On Sunday, I was up and ready to go first thing as it was another almost sleepless night. The flight was fine even though Congo airlines are considered the most sketchy in the world. The Russians run most of the route with planes, mechanics, crew, all part of a pre-set Russian team. They just hire a person to sell tickets and a stewardess and they are making money. I actually flew with CAA one of the national airlines and even though I had been recommeded not to had a very enjoyable flight.

We landed in Goma which turned out to be pretty cold and dreary, a welcomed surprise from the jungle heat I had been living the last two months.

In Goma, I hired a moto-taxi to take me to a cheap hotel. I had originally planned to take some time and possible do volcano climb or possibly do an Gorilla trek which is supposed to be the upitomy of the activities to do in Africa. An actual life changing event. Well after a half an hour on the back of this guys bike driving all over the place carrying my packs and him finally stopping at a resort hotel which had rooms for $65US a night, I started getting edgy. I told the guy to take me to a cheap hotel like I had asked. He blundered around for another fifteen minutes before I made him pull over and ask some other moto-taxi guys. They told him of a place and he took me there. I was already a bit on edge when we got to the bar/brothel/hotel, when the guys working there started to try and rip me off on the exchange rate and kept telling me to pay with dollars. I kept telling them that this was the Congo not America and I would pay with Francs. They kept on until I finally walked out. I was through. I couldn’t deal with anything Congo anymore. I had to get out or I would start my own war to add with the other dozen they already had. I grabbed a moto taxi and told him to take me to the Rwanda border.

Once I got to the border, the Congolese immigration stamped me out with hardly a look and as I was walking to the Rwanda post a guy stopped me and said he was immigration and wanted to see my passport. I was just imagining the horrors of more problems but now in Rwanda when he asked if I was doing okay and if I had any questions. I told him I was just passing through and he just told me “Welcome to Rwanda, were glad to have you.” I went to the immigration office where a bunch of tourists were getting their stamps as well and the guy took my passport stamped it out and said have a good time. My blood pressure just started dropping. I went back and asked the guy how I could get into town and one local guy who was getting his stamp just asked me if I wanted a lift as they were heading into town. Sweet, blood pressure drops some more. They gave me a lift into town and dropped me off at a change bureau so I could change my money. They then pointed out where I could get a bus to take me to Kigali the Capital. Blood pressure, almost normal. I thanked them and they took off. Things were looking up.

Oh well, two days and two nights were what it took and the power of Gods freight movers kept us moving without any real hassles. Now if you look on any map, the road from Kitwit to Kinshasa is pretty nice looking. Probably 15 years ago it was. The driver told me that it used to be in such good shape that they had regular bus services that would allow you to get all the way to Lubumbashi while following the power lines the whole way. Now, after fifteen years of no repairs and many wars, it is just one huge wash out after another. You could get going for about a few hundred meters before a huge section of the road is washed away and you had to come to a stop before you traversed it. I think I could have kept up at times on my mountain bike. We stopped in some villages at either a church or a church members house which gave us quite a few bathroom breaks and places to stretch our legs. Still, we were moving most all the time with two drivers and a helper keeping us going. The ride was pretty ordinary at this point and my camera batteries were dead so it was just a matter of shifting weight between one butt cheek and the other. This also was my time of contemplation of doing these out of the way trips. I want luxury for a while. I want a bunch of other tourists around me. I want food, water, and shelter. I want, I want, I want…. That is what I mentally did for two days. All the things I wanted and the things I no longer wanted to do. McDonalds came into play very heavily in these deep thought processes.

We finally rolled into town and they dropped me off in the central suburbs of Matonge, a section of the city that was supposed to house some budget accommodations and a lively atmosphere. We said our goodbyes and promised to pray (I was going to tell them that I was going to convert to McDonaldism and would pray to the almighty Ronald McDonald, but they were pretty cool in the long run and had saved me from Kitwit, so we exchanged info and I was on my way.

