congo

Congo

Friday 15th February 2008:

A few kilometres on from the Gabonese border, the main 'road' turned into thick, soft, heavily tracked sand. There was a big, loaded truck very stuck in the main track through, and its occupants had built a fire and camp on the opposite side of the road, the only easily navigable side, with harder ground. We got out and walked through the middle, our only choice, trying to choose the best route. Heidz then videoed as Ross and Duzi2 showed these guys how good a Landrover (Cutt-Cutt as they call it) is. They were all clapping as Ross and Duz made it through. That was the first of many very soft, deep sandy stretches we needed to get through as we made our way on the main 'road' into Congo towards Okoyo.

According to the Lonely Planet Africa, " Congo is characterised by dense rainforest and impenetrable jungle...," this was certainly not the case for the Congo we were seeing with vast, flat open grasslands and very few trees, let alone forests or jungles to be seen anywhere.

We stumbled upon the Immigration hut, a neat wooden hut surrounded by a fence with an entrance gate, near Edjouga. There was a bamboo stick as a barrier across the road. Parking Duzi2 and entering into his neat hut, we sat while his chickens pecked around our feet for bits of stones and other things. He stamped our passports and then asked us if we could give someone a lift to Brazzaville! What a cheek! Sadly we had no room for any passenger, let alone one for such a long distance. Across the track were the Police who checked passports and wrote down our and Duzi2's details, and also asked for a lift to Brazzaville, unsuccessfully.

After more hectic sand driving through deep ruts, with Ross and Duzi2 handling like pros, even when the diff scraped a bit, we came across Customs, just before Okoyo. Here we came across our first 'problem' in Congo. The Customs Officer stamped our carnet and then demanded CFA2 000 for 'tax' for driving the vehicle in Congo, which needs to be paid by everyone as they reach their first Customs point upon entering Congo. We couldn't understand why we needed to pay this 'tax' as the carnet should have covered all import and export costs. Ross disputed this for about an hour, with us thinking it was a con and a way of Congo making money, and hoping he would back down. Unfortunately the Customs official was absolutely convinced we needed to pay this 'tax' over and above our carnet. He even showed Ross an official document stating how much we needed to pay when entering using a carnet. After melting in the midday boiling heat for about 1 1/2hours, we paid and pressed on to Gamboma.

We were told by the Immigration official that the roads are very sandy and the only places we'll find tar is just before and just after a bridge.There was a big football match on the go in Okoyo, with lots of people milling around. We must have been distracted by this and somehow ended up on the road heading north to Boundji, instead of heading straight onto Gamboma, even though we stopped and asked numerous people for directions.

Everyone in Congo seems to own a wheel-barrow - adults and children. They don't carry their loads in a basket on their backs as they did in Gabon, but it's now all in a wheelbarrow. It was so strange driving down the sandy roads lined with long wild grass, and every now and then you see a groove in the grass as you drive past some people and their wheelbarrows hiding in the grass so they don't get run over on the narrow road. We passed a few shops selling new wheelbarrows advertised as if they were as common as watering cans are in a gardening shop.

After a long, hard day of hectic driving and sliding through sand, we pulled off into a sand quarry to bush camp for the night. We made a quick pasta dinner and enjoyed a cool off shower, and then the moths came out. They were everywhere and so many of them! Moths, mosquitoes and small black biting sand flies, enough of these small irritating biting bugs!

Saturday 16th February 2008: Bush camp near Boundji, Congo

GPS Info: S00° 58' 21.5" E15° 23' 40.7"

Miles Today: 302 Total Miles: 14 377

We both slept really well, but didn't enjoy our mornings 'welcome' from the little black biting flies, so quickly headed on the road hoping to get to Brazzaville before nightfall.

Heidz had a turn at driving today, in the sand. The road was sandy, but less soft, so it was less hectic than the past few days. Driving in sand means you need to drive quite aggressively and keep your revs up, so the car has momentum even when the ruts are deep, so you don't get stuck.

