The queue at the Sonangol pumps is not very appealing, so we sneak past the barrier tape of the local Puma filling station, ostensibly to buy some coffee in their chilly air-conditioned shop (so comfy that the place is packed with non-customers fiddling on their phones).
Outside, looking forlornly at the row of idle pumps, one of the pump attendants takes pity on us. After a few shouts, a key appears and the pump is unlocked to fill our tanks! So more like fuel rationing than dry pumps, after all.
We set off on the 60 km to the border. It starts well enough, but the potholes forecast by our new friend from Orion Transport are soon evident.
The conditions alternate between strips of tar and patches with potholes. Nothing too hectic, however, the suspension just soaks it all up.
Luvo (Luvu locally) is actually a town on the Angolan side carrying the same name as the river (Lufu!) that divides it from the DRC. The main road through the town leads straight to the border post, and it’s packed with people, buses, hawker stalls, more people…. you get the idea.
Angola and the DRC have been the nemesis of many an overlander due to their visa requirements and inflexible immigration officials. We don’t really know what to expect other than lengthy delays. The road leads to a steel gate manned by a soldier, who helpfully points us towards the immigration office.
Since today is Saturday, it’s Market Day- hence all the activity. It literally goes on like this for a few kilometres. The salmon-pink Angolan
migracio estranger offices are buried in the middle of all this commerce, with a secure fence around it. We seem to be the only people that need to report here- estrangers!
An official in a T-shirt approaches, and in good English demands our passports to check that we have visas for the DRC. We get told to wait in an office. The occupant is rather set on his air-conditioned comfort and insists we wait outside and close the door. At least there is a usable toilet down the passage.
After about half an hour our paperwork is completed and we are free to exit Angola. It’s a narrow opening through a second steel gate:
There’s a sea of humanity heading downhill, so we go with the flow, trying to stay ahead of the beggars and pickpockets.
It leads to a Bailey bridge that spans the Luvo river. Most of the goods are carried manually, some of it is in handcarts and the lucky (rich?) ones drive the ubiquitous Keweseki trikes- no bakkies in sight. It feels like a time warp.
We get halfway across the bridge before a customs official directs us back to the Angolan side. What now?
There’s more waiting, but all they actually need is to record our bike registration numbers into a ledger and photograph them- like when we entered more than 2 000km back (why do officials get issued with dark uniforms in these hot places??).
This time we do get across the bridge to enter a fenced compound with a single office building. A police officer in a pale blue uniform sitting at a desk seems in charge of this border post. He too speaks English, and tells us that they need to copy our passports. A man in civilian clothes duly sets off with our documents and arrives back half an hour later. Our visas are stamped and we are good to go- no tax, no TIP!
It’s a short loop through the mud in front of Immigration before we cross a boom, a gate and… we are in a new country. We have left Zaire province in Angola for the country known as Zaire in the days of the
Rumble in the Jungle (you have to be older than 50 to remember…).
Not exactly a tourist Mecca nowadays, if you believe the FCO advisories.
***** Some background on our new country*****
Belgium’s king Leopold II commissioned Henry Morton Stanley (he of “
Dr Livingstone, I presume?” fame) in 1879 to scout the area around the Congo river and sign treaties on his behalf with local chiefs. Leopold exploited the area he called the Congo Free State for ivory and rubber to finance its administration. It is fabulously rich in minerals, but this has proved to be a mixed blessing for the country as these have been plundered from within and without.
By 1960, African nationalism was in full swing and Patrice Lumumba was elected as president of the new Republic of the Congo. After various crises, Lumumba was murdered and Mobutu Sese Seko came to power. He soon moved to eradicate Western influence in the country by banning suits and ties, nationalising foreign-owned companies and renaming it the Republic of Zaire. Mobutu publicly executed rivals and eased himself into an opulent lifestyle while most of the country lived in poverty (he had the runway of the airport near his palace at Gbadolite extended so that he could charter the Concorde for shopping trips to Paris!).
Production dwindled after independence, not helped by nationalisation of the country’s largest mining conglomerate: 440 000 tons of copper and cobalt production in 1989 fell to 35 000 tons from the “transformed” Gécamines, which had generated 85% of the DRCs export earnings in its heyday.
