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Updated Information
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Date |
Camp Site or Accommodations |
GPS |
Distance Today:
42km |
Meals
Chili |
Weather |
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Gabon - Congo Border |
13 April 2004 |
Bush Camp |
2°3.909’S
12°53.738’E |
Odometer: 17550km |
Hot, Sunny, Sticky 104(F) degrees
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After buying some bits of chicken and some
bread, we headed out of town, our letter from the Governor in hand,
confident we would finally be able to leave Gabon. Driving past the
customs office at the edge of town, a guy ran out into the street and
stopped us. He claimed to be the customs officer and wanted to stamp our
carnets, except that he didn’t have a stamp. If you’re an official in
Africa without a stamp you might as well not even exist. He wrote out some
bits of paper which he stapled into our carnets using a stapler he
borrowed from us and told us that customs charges 10,000 CFA per vehicle.
We argued with him for awhile and eventually Elsa and Vicky went off to
find the prefecture who had been very helpful in getting our letter from
the Governor. We all sat around on the barrier at the customs office for a
half an hour or so. Eventually two cars drove up, and the prefecture got
out of one of them along with his entourage (everything requires many
people to follow the boss around). He had a few words with the customs
guy, who, looking very unhappy, tore the bits of paper out of our carnets
and let us through. We drove for 30 minutes to the military checkpoint to
speak to the guys with the AK47s. We showed them our letter, but they were
not impressed, saying that they needed military authorization to let us
through. The chief jumped into a pickup to go back to Bakoumba to talk to
the colonel. We set up our awnings in the middle of the road and settled
down in the shade to make tea. By lunchtime the chief had still not
returned, so Elsa got out her laptop and we watched a movie (Ice Age). 90
minutes later the movie was over and still no sign of the chief. We used
the sat phone to call the US embassy and spoke with an attaché there who
promised to try to help, but really there is little he can do. Witt, Urs,
and Elsa drove the 30km back to town in the Pinzgauer to try to locate the
chief. They found him drinking beer and waiting for a ride back to his
post. We loaded him into the Pinzy and started back. Apparently he had
made good use of his trip into town as he reeked of beer and was obviously
loaded. We had to stop once on the way back so he could pee. He told us we
could go, which we did with haste. We believe that he never spoke with any
colonels at all and that the whole thing was a ruse so he could go into
town to drink. By the time we left it was after 4pm. We drove the last
15km to the border and arrived there just after 5pm. This border, we were
told, hadn’t been open since the Congolese civil war in 1997. The border
itself is a couple of steel gates secured with padlocks on the Gabon side
and a strategically placed rocks on the Congo side (we walked across while
no one was looking to check it out.) There was a footpath between the
gates, but it was obvious that there hadn’t been any vehicle traffic
through in some time. We showed the border guard our very official letter
from the Governor. First he told us that we could not cross because the
man with the keys to the lock on the gate is dead. We wondered if the keys
had been buried with him, and if so could we go and dig him up? We
explained that we could easily cut the bolts, so he next had to invent a
story about there being no reference number on the letter from the
Governor. The whole group is getting rather fed up with all the bulls**t;
All we want to do is get out of Gabon. We set up our tents at the border
and made a dinner of chili and rice. Tomorrow we plan to phone the
prefecture on the sat phone and ask for his help. |
Waiting at the military post
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Updated Information
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Date |
Camp Site or Accommodations |
GPS |
Distance Today:
47km |
Meals
BBQ Chicken |
Weather |
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Near Mayoko, Congo |
14 April 2004 |
Bush Camp |
2°21.925’S
12°46.245’E |
Odometer: 17597km |
Hot, Sunny, 102(F) degrees
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The Gabonese border guard dressed for work in
his uniform this morning, something he probably doesn’t have occasion to
do very often. After we broke camp, Elsa went to speak with him. The
“reference number” problem had mysteriously disappeared, but for some
reason we now had to wait until the Congolese agreed to let us in before
he would let us out. The Congolese, he said, would be arriving on foot,
and would take longer than normal today because of the mud. Last night we
saw an amazing thunderstorm. It started with lightning in the distance,
far enough away that we couldn’t hear the thunder. By 3 am it was raining
hard and it continued until almost dawn, leaving our campsite a muddy
mess. At about 10am a truck drove up on the Congo side of the border
bearing about a half-dozen people, including another down-on-his-luck
Nigerian and a German man who was traveling by public transport to
Libreville. We were told that we had to return with them to see the chief
in Mbinda, the first town we would encounter in Congo. Jen, Graham, Elsa,
and Vicky piled into the pickup with Graham and Jen in back next to a guy
with an AK47. The rest of the group settled in for more waiting. We pored
over maps and a detailed report from someone who had recently driven from
Namibia to Point Noir. He had spent about 14 days on the journey and
recorded towns, distances, and drive times. There are three sections in
particular that seem nasty, requiring a full day’s drive to cover 100 km.
