Update Gabon to Congo to DRC:Part seven. You take the high road and we will take the no road.

We are here and we need to be there -- with our truck!

The view of Kinshasa across the Congo River, from the port of Brazzaville.

After spending an eventful afternoon in the Brazzaville port with Mark trying to figure out the feasibility of hoisting our 17 ton truck onto a floating steel barge by means of a 6 ton crane, getting it pushed across the massively wide and fast running Congo River to Kinshasa on the other side --- and then, whilst discussing the safety of the operation, witnessing this same crane tumble and let drop a heavily laden pallet of air conditioon units into the water, it did not need much more than the ridiculously expensive quote for the lifting to make Mark make the final decision: no way would he risk his truck in this precarious manoeuvre!

But – Kinshasa is the very last place on the African map we haven't yet been to apply for Angolan visas, so we had to get there.

So, the next morning early we left the nuns' friendly compound – taking half of one of their gate posts with us as we squeezed through an opening too small, with a truck too big – and back on the road to Kinkala from where we headed south and south west. Fortunately, this time, we could skirt the Pool Region and did not need a military convoy or protection, but the police and military check points were frequent nevertheless and instead of being highly irritating, having to stop every few kilometres, did rather give a sense of security and being looked after. The first night we slept in the grounds of a medical centre at Louingui– a quite impressive little hospital with probably about 50 beds, but only one patient – a little boy who suffers from sleeping sickness.

This was the first time for many in the group to even hear about this deadly and cruel disease one gets from a Tsetse fly bite, and quite sobering for us to once again to be reminded of the realities of this vast continent we are travelling through. From there we continued to Boko and then, from Boko we drove – or should I say, crawled on probably the worst road in the entire Africa. And if you doubt that statement or think me exaggerating, go check the map and you will see that the road on every map, even the most detailed one, stops in Boko. After Boko there is simply a blank space. And if you still doubt my story go look at the photographic proof I took of our epic journey!

If I told you that it took us 4 hours to travel 2.5 kilomtres and almost 8 hours to cover the whole 20 kilometres of this stretch, you may understand a little better. If I then told you that we walked big distances with our picks and shovels and axes, digging, chopping, filling holes, laying steel sand mat bridges and scraping down too high ridges, widening the road in places so that the truck can make it through and using our precious fire wood logs to strengthen areas that looked like it was ready to collapse and take the truck with it into a ravine, you may be getting the picture. Everyone pitched in. Everyone worked. We did not quite sing a chain-gang song nor whistle the tune from The Bridge over the River Kwai, but we did smile and we did cheer every time Mark drove the truck over a previously impassable area and completed another metre, and we did feel proud to be part of a tremendously spirited team of people. And after a very arduous day, we finally reached the border town of Ndanga.

This was also the first time that we have had to ask the villagers if we could sleep on an open space in the heart of the village. By the time the immigration and customs official had filled in every single detail of every single passport into a school exercise book, - even though we had provided him, as we always do, with the details on a photocopied manifesto. There is typically no electricity in this village so Mark provided the torch by which this was done, and we sat there well into the pitch darkness. We never quite knew who or what function his side-kick had, but this man was not happy with the US military-issue canvas tog bag, sleeping bag and sleeping mattress in our truck. Randy's old army kit has been the envy of some of us earlier in the trip in the freezing cold weather when it proved we had completely inadequate sleeping gear, and even then no one thought that this might cause a problem; and anyway – who would have thought that somewhere, on some border post in some central African country an immigration official is going to have a cadenza when he sees USA military gear.

We had to lie.

No. I had to lie as I am the only one with a smattering of French in a sticky situation in a country that does not feel comfortable with any military presence anywhere near them.

“Oh that? That was bought in the market in Marrakesh”, I lied with a straight face, surprising even myself at how calm and convincing I was, and at the same time hating, hating, hating the moment – as I really do pride myself in the fact that I do not lie.