In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, many Hutus (who had been supported by Mobutu) fled into the DRC to escape reprisals. When they regrouped to try to overthrow the new Tutsi-led government, the Rwandan army countered by supporting a rebel movement headed by Laurent Kabila in what became known as the First Congo War. It ended when Kabila’s rebels took over Kinshasa but flared up again a year later in the Second Congo War. Although most people are aware of the Rwandan genocide, few know of the millions of casualties that resulted from the Congo Wars – the deadliest conflict since WW2. UN peacekeepers are still kept busy around Goma to this day.
When Mobutu was ousted in 1997, he left behind a country burdened with debt, devoid of infrastructure and a dysfunctional public service. Little has changed.
Although the DRC’s inflation rate is similar to South Africa’s, the currency isn’t tradeable- even the money-changers at the border only deal in kwanzas and dollars. And so, due to the low level of official export commodities, the country is not able to import any meaningful quantity of manufactured goods from their origin. This explains the busy trade across the border with Angola and we run another gauntlet before the mêlée of people finally thins out. It literally goes on for kilometres- check out the video below.
There are two police roadblocks along the way. We get waved through the first one, and get asked for a bribe at the second. We act dumb until they let us go in frustration.
Despite being twice the area of South Africa, which has comparable mineral riches, there are only 3 000 km of paved roads here. South Africa has fifty times more. There’s a 20 km stretch of smooth clay to reach this network from Luvo. Slippery when wet stuff.
Since it is dry, we soon reach the main road from Matadi to Kinshasa at Songololo, where there’s surprisingly little traffic.
Songololo is a one-horse town that mainly subsists from the sale of the goods carted across the border behind us.
Our first few kilometres on the DRC’s N1 highway (we’d call it a regional road) proceed rather well.
The first major town en route to Kinshasa is Kimpese, about 100km from the border. It makes up for the lack of traffic in spades. We look out for an ATM to get some Congolese Francs for fuel, food and accommodation. Fortunately, there’s one along the main road. First problem solved.
It’s hard to tell what
is produced in the DRC. Apart from building material like cement, even food staples like this rice (from Thailand, via Angola!) and wheat flour (produced in Angola) are all imported.
It is obvious that bush camping along the roads here will be almost impossible with the dense population, so we try scour the areas along the road for signs of an
auberge or a suitable campsite (wishful thinking). Right on the outskirts of the town I spot a green lawn that looks promising.
It turns out to belong to the local hospital. A friendly woman at the gate says we can’t camp here, but commandeers one of the young guys hanging around to show us to the local guesthouse. Problem 2 solved?
His blinged-up bike is still partially wrapped in the factory plastic, and he looks reticent to get it dirty, but she is quite adamant and he sets off with us in tow. After a couple of false turns, we end up at the back of a house. A rather dismal sight greets us, but the owner helpfully directs our guide to the guesthouse next door.
Fortunately, that is in better repair and it even sports a new coat of paint.
Both our guide and the receptionist seem to have mistaken us for a Dollar-ATM as we get offered a room for $75 while the guide expects us to refill his entire tank for the one kilometre he’s covered. I hasten to correct the misconception, and discover that a major problem with paying in USD here is that everything is rounded up to the nearest five dollars. One dollar bills (watch this space) are scoffed at. Just as well that we drew some local currency, but it won’t last long at this rate.
After settling the room charge, it’s time to unpack and unwind. We’ve been going for more than twelve hours straight, with a border crossing to boot. Although our room is air-conditioned, the supply of water is timed for a few hours in the evening and a few in the morning. Fortunately we have arrived in time to shower- Problem 3 sorted.
Problem 4 requires a ride back into town to source some food. I get directed to the BHP restaurant off the main road. It looks OK and I order two buns with eggs, cheese and tomato. Beer is on offer along the main drag, but beer bottles are sold in bottles here, which are recycled and therefore carry a deposit. So they have to be consumed on site. I promise to return the bottles first thing in the morning and get allowed to cart them off to our room!
The beer and cider are great, but the buns turn out to contain a vile-smelling polony filling with no eggs, no cheese, no tomato… we cook one of our instant meals instead. At least the bed-linen is clean and the room is cool and comfortable.
Topic: To the Lungs of the Earth (Read 23198 times)