Reaching the town of Obouya, on the main north-south road through Congo, we joined the only tar road in Congo. Yay, tar at last! We were able to cover more ground on this stretch, being able to go quicker. We drove through Oyo, which is the town the president of Congo comes from and where his family still lives. This explains why there is a tar road between here and Brazzaville and why there was a luxury Bayliner boat moored in a big tributary of the Congo River. The bridge crossing this stretch of river was guarded with armed soldiers on each side so photos of this were a definite No No. There was even a fancy airfield further south of Oyo, but the road quickly broke up after this, clearly the president doesn't go further south on this road.

We passed many olivey green snakes winding their way speedily across the tar like bits of mercury. With this being such a good road, there were a lot more trucks than we've seen in a while, which took some getting used to. The Congo trucks are quite something, with no lights, windscreens, trucks with bent chassis crabbing along the road, squashed bodies - they have all worked long, hard lives. The main road was like driving along a tarred farm road with tall grass (window height) lining both sides.

We arrived at the first toll gate (CFA1 000) after the village of Inoni, about 212km north of Brazzaville. The road is tarred, but does have some nasty holes in it and has lots of broken down trucks and vehicles parked in the lanes, as there is no road shoulder to pull off in. The taxis and buses drive like cowboys stopping and pulling off whenever they feel like it with no warning or use of an indicator light (No change there then!). We came to the second toll gate on the outskirts of Brazzaville itself, costing another CFA1 000. Here we were pulled over by a Custom's official who wanted us to go with him to his office until we showed him our receipt from when we had paid our Congo 'Tax' of CFA2 000 yesterday in Okoyo.

We joined the long traffic jams into Brazzaville and picked our way haphazardly through the chaos of taxi traffic and the small sewer-filled side roads and backstreets, following our GPS waypoint to Hippocampe, which Nic and Robin had recommended. Brazzaville is a bustling and confusing city to navigate around. We eventually found the red gates of Hippocampe Hotel and Restaurant and were welcomed in by Cat, a smiley Vietnamese/French woman. She and her husband, Olivier, own the restuarant and hotel, which her parents started as a restaurant many years ago. It is the oldest restaurant in Brazzaville and the only one to have never closed, even during the wars. They were very willing to let us camp in the carpark for as long as we wanted and gave us keys to a room, with a loo and shower right near where we had parked. They are used to overlanders camping and are in the know about the Angolan visa nightmare. They told us not to bother trying in Brazzaville as the Angolan embassy take and keep your passport, for a number of weeks, promising to grant you a visa, but never do.

We went to the bar to have a cold drink as it was very hot and extremely humid. Olivier and Cat gave us our first drink for free, a Congo Fanta orange immitation, which was very nice. We chatted to Olivier for a while finding out that he had travelled extensively around the world on his own by bicycle, so was fully aware of our needs. Cat phoned someone she knew at PPG (Projet Protection des Gorilles) as we were interested in finding out about the possibility of seeing gorillas in Brazzaville, and the cost for this. Within minutes Ross was talking to Luc at PPG. It was going to be an expensive thing for us to do, but sounded really amazing. We needed to decide by 5.30pm, before he contacted the rangers at the entrance gate of the Lefini Reserve, and he needed to write a letter giving us permission to enter into the park, as it was too late in the day to issue us with a permit, as is the usual case.

After much thought, we decided it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we'd splash out and go. This meant we'd need to leave at 5am to get to the reserve by 8am, a good three hours north of us. We were both SO excited and couldn't believe how easily everything had fallen into place. Luc came to meet us at Hippocampe at 6.30pm to receive payment, give us directions and the authorising letter we needed to get into the park tomorrow morning. While Luc was there, we met two other men who walked over to the car asking what our route was and where we were from. They were both in Brazzaville for a Theological conference. One of the men, Andreas Kammer, was from Lubango in Angola. He left us his details to visit him when we got there, or to contact him if we needed him to write an invitation letter for our Angolan visa application. The other man was from Hilton, in South Africa.

