in the entire DRC. A lot of differentials here are leaking, that's for sure. We had to buy a sheet of plasticky gasket material and cut one out ourselves. A lengthy task. At the same time we had to get our lights fixed, most of them were smashed up by now. And then there were the brakes that still had to replaced (although I got quite good at driving without brakes now. It's an art in itself!) and it was about time to change all the filters too. Somehow we managed to engange the most horrible mechanic we have ever met. We actually went to some sort of 'upmarket' workshop as we wanted to get things fixed properly this time. The manager was a nice guy, unfortunatly his chief-mechanic, a Lebanese youngster, was nothing more then a *****. He treated his mechanics as slaves and was uncapable of doing anything useful himself. He 'fixed up' our electrics. He could not find the reason why the fuse of the brake light kept jumping. His solution was to bypass the fuse. He declared it fixed and ofcourse did not tell us he had bypassed that fuse. We almost lost our car to the flames a few days later when a fire started behind the dashboard when the stoplight wiring shorted out again. It was pretty cool to find some western goods again. We could not really afford much of it, as prices here are prohibitively expensive. Kinshasa ranks high up the list of most expensive cities in the world (right next to Luanda). This is because the country is so unstable that all businesses are high-risk business. Building a house to rent it out? You'd better make sure you get your investment back within a few years time, before the next ransacking starts, or before some official claims your house. Running a business?? Better account for all the theft, the bribes, etc and include it in your margin. When all was done (well.. more or less done) we were ready to hit the road. This little ride in the Congo was quite something, but it was time to explore other regions now. We drove to 'le beach' the ferryport in Kinshasa. Only to notice that is was remarkebly quiet here. Not the usual bustle that is going on here. The bac (ferry) was not running. "Problème administratif". We couldn't find out the exact reason, but we were not leaving Kinshasa today! "Peut-être demain" - "Maybe tomorrow" The bac to Brazzavile is the only way to get out of Kinshasa and into Congo-Brazzaville. |
Absolutely fantastic Fred, thanks for a super read! :thumbup1:
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Day 46
We tried again to take the ferry. It was still not running. Some paperwork was not in order to release the ferry and apparantly the official who had to sign the document could not be located. Both ferries were stuck on the other side. Maybe that afternoon. We came back that afternoon: Nope. Day 47 Great news: all the paperwork was done. But today was an official holiday in Congo. Nobody worked that day... so no ferry Day 48 We were finally able to board the ferry. We had previously used the other ferry which are three boats attached to eachother (in a rather dodgy way). This time we took the bigger ferry. Bigger did not mean we had more space. As the ferry hadn't run for a few days there was a lot of stuff that needed to get across. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/bac001.jpg http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/550/bac002.jpg The ferry's diesel engine made a slow rythmic noise and struggled to push the heavy ferry upstream over the Congo river. The skyline of Kinshasa became smaller with every beat. We had spent 53 days in Congo, and had gotten out just in time. Our visa was expiring in 2 days time. http://radiobaobab.be/assets/etogal/..._map-day39.jpg And thus ends our leisurely stroll trough the Congo.. (Keep reading, wrap-up and more background information still to come) |
Awesome, absolutely awesome!
A truely incredible trip, I'm so glad you took the time to post it. Thank you once again. There'll be several beerwith your names on them if you ever find yourself in Northumberland |
Absolutely a wonderful trip! This is the first car report that got me hooked all the way!
Safe return, ν. |
Congo Adventure
Great trip.
Great ride report Do you think your trip would have been any easier riding across the DRC on a motorcycle instead of a 4 x 4 ? |
What an epic journey Fred... i'm loving it! can't wait for the next installments.
