karls congo bound

nobby

Guest
hmm yeas sooo.

i left you in yaounde, and yup im still here. not for long mind as i have to be out of the country in the next few days. been trying to get my visa extended but i dont think they like me (i think i smell. no, i do smell, 6 months [yes it really is that long] of not wearing deoderant and washing clothes when i kan be bothered is starting to tell. just call me pandora!)

anyway, mavis is finally assembled and seem to be working a treat. had a bit of a scare at first, i thought something v. drastic had gone wrong, but it was just my paranoid mind on overdrive. ill tell those not of a delicate disposition later.

generally been relaxing, or trying to whilst running round trying to find my parcel and been pased from one place to another. finally found said package, in the customs of dhl, where it had been since its arrival, 5 days after it was posted!! thing is it was posted with royal mail. oh well i got it, of course, it was the day after a duplicate set of parts was sent by dhl...........

i think the rests been good. difficult to moove on now, but as i have to cant be helped. had a bit o company the past couple of weeks, a german cyclist called peter arrived and is doing the same rout as me (more or less). he heads to congo the day after im gonna leave. also a japanese couple turned up on two 250's the other day (apparantly, somewhere out there theres a jap girl on an 80cc bike!!!) also going the same way. unfortunatly the husband ken seems to have malaria and is not very well. ooohh. (it now turns out theyve both got dengue fever!! hope you both get well soon.)

had my first 'OH MY GOD IM EATING WHAT!!!!!' moment, just after i arrived. was tucking into a bowl of rice and sauce with what i thought was a nice large lump of pork. well it was pork, but after realising it was mainly bone, i flipped it over on my plate to see a noce roww of teeth and at one end a luverly pair of nostrils, complete with hair. it was only a bloomin pigs snout! i ate it anyway, (well i had paid for it, god-damm it!!) but it didnt taste quite the sama after that.

right, mozzies are arround now and i dont have mi repellent on so better go. till next time........

now i is in libraville, gabon. this week i have been mostly, ploughing. the road from oyem in gabon to libraville (well the one i decided to take, it looked pretty on the map - O.K!) was mainly gravell through thick (and i mean thick in the increadably dense sence of the word) forrest and lots of villages. oh, there was also a lot of very sticky mud (ride a few meters, dig the stuff out of my front mudguard to letb the front wheel turn. ride a bit further and repeat said procass. ther were also a lot of large puddles, but after checking them with my handy none pocket sized poking stick, wernt too deep to be crossed. it rained most nights (it took me four days to do 400km), one of which was spent in my tent as it thundered and lighting. and yes it WAS very very frightning. i was in a clearing surrounded by forrest and mountains so the sounde w<as soooo loud and seemed soo close. luckely there was az motel the next night so i could spread all my gear out to dry. it was here at a little plac called medouneu that i met a belgian called tanguy and a swiss girl called daniella. buth tigether riding motorbikes from south africa (up the way i was thinking of going down, handy or what?) back home to eorope, after riding them down in the first place and spending a few years there. needless to say they both spoke excellent english and a few drinks were had as the rain came down and the floods came up, only to have dried out by lunchtime the nixt day. thats the thing, it really rains here (immagine the heaviest rainstorm youve ever been in and thats what its like, once the rain really stopps falling!!) but give it a few hours the next day and the worst of the water has dissapeared. also had my first night in a village. it was getting late and it was just impossible to find a clearing or somewhere to put the tent so i asked if i could camp in a village. after conferring with the chief i was put up in the schoolmasters house, complete with food and a monthe supply of bananas!!