We decided to well and truly splash out and go for dinner at the restaurant, as they have a buffet on a Saturday, which looked amazing. Seeing as we weren't going to be paying for camping while we were here, we thought we'd thank them by having dinner in the restaurant one night. Yum yum. We ate lots of yummy Vietnamese style food from the buffet, which was delicious and a major treat for us on the trip.

Feeling full we went to bed, with it still being very hot.

Sunday 17th February 2008: Hippocampe Hotel and Restaurant, Brazzaville, Congo

GPS Info: S04° 16' 23.6" E15° 16' 39.4"

Miles Today: 225 Total Miles: 14 602

Today started with an extremely early start to our fantastic "Gorilla" day. We left Brazzaville at 5:10am this morning and drove back, just over 210kms, up the main North road to Lac Bleu, in the Lefini National Reserve. It was 36deg Celsius by 6am! We needed to leave this early as the gorillas are fed at 8.30am, and the boat would've left without us if we weren't there. Firstly we drove across a rough sandy track over many hills to a point where we parked Duzi2, changed into long trousers, boots and long sleeved tops, to stop us being stung by Tsetse flies. We arrived just after 7am, so had time to have breakfast while the feeders washed and prepared the two wheelbarrow loads of fruit for the gorillas' breakfast.

When the gorilla food was ready, just after 8.30am, we were taken by a speedy motorised pirogue to an island up the river where there are three large adult males living together (17, 19 and 21 years old) on their own. They were each rescued as babies, but have long since been released into the wild. They are under strict supervision and are fed all sorts of fruit regularly on a daily basis, these included pineapples, bananas, banana stems, etc. We arranged our gorilla visit to the sanctuary through Luc at PPG (Project Protection Gorilla), and this way we were able to join the rangers on their early morning food-run.

They had to throw the fruit onto the island from the boat as they can no longer set foot amoungst the big adult male gorillas without probably being clobbered to death, which is actually a good thing. Our first boat stop was at the entrance to the gorilla island where we stopped in the sun and called for 30-45minutes until the huge Titi crept cautiously out of the forest in front of us. Titi was absolutely massive and only about 5 metres away from us. He had a very well developed chest and huge hands with an orangey/gingery tinged hair on the top of his head. He was 17years old and loved the fruit that kept raining onto his island. His hands must have been at least 5times the size of ours. It was absolutely amazing to watch him so close as he squeezed the bananas making them pop out of their skins. He picked up the pineapples and ate the soft juicy centre in one munch whilst holding the whole thing in his palm, leaving the prickly outside behind. Gorillas are so human-like in so many ways. It was so special to be able to look into his big, beautiful brown, gentle eyes. Heidz was very tearful and couldn't stop crying. She couldn't believe we were seeing these amazing creatures so close and so privately.

From Titi, we sped around to the other side of the island and the feeders shouted out again, but this time for Rup (Rupert) and Sid. These two live quite happily together on the same part of the island. Sid is the oldest gorilla on PPG's island, being 21 years old, but had polio as a baby, so is not as well developed and is a bit wobbly on his limbs. Rup, on the other hand, is by far the hugest of the three male gorillas at PPG, and is only 19 years old. He was lazy and enjoyed his fruit feast slouching on his elbows and eventually walked off to have a picnic in the shade, with his mouth and three of his four 'hands' full of food, carrying a whole pineapple in his back foot! These two were also really close, we could hear the low rumbles of content coming from their throats. Sid was more visible, while Rup stayed mostly in the shade. We got covered in fruit juice from the fruit being thrown over our heads and out to them. It was fascinating watching these two enormous creatures, knowing that their feeders were so devoted to their care and well being.

This was an unforgettable life experience, which we will never forget. Gorillas are so incredible and it's so shocking that here, as in other Central African countries they are seen as meat.

