Democratic Republic of Congo!
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2010
1
32
82
Trip End
Aug 18, 2011
Muanda, Congo - The Dem. Repub.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The next day we made our way to Muanda to get some much needed supplies; from here it was poor road to Boma, where we stopped off for a nice cold(ish) drink. After leaving Boma we headed towards our camp for the night, which we spent in the garden of a pub in Manterene village, just outside Boma itself. It was a bit of a tight call to find somewhere to stay that night with this being such a populated area and hence bush camping wasn't possible - and DRC is still very much not on the tourist trail and thus has no real recognised campsites as such. After finding a place which would take a truck full of us overladers, our first problem was getting through the gate - as the electricity wire ran too low for the truck to pass through. Step up a helpful (and I think drunk) local and with clearly a different understanding of electrical safety than us soft westerners - decided we would take the wire down himself - with his bare hands! As the sparks flew and we all awaited the man sitting on a 10ft high wall with live wires in his hands to end up in a very stick situation, we did nevertheless arrive into camp safe and sound and best of all - no locals were killed in the process... That night it was again time for team TNT to step up to cook group duties, and after the obligatory few (i.e. several) bevvies we completed dinner with little problem - and it went down well with the troops. No injuries from the cook group therefore but things did seem to go downhill later that evening - which resulted in some poor attempts of vertical handstands between Gary and myself - obviously this was not a good idea - however I managed to escape unscathed although Gary with a few cuts and bruises after wards - will we never learn... still it was quite funny!
Next day headed for the Angolan border, along the way we stopping at Matadi, where upon entering the town you cross the .... river on a Golden Gate Bridge, which was quite reminiscent of a certain bridge in San Fransisco. Here we enjoyed lunch and again stocked up before heading on to the border. Unfortunately we arrived here too late and immigration had closed, so we were forced to camp in the gardens. That night was relatively quiet - I ventured down with a few others to a local bar and had a few beers, a bite to eat for dinner back at the truck and then we all headed for some much needed sleep... Unfortunately however the sleep wasn't quite as long as we all would have hoped, as we were all awoken at 4am in the morning to the sound of a local guy with a megaphone preaching the word of God to us. Starting off in the local language he soon relished that we spoke English and began again in English. Trying to hold our mouths, in the hope he would go away, after about 15 minutes people's patience wore thin and people inevitably started yelling back, Go Away, Jesus sleeps too, etc. Apart from this rather annoying episode, on the whole the people of DRC seemed very friendly and welcoming to us strange white people - which was a nice surprise after hearing much of the many troubles experienced when back in the UK.
With slightly sore heads and sleepy eyes, we got stamped out of DRC first thing in the morning and crossed over into Angola.