The first thing I noticed about Kinshasa was that there was food everywhere. Guys bbq’ing stuff, stands of fruit, juices, bread, candy, cookies, everything. There were drinking patios everywhere and tons of people shuffling about. It was so good to be back in civilization. I ran into a guy who knew the area and he walked me around for a hour as we tried different hotels. They were all pretty pricey so I picked a fairly large but run down hotel a little out from the center. They had a decent room for $14US and it seemed a quaint enough place with a restaurant and a bar next to it. I got settled in, went down to the center and bought a couple sticks of bbq meat, some bread rolls, and sat at one of the outdoor bars and drank bottle after bottle of $.50 Fanta’s. I was in heaven and was just laughing on the inside. Civilization is so incredibly good even though most people would think that Kinshasa was still third world.

It was a thursday night and I decided that I would head to Brazzaville, Republic of Congo (the other Congo) the next day as I wanted to go on a business day so that if there were any problems the embassies would be open.

The next morning I met a student who was passing through and we ended up sharing a taxi together down to the “Beech”, where the ferry took people across the Congo River to Brazzaville. He was a really nice guy and was actually moving to Cape Town the next week to go to the University there. We exchanged notes as I spent a good amount of time there. He helped me get a ticket and through most of the formalities as it was a huge circus with people running all over, people trying to grab my passport, and telling me I had to pay for this and that. I ended up getting a very expensive ticket $20US, paying the dues, giving the amount of currency I had, immigration formalities, and then locked in a cage with a few hundred other people. I had no clue what was going on and consider it one of the biggest cluster fucks that I have ever been in. Unfortunately they would not let my friend in so I was on my own. It was insane with these guys carrying whips and clubs who would go around and just beat people who were in the wrong place or moving too slowly. Were talking beatings where there whole head and face were covered in blood and you could see where their heads were cracked open. I was actually glad at that point to be locked in the cage. Finally, they called a few of us outside and we taken to a different ramp from where the ferry was. We were taken to a regular little speed boat and shuttled across in the little boats. I found out that is why the $20US. There was a big ferry that most of the people were taking except for me and a bunch of guys in suits.

It took about fifteen minutes to fly across the huge river and I landed in the Republic of Congo, Brazzaville.

I spent the rest of the afternoon taking a nap (and getting eaten up by mosquitoes- second option for my upcoming malaria), getting some food (some sort of chicken substitute,) and walking around the prototypical dusty one street port town (again the guy telling me how modern and full of conveniences the city was, bullshit.) The part about the chicken substitute was because the five times I have eaten chicken in the Congo I am only confident twice was it actually chicken. For example, this stufff I bought off the street looked like the ass end of a chicken with its tail. It was fried so it looked like chicken. The difference was that it was all fatty and it was almost all bone. The meat was kind of gelatinous and the bone wasn’t from any chicken I had ever seen. Just freaky, but I am a monkey eater so oh well.

That night as I was relaxing and reading my last book, a knock on the door. There at the door is the immigration idiot. He says he has two options for me. He tells me I can buy a visa and $20US for a stamp or I could just pay $20 for a stamp. I told him that I don’t need either and that I wasn’t dealing with him and slammed the door in his face. He stood out there a couple of minutes and then finally left. I had had it. I just didn’t want to deal with the shit anymore. I just wanted it all to be over.

The next day while looking for transport to Kinshasa and finding out the only options were by boat which took over a week, and by cargo truck which took 10-14 days, I bumped into a guy that heard me asking about transport. He said he had just talked to his friend that was driving a church group to Kinshasa to pick up supplies. He called the guy and I met him a few minutes later. They were just about to leave and if I paid for fuel they would be able to take me.

I took a taxi to the immigration office and told them that I was going to fly but I needed my documents to get my ticket. They gave me my paperwrk and told me to meet the immigration guy at my hotel and he would go with me to get the ticket. I told them fine in one hour. i took the paperwork, went to the hotel, grabbed my pack and headed back to the meeting place with the truck. We left 15 minutes later with me hiding in the back of the land cruiser.

I was free. Unfortunately, I learned that the trip would take at least 48 hours if everything went right. I figured it was a toss up as it was the Congo and shit never works out in regards to time, but I offset that with the fact that we were transporting things for God, so maybe it would come out even. Either ways, I was out of that trap of Kitwit.