I'm sat here drinking a beer enjoying the read.... hats off to you and your good lady. |
Top stuff, the best I've ever read. Thanks
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The Wrap-up
(It's going to be long... sorry. I normally don't like to be so serious, but I feel I have started something and I have to finish it. If you're only interested in the technical bits, they are the end) So is that what Congo is really like? Ofcourse not! This is what Congo could be like if you try to drive a 4x4 from Lubumbashi to Kinshasa. In the beginning of the rainy season. Unsupported. In 2008. After being on the road non-stop for more then 600 days travelling half of the world. ... That is a very specific situation and leads to very specific events with specific people who show a specific behaviour. It can hardly draw a representative picture about the Congo, about us or about overland travel in general. (I feel like I am writing a typical American disclaimer here, please don't put your children in the microwave oven! :D ) The important bit here is: it's a trip report. Nothing more nothing less. I have told the events as they have happened. I have added the extra dimension to describe our feelings and thoughts at that moment. I have no hidden agenda. I am not trying to push my own agenda/principles/opinions on you. I am not paid to write this trip report nor am I representing some company whose interest I might be defending. My job or my future does not depend on it. As a result I have no reason to paint a nicer, or worse, picture then how it really was. I have been very honest about everything that has happened and made ourselves very vulnerable for critisism at that as I also do not hide our mistakes. It is also important to note that we are not complaining or whining when we repeat certain things (the corruption, the bribes, ..). Those are just the things that happened, I tell them how it happened and how we felt at that moment. When all is said and done you must certainly not forget that this report is just a simple unambitious report. Not an opinion article in your favourite magazine. Not an official report describing humanity in Congo. Not an overland handbook on how to traverse the Congo and interact with the 'locals'. Oh.. and English is my third language, so sorry about the spelling! The result is a very crude story. Certainly not a happy story. You might even have a foul taste in your mouth when reading certain passages. Because of the description of the misery. Because of our behaviour. Please, allow me to add a bit more perspective and hopefully make you understand - if only a little - the view of Congo we gave trough our eyes. What happened before you entered Congo? The complete answer is ofcourse impossibly long, but I feel it is important to summarize a bit what we have been up to before, as I think some people think the Congo story is a stand-alone event where we flew in and when it was done flew back out again. An impulsive plan just for the sake of adventure. It wasn't. in 2006 we sold all our belongings (literally: ALL), quit our jobs, took all of our saving money and decided to go on a little trip. We had done our homework during the many months/years we had saved up for it and bought and prepared a Landcruiser. (I will go into further detail on the preperations later on). We planned to travel for 1 year. People who have done this too will certainly remember the moment when you say goodbye to all your family and friends knowing you will not see them for an entire year. That is a big decision to make. We travelled overland, 25.000km down Africa (west route) and after 9 months found ourselves in South Africa. We liked the travelling so much and found it such a pitty that we had such little time left to drive back that we started counting our money: Lo-and-behold, if we didn't do crazy stuff we could extend our 1 year trip with another year. We shipped our car to Japan and from there drove trough Siberian Russia, Mongolia, Central Asia (all the *stan countries), the middle east back to Africa. Once there, we really longed to visit the East side of Africa and while we were at it we could visit DRC, a country that I have dreamed and read about for so long. So that is what we did. After the traverse of DRC we would find ourselves back on the westcoast and we would drive back north as central as possible (via Niger-Algeria) which was a pretty daunty route in 2008. We travelled for 715 days non-stop. 100.000km. We never went home or even set foot on the European continent during that time. In fact, we did not have a 'home' apart from our car. We had crossed dozens of remote deserts, driven trough some of the most barren mountain ranges in the world, hacked ourway trough many jungles. Returned on our paths many times when we though we were risking it too much. Always unsupported. Always with the two of us. Always with the same car. We had been in Kinshasa the first time in 2006 with the plan to drive to Lubumbashi. We had done our preperations and were ready. But then the elections came and Kinshasa transformed into a war zone, and lef the rest of the country as unstable as it could be. We rushed out of the country towards Angola at that time. By no means do we consider ourselves experienced travellers or experts in Africa or "Third World problems" (and certainly not in their solutions). The first months of our trip were quite difficult. Learning to adapt to the cultural differences, how to deal with officials, bribes, corruption. Seeing and living between poor people. Seeing the influence foreign aid has (good and bad). Seeing the attitude of people change when crossing country borders... when crossing continents. After