lots of rickety wooden bridges to cross, the odd river to ford, well ok it was a streem really, and one really dogy bit where the drainage ditch had collapsed leaving a gully 2m wide by maybe 2.5-3m deep. there was a bridge, but it consisted of one tree trunk sawn in half and placed a handy distence appart for a set of car wheels. now, for all the other bridges there is usually a row of four planks running parallell for each side of a car. each plank is maybe as wide as my rear tyre and cos you have several on either side (plus the beamms running perpendiculer underneath) you can steem accross without slowing down and still stay on the one plank. but i didnd fancy that at this bridge, so what if the log was a fair bit wider, there was a kink in it too. anyway with much gnashing of teath and shuffelling of feet we made it accross. ahhh it wasnt that bad. was it?

libraville was quite nice if a bit expensive. thety dont grow food here, everything is shipped in from other countrys. its quite a modern city in the centre, tarmack everywhere and lots of little boutique type shops and supermarkets. lots of french and americans (big on oil and mining in gabon), with big flash cars and even a couple of harleys! got my angola visa no worries, appart from the 60 quid it cost me. had my first hot shower since leaving holm and was a ble to do hot wash for mi clothes. still look manky mind. wierd being by the sea. didnt stay too long, as i said expensive, so set off towards franceville. some grrovy twisty mountain roads, and a lot of gravel tracks with great scenery. some parts were out of the rainforrest and through rolling hills covered in velvety green grass everywhere. it was nit to be riding with a sence of space, rather than being hemmed in by trees all the time. only problem is youre constently whaching the scenery, so riding gets harder! drove through the reserve de lopé, lots of elephant poo and footprints, and i even cme round a corner to see the arse end of a forrest elephant dissapear into the trees. cool. saw a few monkeys too, a snake chase something furry accross the road, plus the usuall lizards and flying things that throw themselves into your way. speaking of which, hit a dog the other day!!!! it had run out to bark at the car infront, turned when it heard me and its head went whack! on the pannier. dont think it was very well after that. dented my bloody box too.

from franceville i (supposidly) took the road east tot the border then into congo. i did go this way, but lost the main track near the beggining (one of several Y junctions, no signs and no one to ask, just coose the one that you things going the right way.) so a few days of riding sandy track interspersed with grassy tracks (the grass being taller than me n the bike) and rocky gullies i finally arrived half way allong the road i should have tacken. oh well at least i knew where i was now!

um bongo, um bongo, they drink it in the congo. apparently so. ive not seen any yet though. maybe its the next congo.

another day or two of riding sandy/dirt tracks, through a mixture of forrest and open grassland. not many people and even fewer animals. not even any cows. finally arrived at the main roed north/south in congo and settled down to a couple of days easy riding. passed lots of small villages, got to be carefull lots of people on the road and kids running from one side to the other. each reasonable sized village has a checkpoint, up to three in one case! most of them no hasstle, but had my first seaerch. not bad to say ive been in africa for 5 months! anyway, i think they were just bored as they let me unpack everything, one bag at a time and put it all back carefully. didnt notice my mobile or any of the money id got stashed all over the place.

arriving in brazzaville (the capital) was a bit nervracking, id got the name of somewhere to stay, but no map or any idea of the layout of the city. so after a lot of asking i finally found the catholick mission but had to wait several hours untill the caretackere turned up to sort out a room! anyway, its a nice place, next to a church with a school opposite and lots of grass arround. people seem friendly, quite a few of the students speak english, the only problem is theres not allways water. i managed to do some washing the first day, so thats ok, but not been enough since to do any more.

been for a wander, quiate place, very run down in places, some posh modern office type buildings, but a lot of ruins and bullet demmage on some places. mat another japanes guy, hes hitched from kenya thruogh rwanda and uganda to ziare then here to congo. wants to try for angola next then home.

waitin on people at the mo, a bit frustrating cos id like to moove on, but fancy a bit of company on the next streach (you can only talk to yourself for so long, and mavis gave up listening ages ago!) also some of them speak spanish, (simoilar to portugese, which is the official language in angola) which i speak even less than french!! so hopefully (you know who you are!) theyll make the trip through angola a bit more interesting.

so i think thats it (finally) for this, the latest install ment of; the storey so far..............

toodleoo,

k.
 


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