Once we had finished feeding Titi, Sid and Rup, we returned to Duzi2 and drove back down the main road to visit the gorilla nursery. This also involved some seriously long, very sandy stretches driving straight out into the middle of nowhere in the Congolese countryside, through rolling, grassy savannah plains. Grassy fields were not what we had expected to see in Congo, but we haven't seen much tropical jungle since we left Gabon. There were three baby gorillas in the nursery (4 year, 2-3 year and a tiny 17 month old, who had only been with them for two months and was still very clingy). We watched them engage with each other and their "keepers" from across a fairly wide stream. They were so cute to watch rummaging through the bush alongside the small river. The bigger two gorillas were beating their little chests and clapping their hands, probably to show some sort of authority to us. The tiny 17month old one has only been in the nursery for 2 months after being rescued, so was a lot more clingy and baby-like than the older, more independent ones. The middle sized one reached out his arm and hand to his keeper's outstretched arm, playing and teasing him. We laughed so much at them and really didn't want to leave.

From the gorilla nursery, we drove to Lac Bleu, a clear, blue fresh water lake you can swim in. It was beautiful, but a bit eery. We didn't swim, but spent a bit of time just enjoying the sun on the platform along one of its banks. The water was so clear you could watch the small fish swimming past. While Heidz sat in the sunshine, lots of beautiful pink and purple butterflies settled on her toes. At one stage she had about 8 on her toes at one time.

We left Lac Bleu and arrived at Hippocampe after 5.30pm, making it a full day out. Today was a lovely private day for us as it was only us with the various keepers, which was fantastic. We never imagined our unexpected detour to Brazzaville would result in a such a special experience. We only enquired late yesterday afternoon, when we got to Brazza, and it was all organised and paid for by 6.30pm, both of us a little nervous as it was fairly expensive, but not nearly as expensive as it will be in East Africa. It was worth every cent and something we will definitely recommend.

We were going to try and leave for Kinshasa early tomorrow morning on the ferry across the Congo River, but have decided to rather spend another day here just doing washing and hopefully visiting the SA embassy to say hello, and also to catch up with updates, etc. We have decided to give the Angolan embassy a miss as even here they haven't been giving visas to anyone for a while now. Nic and Robin, the other couple we have been in touch with ahead of us, have emailed all sorts of good details to us for the route ahead. They managed to get a 5 day Angolan transit visa in Matadi. They have also told us that the fine for staying past the transit visa dates is $150 dollars per day, which is a bit steep.

They made it all the way to Namibia in 5 days from Matadi, but we are hoping to try and get the same visa and apply for an extension in one of the major towns. The Angolans apparently SOMETIMES extend by a further 5 days or so, for a fee. If we can't extend, we could be in Namibia next week, but hopefully not, as we have planned to try and enjoy the Angolan beaches, which Tim and Ciara highly recommended. It would be such a pity to have to speed up so much in this area just because of a stupid visa issue.

We are looking forward to Namibia, especially looking forward to camping without so many biting flying bugs around us. We are both looking like we have a case of the measles at the moment and are itchy as hell, after being bitten by tiny little jungle bugs that can fit through the mosquito netting, sand flies, tsetse flies and ants, cow flies (?)too. Mosquitoes seem quite normal now when you look at the other little things lurking around us.

Both feeling exhilarated after our gorilla encounters and tired after our very early rise, we settled to sleep with a light drizzle falling.

Monday 18th February 2008: Hippocampe Hotel and Restaurant, Brazzaville, Congo

GPS Info: S04° 16' 23.6" E15° 16' 39.4"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 14 602

Today was our rest day. Cat kindly offered to take our washing from us and her helpers would return it back to us tonight all clean. Wow such a treat! It was very hot and humid from early this morning reaching into the high 30s deg Celsius before 7.30am. As we had the whole day to do our own thing, today was our day to take stock before our mad 5 day dash through Angola. We walked to the SA Embassy, which was very close to Hippocampe. It was so hot! We were both soaked by the time we got to the embassy, and were very appreciative of the wonderful airconditioning in the embassy. We met Linda, the Chief of Administration, who Anneke in the SA embassy in Gabon had phoned about the Angolan visa, when we were in Libreville. We had a great chat to him and were encouraged by his enthusiasm and determination, even though he has a rather difficult post.