a while we got the hang of it. It's a continuous search for balance and when you think you found it, things change again and you need to rethink everything all over again. It never ends. But that's allright for us. We did stupid things every single day. We still do. We have always done. But we do try to learn from our mistakes. You just did this for your own pleasure? What about supporting a good cause? We prepared this trip for many, many months so ofcourse this topic came across. Many people do it. But if you dig a bit deeper one really needs sponsorship to get started. We have also seen people who only do the good cause thing to get sponsorship. Fair enough, they get a few bits and pieces to bolt onto their car and in return raise a bit of money for some NGO in return. Usually not too much, but every bit helps. A win-win situation. But this did not fully convince me. I do not feel comfortable with sponsorship if I have the feeling I am not retuning something valuable. I am just not good at selling myself(and too honest). I also don't like a car plastered with stickers when travelling around, it draws way too much attention. I also feel uncomfortable with many NGO's. There are many, many good projects, but there are probably an equal amount of nonsense projects as well. If I attach my name to a project, I want it to be a genuine project. To make a long story short I am not good at this entire sponsorship/aid thing and would probably have made a mess of it. That does not make us heroes, but that is allright because we are no heroes. How can you travel trough such impoverished countries without providing them with some sort of aid? Be it money or supplies or volunteer work? I felt guilty about that in the beginning, certainly when we decided not to attach support to some good cause to our trip. But why was that? Why is it that we have no problem spending millions on a house and a new car. Eat out, wear fancy clothes. Go on a beach holiday to the other side of the world. And never feel guilty about it? But as soon as we set foot in poor-poor Africa that attitude changes and we feel we MUST provide aid. We could all cancel that Internet subscription we have and send that money to Africa every month. A ridiculous thought ofcourse... but yet, we cannot set foot on African soil without bringing a stash of old clothes, a gazillion of pens and feel best about it when our car is plastered in stickers from NGO's. Not that there is anything wrong with that (well, sometimes there a few things wrong with that), but why do we feel as if it is a necessity? Isn't there a poor part of our hometown? Don't we ever pass trough there? Do we support these local causes? Do we feel guilty when we see a begger in our hometown? Do we have the instant reflex to give that begger a ridiculously large amount of money and a pen? Ofcourse not, because we are afraid he'll spend it on a bottle of liquor from the nightshop. But why don't we care about what happens to the aid we all sent to Africa? Ever been to a market in Africa? You can buy your donated T-shirt back and all the pens we have thrown out of the window when blasting past. Give sweets to children? You'll get paid with an instant smile and it will make you feel realy good about yourself. Do you also give them toothpaste and brush? Pay the dentist? Do you know these kids can earn more by looking sad at the side of the road then their parents earn working? Parents actually stop sending them to school and make them stand at the side of the road as it is so profitable. So by giving a sweet to a kid you could have potentially been (partly) responsible for it dropping out of school and waisiting all chances of a good future. Far fetched you think? Not really I'm afraid. I have seen that first-hand in several countries. Does that mean you cannot do something as simple as give a sweet to a kid? Ofcourse you can. But in our hometowns, we don't just give sweets to children we don't know, do we? We usually even ask at the parents if we can. Providing aid requires a bit more then just giving away a few things. That is what makes it so hard when you are constantly on the move. Now substitue sweet with any other thing you would like to donate. I can go on for a long time with questions like that.. There is SO much that can go wrong with providing aid. That is ofcourse no reason not to provide aid, but at least we should appreciate the fact that it is a bit more complicated then we would like to think. I have no answers, I don't know how to do it 'right'. I try my best in own way and I can only hope others do the same. Jay Leno, of all people, once said: "In America, we like everybody to know about the good work we do anonymously". The in America bit is not important(replace it with 'western world' maybe?), but the rest is. He said this about why the Toyota Prius was so popular while he thought it was not really saving the planet at all. It's all about image. Sensitive topics. Who doesn't want to save the planet? Who doesn't want to do something about poverty in Africa? The reality is, we don't do much AT ALL, but we want to keep up the image. And we even convince ourselves that we do. And preferably we want to boast about it on the Internet, show off on our websites, talk about it on forums. We want to write books about it, want to discuss it. We want everyone to know how important WE think it is. And preferably at the same time belittle people whom we think don't do enough. And you know what, at the end of the day there is no more time, money or resources left to actually do something about it. But we sleep good at night ofcourse, it's the others who failed, not us! And we have a portfolio to prove