We made it exactly 18kms before an oil line burst covering the side of the LandCruiser and bringing us to a stop. Luckily, there was a mechanic on board and after a bunch of rubber strapping, tape, silicone glue, super glue, and wire, we were on our way. We made it a hundred yards before it all blew up again. This time, we learned that they did not bring any spare oil with them so we were done. We were stuck out in the middle of the jungle with no way of fixing the thing. The owner and the mechanic took off to walk back to a village to see if they could scrounge up parts and oil. Once the sun started to go down, half the passengers took off as well when some villagers came down and offered beds for $300fcs. I figured screw it, I had my camping stuff and it was an adventure. There was a little pond a ways away where villagers were getting water so I took a quick bath. I was feeling pretty good after a nice bath, a good meal of the meat and nsima I had saved from the Chiefs wifes dinner, and my bedroll and mosquito net all spread out next to the landcruiser. It was a beautiful night out and I actually enjoyed it a lot. The only negative was the mosquitoes who still got to me anywhere a piece of me edged against the mosquito net. I woke up once to see a ball of mosquitoes nibbling through the net and my pants at my knee which had rolled up against the net. This is where I am pretty sure the Malaria I just got over came from. These were straight up Congo jungle mosquitoes.

At about 4am, the owner and the mechanic came back with a new fitting, some tubing, and more superglue. They rigged up the broken fitting and sealed it up with a mixture of cotton and superglue. We were finally off again after driving back to the village and getting all the other passengers. Three hours later we finally rolled into Kitwit.

We headed off on a little 125 Yamaha. It wasn’t too bad of a fit in the beginning, before we left, with my big pack strapped to the back and my little pack on my back. What made it suck was that the rear footpeg was broken and they had just shoved a piece of wood in its place. My left leg had nothing really to stand on so it made for a hellish ride. The road was only bad in a few places with a lot of ruts and washed out sandy areas. The guy was on a mission to break some record so we were jamming it pretty quick. I quickly decided that I would never opt for a moto again unless I got to drive. We made it a full hour and a half before I had to call it quits and take a break. My ass hurt all the way up through my spine. Having one leg dangling put the full force of bouncing right on my ass. Somewhere along the way I ended up losing his sunglasses he gave me and my water bottle.

A little more than two hours later we arrived in Idiofa. One look around and I wanted out, bad. It wasn’t a bad town, but it was the same dirt road village with a bunch of shops. I was just tired and getting worn out of roughing it and wanted to get to Kitwit which is one of the larger towns in the Congo. The moto guy stopped off at his friends business and we hung out with them for a while. I started to get annoyed because I was again just sitting there hanging out and the guys kept asking for me to buy them beers. Finally, I had enough and grabbed my stuff. They started freaking out like I was an escaped prisoner. I told them I was going to find transport to Kitwit. They started giving me crap about waiting, but I just thanked them and walked away.

About half way to the lot where the Landcruisers waited, I ran into a cruiser that stopped and asked if i was looking for a ride to Kitwit. I was happier than hell to hop in. We ended up going to some guys house. There they said I could wait for three hours until they were ready to leave. I about lost it again and told them I wasn’t waiting. They explained they had to wait for more people, but if I was willing to pay for the extra seats, we could leave then. I told them to fuck off and started to leave. The main guy said to hold on, that we would leave then. I said fine and we headed out. We ended up going to a mission just outside of town where we picked up a bunch of people. Then we headed back into town where we went to another house. The guy wasn’t there so we went back into town and picked up the guy. We went back to his house to get his stuff. Then we went back to the original house where we started from. I was really getting pissed. Then, I saw the ticket guys paperwork and they were charging me more than everyone else. I told the guy to fuck off again, and blew up. I had wasted two hours just driving around with them and I was pissed. On top of it all, a guy walks up and says hello. I just said “hello” and blew him off. It turned out the guy was from Immigration. Fuuuuuuckkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!! He wanted me to go to the office so I could give him my documents. I was bummed. Finally the owner of the truck got involved and gave me a good price for all the problems. He said they would leave then and talked to the immigration guy for me. We would stop off at the office on the way out of town and he could stamp my paperwork. So after another hour of motor tuning, paperwork shuffling, and getting the owners luggage, we were off. It was funny, at the immigration office, we stopped long enough to drop the immigration guy off and then we took off without doing any paperwork. The officer had forgotten his paperwork in the back so as we left they threw all his stuff out the window, all the time laughing. I was amused up to the point I realized that if we got caught, all the wrath would probably be taken out on me.