From the SA embassy, we walked into the centre of Brazzaville down the main smart boulevard, in search of some supplies, before we hit very expensive Angola, and also to buy some lunch. Heidz needed to phone Vodafone about her cancelled mobile contract, which Vodafone have managed to make a royal mess out of. Thanks to John, our lovely London neighbour, for flagging this. Sorry we stopped you from telling them to 'try Africa' John, that would've been a laugh! Trust Vodafone to make a mess, when it was all sorted out, paid for and confirmed before we left, only to now be threatened with a court summons...Eventually after using 4 phonecards, Heidz managed to get through to someone at Vodafone who was more helpful than the first rude Irish lady, who kept shouting at her saying it was not Vodafone's problem and Vodafone has a 24hour call back service. She didn't listen to the fact that we were in Central Africa and this was the first phone we'd seen since Yaounde, and we had no call back number! The mess was sorted out and Ross was able to chat and catch up with his parents for a bit with the remaining phone money.

Walking around Brazza, we noticed evidence of war everywhere. There were gun shot holes in the walls of many buildings and ruined shells of blasted buildings, with their rusted metal re-inforcement rods sticking up in all directions. It was quiet and we felt perfectly safe, but we did both feel there is always a feeling of unease and that people aren't quite sure when or why things might quickly and violently erupt. There are parts of Brazza that look like they've just been bombed and other parts that are so new and flash, with tall new, glass buildings, etc. It seems Brazza is very volatile and people seem to live on the edge waiting for the next violent explosion, which apparently flares up over nothing in a matter of minutes. We are both so grateful it is calm as it could be a very scary place to be in times of trouble, as Tim, Ciara, Justin and Becks found out when they were here. It was good to come and see Brazza for ourselves. We have had a good time here, but we wouldn't have chosen to come through here had we not been forced to go to Matadi for our Angolan visa. Going to Pointe-Noire in southern Gabon, our original plan, and being denied our visa there, as is the current situation, would've meant we would have had to drive the very dangerous "Rebel Route" from there to Brazzaville, which is controlled by the Ninja Militia, and this only means trouble.

We found the big, red Score shop and bought two 12V cigarette socket fans made from metal, which work a dream to keep the car cool, one mounted on the front dash and one on the dog guard blowing forward. Now we are really getting ready for when Heidz's parents join us in a few weeks time, and hopefully we won't all cook in Duzi2 in the heat in Namibia in March. At least Namibia should be cooler than Congo, as it cools down in the evenings, something that doesn't happen much in Congo.

We made our way home in the dark, but felt perfectly safe. Our washing was returned to us all clean and ironed. Olivier insisted that all the washing had to be ironed as he had a bad experience once before from a fly which lays it's tiny invisible eggs in the fibres of fresh clean washing. It's eggs somehow get into your skin and then develop into worms which grow under your skin. Ironing kills them off. They are found in these central African regions. We filtered more water into the tank which should last us for a while. While Ross got distracted for a tiny bit the water tank managed to overflow and flooded underneath the back seats, the back footwells, the fridge mounting and one storage box. After some mopping up and thanks to the high Congo temperatures, the water dried up quickly and all was right as rain to set off early tomorrow morning to catch the ferry from Congo Brazzaville to Kinshasa in the DRC. We had chicken stirfry for dinner and settled into sleep really late, despite knowing we had a very early start tomorrow morning. It was drizzling by the time we got to sleep, so at least the temperatures dropped a bit, but still in the high 20s deg C. We are both looking forward to cooler temperatures and less biting bugs.

Tuesday 19th February 2008: Hippocampe Hotel and Restaurant, Brazzaville, Congo

GPS Info: S04° 16' 23.6" E15° 16' 39.4"

Miles Today: 79 Total Miles: 14 681

Up very early, to leave at 6am, as we still needed to fill up with fuel before we left, as we weren't sure of its availability in the DRC, and had heard diesel was expensive in Angola. This was the most expensive fill we've had since Nigeria [have since found out this is not true, so we shouldn't have bothered as fuel is easily available in the DRC and is very much cheaper in Angola!]