it! This is ofcourse very unfair to the many people who are actually helping out on the field. Or assisting with logistics from abroad. As always it is very unfair to generalize. People like Frère Louis we met in Congo is one of these people. Their generosity and engagement is endless. I have immense respect for him. Nobody knows about him ofcourse... he's too busy doing 'the good thing'. He is definitaly somebody worth supporting in any way possible. If you really want to donate, I think that is the way to go. Find a reliable organisation person and give it them with as little in-between people as possible. Who would have thought that providing aid would be such hard work eh? So how does that correlate to our adventure in Congo? The reality is: there was very little we could on the ground. We did not have the time, we did not have the money, we did not have the supplies. Time, money and supplies, all of it can be generated. But for us, at that time, it was not possible. Period. The everyday little gestures(giving and receiving) don't usually make our trip reports. They are just the most normal things in the world - not worth mentioning(at least not for the right reasons). If we receive exceptional hospitality, we will write about it. I we provide exceptional help, we will (probably) write about it. If you do not read many good experiences in our trip report... that's because they did not happen and I did not want to make the little gestures - both directions - look bigger then they really were. I wrote the anecdote of the guy on a little motorbike who asked for oil. If I had just given it to him and nothing would have happened I would not have written about it. I wrote about it because it struck me that I was so hard at that time to him. The whole series of events prior to that situation made me act that way. I do not approve my behaviour. I felt bad for that guy afterwords, I wished I would have reacted otherwise. But put me in exactly the same situation and I would react exactly the same. That's the whole point: Congo changed our normal behaviour. Nowhere in Africa (or elsewhere) had we experienced this to such an extent. That is what I write about. That is also why I dared referencing to Conrad's book. Have you noticed how little this entire explication actually takes the Congolese (or other benificiaries of our aid) opinion into account? It does not seem to matter much in most discussions I have seen. I often make the mistake of forgetting that all this aid we are discussing is actually meant for a real live person. And I don't think I am alone. So what is his idea about all this aid stuff? Do we actually care when, for the umpteenth time, we have this discussion? Or do we think we are expert enough to know his opinion without asking? Ok, but why don't you pay for services you receive? Why do you expect freebies from some of the poorest people in the world? That seems to be a hot topic for many people and for starters I would like to recommend to reread my report again. Because asking something for free is something I never do. I don't even dare it at home. That does not mean I will not accept anything for free if people insist. But asking? Sorry, no. Expecting? Even less. I am very proud on the way we take our responsibility if we take risks. We often take risks (as you might have noticed), but never will we not accept the concequences. We got stuck hundreds of time and we knew we would before we entered Congo. We always started working our way out on our own. We did not ask for help when we thought we did not need it, and we rarely did. Yes, I did get cross when people begged when we were digging. But it's not like they were offering help in return for money, they were just begging. Was it friendly to be cross? Ofcourse not.. but hey, I am a human being like all of us you know. If we get offered help (we did not ask, remember) in return for money and we do not really need it, we usually decline. Our experience tells us that we lose more time with negotiating about the price then with fixing it ourselves. Our experience in Congo tells us that, unlike most other parts of Africa, the asking price will be insanely high to start with anyway and the discussions will probably be very heated (we have to think about our security too). Does that mean we have denied them the chance for a quick job? It certainly does! But it is just impossible, and dangerous, to proceed like that all the time. That is the reality and sorry to dissapoint you that it does not correspond to what you would have liked us to do. What if people started helping us, why did I tell them they would not get any money? Unlike us, westerners, these people do not need fancy contracts with addendums and disclaimers. They know perfectly well what I am saying. They also know I am a mundele who might not know the regular customs, so they take a very small risk that they will not actually receive anything. But these people are not stupid. Nor are they ignorant. They know they will get rewarded. They know they will get rewarded more then if they would be helping a fellow Congolese. But it will not the be the 'Grand Prize' they had hoped for in the beginning. |
But why don't you pay them the 'Grand Prize"? For you it's almost nothing
I have read this trip report from a backpacker a long time ago. I can't remember his name or website so I cannot give credit. But he told of something that had happened to him in a south-east asian capital city. It went something like this (free interpretation) Quote:
