still in the Congo

Le Route Principle

i didn't get the chance to finish the last entry so here goes.....

The road was well and truly blocked. A logging truck had got stuck in the mud so when the next truck had come along, the driver tried to drive around it. He got stuck. So the Caterpillar 'log loader' had been brought down to pull them out. Yes, he too got stuck.

When we arrived they were waiting for a bigger Caterpillar 'log loader' to arrive. Whilst i could have got the bike through with a struggle, there was no way the Nissan could pass so we waited. Plus I wanted to how they would pull out two 40 tonne trucks that were axel deep in mud. Eventually the big one showed up and in usual African style with every one barking instructions at each other they got to work. For the first half an hour nothing budged. But slowly slowly, bit by bit, they managed to free one of the the trucks. We took the opportunity to nip through before another truck blocked the road then continued south. It was getting dark by this stage and we had to decide whether to bush camp, or push through to a hotel that we had heard about from the stranded truck drivers. With the thought of a cold beer and possibley a cooked meal we ventured on. Well, until my rear wheel seized. The brake pad, which i knew was nearly finished, finally said 'no more', came away from the housing and wedged it self between the caliper and the disk. We freed the pads, removed them and continued with only the front brake.

The hotel was more of a logging camp. The rooms were little more than wooden shacks around a bar and seating area with men getting drunk on small plastic bags of whiskey and occasionally dancing to the distorted music. We negotiated a good deal to have sole use of an outside elevated seating area where we drank some beers, cooked up some of our supplies and i pitched my tent. Earlier that day i had noticed that many of the truck drivers were oriental looking, and we had joked that the Chinese logging companies had brought them over as the locals kept crashing the trucks. They turned out to be Malaysian, but yes the reason they were here was as we had joked. They were training up the Congolese after so many trucks had been wrecked.

The following afternoon we arrived in Point Noire and treated ourselves to a decent hotel and a Pizza. I was shocked by the how wealthy the town appeared. Fancy bars and restaurants, shops selling quality electronic goods, and plenty of white people driving around in fancy clan 4x4s(clearly expats). The contrast between the isolated rural villages and the city was more extreme than i had seen anywhere before on the trip. It is the same here Brazzaville the capital where i am now. This morning I was sat in pavement cafe drinking an espresso watching sharply dressed young Congolese men on their way to work clasping leather briefcases chatting on the latest Nokias. Incredible when you consider the journey we had to undertake to travel between these 2 cities.

I tried and failed to get new brake pads in Point Noire so i e-mailed Ground Control in Reading, where Ollie dropped sorting out the Three mobile billing system to get a new set DHL'd over to Brazzaville. 76 quid to send a 10 gram package acroos the world in 5 days. Now received and fitted.

The road to Brazzaville was no better than the roads in the north, the traffic just as infrequent and progress just as slow. Every 10km we would have to stop and walk through the muddy water or a river to find the best route. In some places the local villagers had created a deviation which could be used for small, or in some cases, large fee. There were also chancers who tried to get money for using the main route, claiming they had improved it.

How????

At the first really bad section, a house adjacent to the road had put a barrier across the entrance to their land. We could use it but would be charged twenty five quid for the privilege. A colossal amount for them and we were clearly being stitched up. I figured i could get my bike over a steep path on the other side to the house. But that was not possible for the car.

We tried to play it cool. Made some coffee, attempted to renegotiate and had another look at the slosh pit that lay in front of us. Tom (and I too) thought he could make. He didn't and got stuck, water filling the foot wells of the car and burning out the stereo (the second of the trip, fitted only two days before).

The sand ladders and shovel came off the roof, some lads came to help and I was in my boxer shorts up to my thighs in mud and still we could not free the car. It wasn't looking good. The villages here have no vehicles and we had not seen one on the road for three hours, so when two new 4x4s showed up we were relieved. They managed to pull the Nissan back out but the sump guard and bash plate and been ripped off again and the clutch was not gripping. T & L talked about going back, but that wasn't an easy option either and we had heard that the road got better the further on. A reduced rate of ten quid was finally negotiated and we both passed through the garden.

Later on

On the second afternoon I stood chatting to a Canadian chap from the Red Cross who was traveling in the opposite direction but was waiting for a stuck vehicle to be freed before he could pass in his Land Cruiser. I suddenly heard Tom, just out of site round the corner, going ballistic swearing loudly in Dutch. I ran into view thinking their car had dropped into a ditch, but he seemed OK.

" The f#cking bastards are asking for money" he yelled "can you believe it??!!".

Tom had just spent over an hour pulling three 2x4 cars through a particularly treacherous section of mud and deep water. The local young male villagers, who always flock to such situations had been helping to push when we arrived and continued to help afterwards, and naturally asked for payment for their efforts. Fair enough. But when the drivers of the stuck cars thought that Tom should pay he lost it.

The Red Cross guy didn't seem so surprised. "These people have just come out of a long civil war" he reasoned " they are used to doing anything can just to get by and make a buck".

This was another occasion

Before i left, i had said that if anyone with a gun wanted money off me i would simply pay up. But here we were arguing over two quid with an angry man holding a revolver . It was the cheek of it. He, and his mates were claiming to be responsible for improving the only passable section of the road and had put up a bamboo barrier. We had been driving behind two Red Cross Vehicles and claimed to part of their convoy. This had worked the last time but this guy was more determined to extract some of our money. As he got angrier I saw sense and handed over the money he opened up and we sped through. I doubt it was loaded anyway. Bullets cost money.

Our last bush camp

Not surprising the bananas were cheap here

We both crawled into Brazzaville. The Nissan needing some serious work- the brakes were shot, the suspension on one side broken, bumper hanging off and the clutch needing some attention. T&L are at the garrage now and are not sure how long it will take to get the car road worthy again. I've picked up my DHL package and have replaced both sets of brakes and this afternoon will fix the speedo/odometer. The odometer is key for me judge how much fuel I have. I would like to leave tomorrow, taking the ferry over the Congo River to DRC. It will be a shame to part company with T&L but at the same time I am not keen on staying for what could be a week. A decision to make.