We wanted to get to the ferry early as it left at 10am and thanks to Nic and Robin, we had jotted down their list and sequence of steps to follow when we got there. On arrival at the port, at about 8.30am, we had to pay Port Tax, 6 x CFA1 500 tokens (CFA10 800) to get in. Next we needed to visit the immigration office around the back which the police directed us to. The officer who stamps the exit stamp into your passport hadn't arrived for work yet so we waited with a lot of other people. He arrived, stamped our passports and wished us safe travels. He was so on the ball. From immigration we needed to go to customs to get the carnet stamped. The lady who did this was doing her hair and make-up while she glanced at our carnet. We sat alongside her as she got her stamp from within her small handbag. She had an open office, that looked like a classroom with its tables all haphazardly arranged in the centre and around the edges of the room. There were no computers or phones in this office, but the man at the desk next to us provided his own music through singing Karen Carpenter songs, with the tune coming from his mobile phone. With our passports stamped and our carnet completed, we went to the police to have the car checked, which took ages for them to find someone to do this. This meant we could now proceed to the ferry ticket sales.

None of these official offices are named, sign posted or formal looking at all, and the whole port looks disheveled and chaotic.

Finally at about 9.30am, we drove and parked where the ferry tickets were being sold and joined the chaos of people waiting for their ticket out of Brazzaville. There were many physically disabled and blind people being wheeled and ushered through the chaos in various forms of wheelchairs, carts and trolleys. Apparently they get a reduced ferry fare to cross over to Kinshasa and pay reduced import duties, so are used by their 'helpers' to bring in cheaper, bulk items from across the Congo River. While we were waiting two men came over and asked us if they could look inside the car. They were plain clothed and proceeded to write out a piece of paper with a charge of CFA4 500 as a baggage charge to pay on top of the ferry fare, (CFA6 500 for the car and the driver + CFA2 500 per passenger). In total our fare would cost us CFA36 000, but we argued the baggage fare as Nic and Robin had advised, but it did not get dropped as it had been for them. Rather, the two men walked away and ignored us. Without their paper, we were unable to purchase our ferry ticket. Eventually the two men acknowledged us after we agreed to their baggage charge, and gave us our baggage charge paper which looked like a scrawled scrap of old newsprint, but we had to wait further because the ferry tickets weren't on sale yet, 10.30am. We met two Canadian brothers, Louis and Daniel, who are from BC and are driving a Toyota from Gabon to Malawi, or maybe to SA.

The first ferry, 10am, is not for cars and only for people as the river level is too low apparently. Tickets for each ferry are only sold once the previous ferry has left. With time running out, we eventually managed to get our ticket and then sat in Duzi2 until we were directed onto the ferry. From the safety of Duzi2 we witnessed some shocking scenes of police brutality and rage, after they completely lost control with the masses of people queuing haphazardly everywhere. They vented their rage by shouting and lashing out with pieces of rope and long rubber baton sticks, hitting indiscriminately on whoever was near - hitting women, children and men, narrowly missing Louis who was standing outside their vehicle.

Gratefully we squeezed Duzi2 on to the ferry amongst the many disabled people and huge packages of margarine, nearly as high as Duzi2. Luckily we drove on forwards as there were hundreds of people, their belongings and other things everywhere. Louis and Daniel drove on behind us and promptly began photographing away, before being stopped by an army soldier. The DRC are very funny about photos being taken of buildings, bridges, rivers, people, basically everything, so it's advisable to rather not take as you can easily be arrested over the images you take, even if they are innocent and harmless.

At just after 11am, the ferry pulled out into the mighty, wide and fast flowing Congo River, which looked more like a sea than a river. There are even big inhabited islands in the middle of the river. The ferry journey took about an hour before we entered into the port of Kinshasa, where we saw UN security huts lining the banks and enormous logs stacked high.