cameroon
- congo
july - october 2002
coming from southern nigeria, i entered cameroon and with it a kingdom of mud. the only reason i managed to make it to douala was that it hadn't rained for two days. nonetheless, driving on these small slippery dirt tracks was a nightmare and i often worried about getting stuck. in one occasion i had to pass a mud-covered bridge without railings where a single slip would have sent me flying into the river, ten metres below.
when i reached douala i felt like great, i had done it! i was in central africa and i had passed the region which i had been worrying about for weeks. to my great relief i found that owi and daisy, which were staying at the same hotel, were fine and that the rumours about their robbery had been inflated. they had gotten away by throwing some money out of the window after gangsters had fired a shotgun at their car. i would have loved to travel with them but they couldn't leave for another couple of weeks while i was eager to move on.
i went to yaounde, cameroons capital city, where i applied for my dreadfully expensive Congolese visas. here i caught up with muggie whom i had met in douala. he was also on the way to cape town in his beautifully rebuilt mercedes truck, but just as owi and daisy, he couldn't leave for another couple of weeks. too much time to wait!
i drove on and soon found myself on little dirt roads that weren't even indicated on the map. it was the rainy season, it was muddy, and i was lucky to get stuck only once. i made it over the river that defines the borders and arrived in the republic of congo where, for first time in africa, the officials lived up fully to their bad reputation. they were actually quite friendly, but they loved money too much! i couldn't get into the country without paying generous "cadeaux". now i was finally compensated for the previous lack of expected greed and corruption.
on my arrival in pokola, a small town on the sangha river, which feeds the mighty congo, i was received with mixed feelings. their last swiss 'tourist' had turned out to be an environmental activist, who had tried to organize protests against the local logging company which supports the region's entire economy – no wonder they were suspicious of me as i waited for a week that a boat, which would always arrive "tomorrow" would take me to brazzaville. there was no road, i had to wait.
just before the boat finally left a german couple in a land cruiser joined me. i was very happy that i didn't have to do the trip alone. drifting down the congo river, sitting on the edge of one of eleven barges that were attached to a boat, in the middle of tons of wood and in, what seemed to be a little african village, was amazing. this must be one of the world's last adventures, out there on the river, in the rain forest, listening to the nightly drumming and singing from nearby but always invisible villages.
some people were buying animals from the pygmies, who approached us in their dug-out canoes, in order to sell them in brazzaville. after these bush-business trips they would return to northern congo. apart from fresh fish, which they smoked on charcoal fires in empty oil barrels, right here on board, i saw the trading of monkeys, crocodiles, lizards and other creatures. at one occasion, that almost broke my heart, i was shown a wooden box that contained to scared little gorilla babies.
the supposed five-day journey took ten days and tensions grew considerably before we reached brazzaville. at every stop more people had come aboard and in the end it looked like a refugee boat, lying so deep in the water that every little wave would sweep over the deck, soaking the people who had come last and who were sleeping on the metal floor, squeezed in between logs, oil barrels, life animals and make shift tents. it was chaos and everybody was happy when we finally arrived.
to my surprise brazzaville
was a pleasant, clean town with wide tree-lined avenues. i stayed in the
catholic mission guesthouse, just behind the cathedral, on a hill near
the town centre. it was in the middle of a little park, it was green and
it was quiet. i spent three weeks here, got my visa for angola, and enjoyed
the lively town, with its nice people and great lebanese food. brazzaville
was calm and it was hard to imagine that, while i was there, rebels had
twice attacked kinkala, the last buffer town before the capital, 80 kilometres
away.
the presbyterian mission in yaounde
muggie and me
morning light in the jungle
quite stuck
the border to congo
congo riverboat
the captain of the 'sangha"
on the congo river
sunset over the congo river