Connie’s parents are due in South Africa at the beginning of May, and we
are starting to be concerned that we won’t make it there in time to meet
them. About two hours later the truck returned from Mbinda. Elsa (who is
French and has helped us out tremendously in talking with officials and
locals) convinced them to allow us to enter, and in fact reported that the
Congolese are very excited to welcome the first tourists in 7 years into
Congo via their border. Graham got his bolt cutters and cut the lock on
the Gabon side of the gate, having decided that was easier than digging up
the dead guy to retrieve the key. We drove through 100m of tall grass to
reach the Congo side of the border. The officials stamped our passports at
the border, then we followed the pickup 10km to Mbinda. The road was very
slow and there were many deep mudholes filled with water from last night’s
rain. Toki got mired once as the dead spot in the steering makes for some
tricky driving. A quick tug from the Pinzi got us moving again. The
prefecture in Mbinda gave us an extremely warm welcome and was happy to
have us in his town. We walked down the main street to buy bread, bananas,
and some dough balls for lunch. The locals seemed astonished to see us. As
we left they all (about 40 people) stood in the street and waved. As we
drove along toward Myoko, we received similar looks of amazement from the
people we passed. We passed a man in a military uniform who told us we had
to check in at a nearby police post. They were all very excited to have
someone whose passports they could inspect, and whose details they could
copy down. We spent about 30 minutes there and were set free. The road
continues to be muddy and rutted and we’ve seen only 3 vehicles all day.
The track is slowly being overtaken by the jungle and at times there is a
wall of vegetation scraping along both sides of the car. We drove through
a section that was strangely flat and devoid of trees, although the
grasses were still higher than our cars. Connie checked Fugawi and found
that there was once an airstrip there! Fortunately it is marked “unusable”
on our map. We eventually found a spot to camp after a bit of searching,
although it was quite muddy. We built a fire and Slade grilled some
chicken for dinner. |
We are finally able to drive across the border The track to Mbinda is narrow and muddy We are quite the spectacle, and everyone comes out to watch After our meeting with the perfect Thoki splashes through some mud Negotiating the deeply rutted track
We are finally able to drive across the border
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Updated Information
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Date |
Camp Site or Accommodations |
GPS |
Distance Today:
161km |
Meals
Gazelle stew for lunch, tuna pasta for
dinner |
Weather |
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Makabana, Congo |
15 April 2004 |
Visitor's quarters at Forala
c headquarters |
3°33.422’S
12°28.863’E |
Odometer: 17758km |
Cloudy, Humid, hot 98(F) degrees
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It rained again last night,
but thankfully not too hard as we were camped near a stream. After
breakfast we set off for Makabana where Elsa has a contact with someone
who will know the route to Point Noire. The road was good and we were able
to make almost 100km to Mossendjo by lunch time. We found a restaurant in
town where we shared the four portions of gazelle and two of porcupine
between nine of us. It was in a sort of stew and came out cold. It wasn’t
the best meal any of us had ever had. By the time we were finished the
whole town knew we were there and then we were told that we had to go to
the customs post in town. The official there was on a major power trip. He
inspected all nine of our passports and laboriously copied down the
details. He asked us various questions about our professions, our mother’s
maiden name, and our shoe size, but didn’t ask a consistent set of
questions to all of us (he was just making them up as he thought of them).
Next he wanted to search our vehicles. He climbed into the front seat of
the Pinzi and was looking around when Bio, Elsa and Urs’ 120 lb Burmese
mountain dog, stuck his big furry head into the front. The guy freaked and
whacked his head as he made a mad dash for the exit. There was a crowd of
about 30 standing around us, who found this very funny and started
laughing. This didn’t make the stern official very happy at all and he
insisted on inspecting Bio’s medical record. He got out a piece of A4
paper and wrote down:
Chien (dog)
Nom (name): Bio
He seemed disappointed that he
couldn’t think of anything else to write. After he inspected our carnets,
he told us that we had to go to see the police next. The entire process
was repeated with guy tasked with searching the cars absolutely terrified
of Bio the Schlobberhund. “Is he tied??!!” Next we were told we had to
visit the military post and afterward the Mayor wanted to see us. Most of
us have papers with all of our details on it that we can just give to the
police to save them lots of effort and us lots of time (although they
aren’t always accepted) and we gave these to the military official, who
didn’t notice that there were two missing. We got in our cars and drove
off as quickly as possible, blowing off the mayor and heading out of town.
This had taken a good part of the afternoon, and a further two police
checkpoints in the next 20km stretched our patience further. At one we
were introduced to the district prefecture who was at the bar drinking
beer and could barely stand to shake our hands much less copy down any
details. In fact all the officials seemed to be at the bar. We drove a
further 80km in the afternoon to the office of a logging company owned by
a friend of Elsa’s family. They put us up for the night and even fed us
dinner, quite a feat considering that there are nine of us. We were glad
of the shelter as we watched a full downpour and thunderstorm from the
verandah. |
We've crossed several columns of ants on the road The little buggers give quite a bite if they crawl onto your foot. No sense in building two bridges if one will do The local kids in Makabana build bicycles out of wood using roller bearings for wheels
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Congo, Page 2 |
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