With that, began my next leg which was via Land Cruiser to the real, full size town of Kitwit.

There was not a lot I can say about Hotel Petite, except that it was pretty rustic. It looked like one of those abandoned brick houses where the roof had caved in. It was obviously a love shack, but for $700fcs ($1.25US) it was a place to drop my bags. Unfortunately it was also where I picked up a nice rash of scabies. Got photos of that too.

Long story a bit shorter, there ended up being no transport as the few guys who had motorcycles did not want to make the three hour run (one way.) They all said the day after New Years. Shiiiiiiittttttt, I was stuck again.

I thought there would be some big activities with machine gun fire and people going crazy at midnight, but it was actually rather peaceful. There were some dances and a lot of get togethers, but the actual festive day was New Years day.

On New Years day, all the kids got to put on new clothes and they just wandered around being kids. In the market area they had music and all the kids played and danced around. It was just like the states where the girls hung around in packs and the guys hung out in their little gangs. The real enjoyable part was how nice they all looked in their brand spanking new dresses and little suits. We ended up hanging out at one of the moto guys house who agreed to take us for about half the price the other guys were asking.

That night we had a nice dinner prepared by the moto guys family (more mooching). That night at my hotel, the Chief of Security and his wife stopped by to drop off a bunch of food for me. There was no way I could eat anymore but I thanked them not wanting to be rude. They had a big pot of meat, a pot of nshima, a pot of rice, and a pot of vegetables. It was a lot of food. I ended up taking portions of each and putting them in a bag. It would make a good lunch meal for the next day. When I took back the pots to the Chiefs house, we ended up talking for a while and then they invited me to go along with them to their friends house for drinks. The place ended up being the really nice house where the guys had first tried to get me a room. They had a portable generator and the guy had a full electronics system inside. On the porch were about a hundred kids watching a dvd that the owner had brought out for them to watch. When I got there, the guy decided I was more important and drug the tv back inside where I and about ten of his friends were. The kids about revolted and I felt a bit bad. We watched a few videos one of which was about Matubo, one of the ex-presidents who ran the country into the ground. Knowing that I had an early morning, I finally excused myself and went back to the hotel.

Overall, it was a good New years day. Actually, not much different than in the states. That is one thing about the world, some things really are not that different.

Next up was the moto ride to Idiofa.

Okay, leaving Ilebo, on a boat. Oh yea, for those exotic food lovers, one of my only meat diets on this little sojourn was monkey. Yup, chewy, hairy, stringy, monkey meat. Not bad actually, especially when they marinate it in the peanut or palm oil and serve it with rice. Got photos, and it isn’t as disgusting as it sounds.

Alright, so the Immigration guys come and pick me up to take me down to the docks. I am getting this distinct impression they want me out of there asap. They even have an itinerary and notes for the next immigration people. We head down to the dock and we find a boat willing to take me after the immigration guys assure him that he will not get into trouble for transporting me and that they have letters of authorization.

The boat is an all steel boat which reminds me of a PT boat they use in the Navy. It is called a fast boat, or a petrol boat. I thought it was because it was gas powered and therefore fast, but it was because they use them to haul petrol up and down the river. This one was going down to the village of Dibaya so it worked out perfectly. Now, being Africa, we jsut sat on the boat for four hours doing absolutely nothing. I met a guy who was working in Ilebo and was heading back to Kinshasa as well. He spoke English so it was helpful in that he could tell me in English that we were waiting and he didn’t know why. Finally around noon, they kicked off all the other passengers and headed off. Luckily the guy could explain to me that we were going up river to a place to pick up fuel. That little voyage was an adventure in itself. We ended up going up a small tributary that seemed large enough, but with this big boat and a rudder steering system it was a bit tricky. We ended up stopping at some house in the middle of nowhere and the guys hand loaded these five gallon jugs of petrol and filled the boat. That took another hour. Onthe way down the river with the current, the captain just lost it. We were crashing into trees and the bank. We rammed through this huge tree that was overhanging the bank and it wiped out the lean too tent they had on top which was our only form of shade. I was a bit worried about this guys abilities, but I figured as long as we got to the main river, anybody could float down that sucker without hitting anything. Finally, we made it back to the dock where all of a sudden another fifty people were waiting and the laoding started. The same old plastic jugs, sacks of crap, and chickens were loaded on. The captain blew the horn and we were off.