“You know the army surplus stores? They are all over and sell all sorts of army surplus goods. And one of our group bought these at one of those,” I said, suddenly noticing that on the tog bag, in black official-looking stencilled letters, it says clearly R.D.WARD NO. 00000. Please don't notice that and if you do please don't ask me how he managed to buy a tog bag that even had his name and army number on it! Please! I said to myself. And someone listened, for he did not, but, for the rest of the evening, he kept on coming to the perimeter of our camp site and just stood there and looked...

And it seemed we were doomed to not be welcomed into the DRC, for our crimes did not stop with Randy's illegal and highly suspicious Moroccan markets military kit.



While Mark and I was trying to speed up the process of recording the passport details, the very proud moment in every village in these parts of the world came to pass: the lowering of the country's flag. As is the custom in every country, when you are in the vicinity of a flag being raised or lowered, you show respect and stop for the brief moment.

If you notice that every single person in the village, in other words every other person in your small world at that time, has stopped what they were doing, and stood to attention, it would be a clear signal to you to do the same.

If the head of police of the village – and you would know who he is as he is the only man with a full black police uniform, badges, medals, stars, side arm, black polished boots – looking like a policeman and nothing else – if he should tap you on your shoulder when you had not stopped walking and whistling a happy tune, and should tell you that if you looked around you you would see what is required of everyone, you would immediately cease what you were doing – namely walking and whistling, and at least immediately stand still and look respectful – if not actually stand to attention like every other soul around you.

But, one of our group could not see the rationale of all this, purported not to be able to understand the French speaking policeman and instead starting debating with him, in a loud voice, about what he thought he should be doing – or not, and sorry mate but I had no idea, and sorry mate how should I know your rules. It was an embarrassing fiasco – or so the policeman explained to me the following morning as the truck's engine is already purring and the last of the group had already climbed on board and there I am, having to apologise for every person who has ever not respected simple and straightforward and common flag etiquette and protocol.

But an apology was not what he wanted. He wanted to do his job and his duty – which was to arrest the guilty party and put him in prison for up to 9 days without a trial – as he pointed out on his copy of the country's constitution, article 1b. Yes, clearly spelled out at the top of the constitution it states that anyone who does not stand to attention when the flag is raised or lowered goes to prison for up to nine days without trial. Need I say more? Need I tell you how embarrassed I was for my fellow-traveller and how angry I was and how much I resented having to apologise for someone else who is not even my responsibility? And once more I would be ever so slightly consoled if I had thought that this had provided a lesson that had been learned; that respect for others and others' cultures and customs and property is a universal value. I really would.

From there we travelled on. More bad bad roads. More dust. More spectacular scenery – and into a hinterland with no roads where you see the stark reality of an undeveloped country – or, as is the case with the DRC, a country that once was highly developed and with an economy richer than any other in Africa, but which has, because of debilitating and crippling wars, regressed to the 'undeveloped' country it is today. Where there are no roads, there are no amenities, no electricity, no shops, no transport, no schools, no communication, no medical care, no medicines, no basics, no clean water – not even wells in the villages, nothing but despair. The young President Kabila is promising and planning huge development in his country, but when we saw people living out there in the mountains where there is nothing, nothing and no roads by which something, anything can be brought to them, you have to feel sympathy with anyone who has high aspirations to restore the country to anywhere close to its former prosperity.

And the irony of it all is in this simple factual statistic: 15 years ago the DRC had 15000km of tarred roads. Today it has less than 1500 tarred roads. What hope is there for the children of a country where their grandparents had electricity, but they use candles to read by; where their grandparents rode in buses, on tarred roads to town to do their shopping, but the grandchildren have to walk on footpaths over long distances to sell their mother's meagre crops; where their grandparents had clean water that came out of a well maintained well, but they have to walk miles to the river with their buckets to collect contaminated water; where their grandparents went to university after school and earned degrees and practise professions, but they cannot even finish third grade because there is no school and no teacher anywhere in their region. It just does not seem right, does it?


Yet, after another impossible drive, we caught our first glimpse of the Congo River again and then finally reached Loisi where the ferry crosses the river and where we could link up with the road to Matadi – and yet another Angolan consulate!