There is a big boghole. We get stuck. We ask for help. It takes them a long time and its hard work, but in the end we pay them 600$ After all, that is what it would have cost us in the US if we called a tow truck and these guys worked hard. We can afford 600$, we came prepared with a lot of money for cases like this. Guess what happens when the next truck arrives and gets stuck? They will not ask 600$ because they know they can get that. They ask 1200$ as it is quite normal to double the initial asking price. How much will that truck be able to talk it down? And what about the fact that in this little village there is now 1 guy who owns 600$ while the rest his village owns nothing at all. Imagine the turmoil that is going to cause? It is not going to be pretty! (that was one the underlying messages from "The gods must be crazy" if I am not mistaken.) The consequences of paying 400%, 500%, 600%, ... more then the normal going rates is quite dramatic. Not just to you, but to the economy. And it only enforces the image that all "whites" are rich and stupid (and can be treated as such). We are very much aware that we ALWAYS paid more then what locals would have paid. We don't mind. But we made sure we kept it reasonable. Having said all that. No we were not surprised to see the attitude from the locals towards us. We had seen it many times elsewhere. But yes, the sheer scale of it surprised us. In dibaya-lubwe we had a (very friendly) conversation with a group of young, curious and intelligent guys. They asked how many mobile phones we had. That question surprised us. And our answer (one) surprised them. They asked how many mobile phone networks there were? We have 3 in Belgium. So why didn't we have 3 mobile phones then? "In Belgium the mobile phones are for free and you do not have to pay for the conversations". They honestly believed that! Where do they get that kind of information? Why do they think things like that? Why do they even consider believing it? Not surprising really if the few white people they have met are spending money as if they get it for free. I can go on forever and I notice this is getting more into a rant then into background information. For which I apologize. But you don't pay the official fees either? I see 'The Internet' has accused us of not paying the toll fees in Lubumbashi. Please, once again, reread the trip report, I actually explained why. I also explained why us normally do pay them. I am not going to repeat it here. Some other random thing you should have done better. Why are you so arrogant about *random thing*? It saddens me that some people have the impression that we are angry in everything we do. That we wildly kick about but are generally clueless. I can only say: we're not really like that. Honestly! ;-) I hope you understand by now that there are little things we do/did that we do not think about. So much even that I often get completely fed up with it all, as I do not know the answers to all these difficult questions I keep asking myself. And I hope you understand that the situation in Congo is quite exceptional. It cannot be compared to other African countries. It is certainly not representative Even with the best intentions and the best preperations, once you are down there, crawling out of your capsized 4x4 things change. I am sure psychologist can explain this very well. We really try hard to be responsible in our travels. Travelling means everything to us. The impressions we leave are as dear to us as the impressions we gained during our trips. Our opinions constantly change. But we are not Mother Theresa. This whole idea that travelling trough the third wolrd dictates that we must act like saints makes me very tired. We are normal persons, who do normal things. We just like to do those things in unusual places I guess ;-) When I initially started writing this trip report I planned on writing a very brief item about everything I said above. Due to the surprising amount of attention this report got and the surprising amount of (sometimes very negative) reactions I felt obliged to do it a bit more elaborate. Sorry if I bored you with that. The reason why I wanted to keep it short initialy is because I know from experience this would start a pointless dicussion. Everybody has their own opinions about it. Strong emotions are usually involved. I sometimes think it is because it handles about solidarity. And solidarity is something we get fed from our religion (be it Christian, Muslim, ...). And you know how people are when they see opinions that do not stroke with their religion.. It's a discussion usually held in a pub. And when the beers start flowing, the discussion gets heated and ends in a fistfight. The next day everybody will feel embarrased for what they have said and done, but nobody will apologize because they are too proud. In the end nothing is accomplished except some dented ego's. And the topic of the discussion? You know, those poor souls in Africa? Nothing will have changed for them... For that reason, I agree that this belongs in the HU Pub. There is already a thread there with discussion about this trip report. Before you respond in that thread I have one favour to ask. Or make that two. Firstly, don't take this all too seriously, it's just a silly trip report. Secondly, wait 24 hours before you reply. How can one reply to such a heated matter seconds after they have read this? But you don't have to ofcourse... it's a free world! -------------------------------------------------------------------- More wrap-up is coming on everything specific to the truck and the route, the preparation. You know, the interesting stuff ;-) I'll promise I will not make that such a long read! :-) |
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The only problem is finding (clean) petrol. |
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