The ride was beautiful. The scenery being breath taking. Much better than the Amazon because there were very few villages along the way. Just pristine untouched jungle. Everybody was in a happy mood as we just cruised along with the tide. We stopped at only one other village along the way, but otherwise it was smooth sailing. The guy I met had his “sister” feed us which was nice as I just had some nshima and peanuts. We had some rice with mayonnaise. It was actually really good. At night, things changed, at least for me anyways. I thought it would be a great relief having the sun go down and the temperature dropping. The sunset was awe inspiring, but the humidity went crazy. It turned cool to cold, but the humidity stayed high. It was like having a cold sweat. I was miserable. I hate that sticky feeling, enough so that I will take a bath in dumpster water just to get rid of the stickiness. I tried my best using a sleeping bag and covering my head, but it didn’t help. There was no way I could sleep.

Thankfully, early in the morning we arrived in Dibaya. I had played with the idea of saying screw the immigration guys and finding a boat to take me the rest of the way to Kinshasa, but there was no way I was going to spend another week being miserable. For me, overlanding was still the way.

We arrived while it was still dark, so the guy I met told me to follow him to his friends house where we could get a place to sleep. We ended up waking up this family who turned out to be the Chief of the port. He in turn woke up two ladies that were staying in the back apartments and had them move to another room so we could have theirs. It was just a dirt floor shack, but it was fine for the moment.

With that, we were now in the village of Dibaya. The next leg would involve either finding a car or a moto (motorcycle) to take us to the next village of Idiofa.

Now a big part of traveling in the internals of the Congo is the lack of tourists and the deep untrust of strangers especially by anyone wearing a uniform (which was half the population.)

My first negative experience was in Kananga when I was picked up at the train station by an Immigration officer. There I had to go to the train station immigration, questioned, and then taken to the immigration headquarters a hours walk away. There I was held under the pentance of not having a permit to be traveling in a minerales zone (diamonds.) I had heard a permit cost $500, but was told that I had to pay $100US. My response was hell no, I’m not paying. That in turn caused the guy to say fine and took my passport and left. The captain of the station immigration pleaded with me to pay and said that an officer was on his way to arrest me. Just before the guy with the machine gun came in, we settled for $10US. With that, a stamp and a signature, I was on my way.

In Ilebo, I didn’t even make it out of my cabin before an officer was standing there to take me away. Some guys I met went with me to make sure I didn’t have any trouble. All that did was get them in trouble about their ID’s and the officers thinking that they were trying to scam me. In the end, after all the paper work, I was told that I would be escorted to a hotel where I would stay. Pretty convenient. The next day I was to report back and we were to go and visit the commander. The next day I ended up visiting the commanded of Immigration, Captain of police, Captain of tourism, and the commander of the military post. It was one long day. The next day I was picked up by immigration and escorted down to the boats to see about arrangements. There we found that no boats would be leaving for a few days so I had to wait again. I spent the time visiting the market and seeing the river. One of the surprising things is that there is no food. No restaurants, no stores selling prepared food, nothing. Since it is such a pocket community and there really aren’t any visitors, there is no need for restaurants as every body just eats at home. I found that the only way to get food was to ask the mamas at the surrounding houses if they would cook a meal for me. That was the only way to get any food besides peanuts, nsima, and dusty bread.

Luckily it rained a couple of times so I was able to collect some water for showers and drinking. The Congo rivers look like the chocolate rivers in the Willi Wonka chocolate factory, so drinking water is still tough to get.

After almost a week, a boat was going to head down river to a place called Dubai. My plan was to catch the boat, head to Dubai and from their take ground transportation to Kinshasa.

At the moment I am in Kinshasa having just escaped from the Republic of Congo. Tomorrow I am flying to Goma where I hope to escape from all places Congo. I have had enough.

Hopefully the next update will come from Rwanda.

Steve