2muppets.com

Updates En-route: 22nd April 2008

Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by 2muppets.
Categories: 15. Angola, 14. DRC
Post Location: GPS Map

Overnight point: Luanda, Angola

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Updates En-route: 21st April 2008

Posted on April 21st, 2008 by 2muppets.
Categories: 14. DRC
Post Location: GPS Map

Matadi, DRC.

Overnight point in DRC to enter Angola

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Good Times and Bad in the Congos

Posted on April 20th, 2008 by 2muppets.
Categories: 14. DRC, 13. Congo
Post Location: GPS Map

Hello everybody! This post was originally written in Kinshasa about a week ago, but unfortunately when we published it the damn thing disappeared, and the backup was deleted… Grr. Anyway, it’s been ages since you’ve heard anything from us, so this will bring you about up to the time just before we left for Angola.

In our last post we mentioned that we were in Brazzaville, waiting for parts to arrive so that we could fix Josh’s clutch. Well, the parts arrived more or less on time, the bike was promptly reassembled by Josh and me, and Bob’s your uncle the TransAlp was back and running again! Hooray, Josh’s sleepless nights were over!!!

Saturday 5th May saw us chaffing at the bit to get back on the road again. Fuelled up, cashed up, and primed for the delights of the DRC (yeah you know me) we arrived at the ferry buzzing. The ride to the other side of the Congo (Brazzaville and Kinshasa are within site of each other on opposite sides of the Congo River) was a bit frenetic with the usual African crowds, but nothing we couldn’t handle, and within an hour we were disembarking the ferry, and being greeted by the DRC immigration officials.

Our approach with any officials is always to be overwhelmingly friendly and positive. To get in their faces with smiles and handshakes before any of the questions start. True to form the tactic seemed to be a good one here as well – smiles were returned, and our Carnet documentation was quickly and efficiently processed. Then the fun started…

We waited about 20 minutes for the immigration officials to return with our passports, and when they did, there was an obvious change in mood. We were asked to move our bikes, but it quickly became obvious that they didn’t simply want them moved, but rather they wanted them, and us, back on the ferry and out of the DRC, all without any explanation being offered! Much shouting and raised tempers followed, as we tried to explain that we had a valid visa for the DRC, but now that we had officially left the Congo, no visa for there. Bribes were offered, the head of Immigration demanded, but all to no avail. We were physically manhandled back on to the boat, perhaps somewhat aggravating matters a little when I started riding around in circles when being pushed by some of the policemen! We did however find out the reason we were being deported – we had no visas for our next destination country, Angola. A bit of a catch 22 situation this, as the only place that issued visas for Angola in less than 3 weeks is the Angolan Consulate in Matadi, which is in the DRC!

After a miserable ride back in the midday sun, with the added bonus of having to weather regular boxing matches between groups of Congolese men pissed up on palm wine on their payday, we arrived back at the Brazzaville side of the river thoroughly dejected. Quick talking from Ed got our exit from the country that morning annulled, buying us a little more time to sort something out, but when the Congo Immigration officials called Kinshasa to find out what was going on, the official word back was “Those guys are never coming into this country!”. Rock bottom right there. Worst moment of the trip so far.

After a quick discussion of options we decided that we needed to get in touch with someone with some clout in this part of the world. Unfortunately the only contact that we’d had with the big hitters of the Congo was through watching a steady stream of Government Ministers and aides that had rented rooms by the hour, along with the lady of their choice, in the knock shop auberge that we’d been staying in for the last week… Not going to be that much use to us eh?

Fortunately I remembered that Shaun, the South African who had done this trip a couple of months before us, had spent some time in Brazzaville, and that he’d been cruising around the streets with a guy he’d met who drives a Hummer. That was the sort of guy we needed!

A quick text message to Shaun later and before we knew it we were sitting in the O’Sympathetic restaurant with a group of French expats who had just returned from riding their self built motocross track, and being treated to a beautiful meal of Steak avec Frites, free of charge by the owner Jean François! The discussion was around the strings that could be pulled, and the people that would need to be involved to transition us through the border as quickly as possible. All agreed that it would be no problem, and that Monday would be the day, leaving Sunday free for us to enjoy ourselves, and holdon, Sunday was waterskiing and wakeboarding day on the Congo River, and we must join them!

There was nothing for it but for us to get outrageously drunk to celebrate! We went out with a young expat couple Fred and Marina, drank obscene amounts of vodka redbulls, and even showed off the oldskool tequila stuntman party trick! (Snort the salt, shoot the tequila and squirt the lemon in your eye for the uninitiated. Best performed when old 80’s songs start to sound good again!).

 

Sunday saw us bleary eyed after about four hours sleep, but still pinching ourselves over the turn of events. We packed up all our gear from the hotel, then moved in with another expat couple, Daniel and François (aka Chou Chou) Monnet for “just one night”, before heading down to the river for the day of skiing.

There was something truly surreal about sitting on a sandbank on the Congo river, drinking Ricard pastis, eating foie gras on baguette and “Marseilles Salad”, all through the charity of a group of absolutely amazing people who’d been strangers only the day before! We had a blast, waterskiing with Jack, and wakeboarding with Fred and Marina. That night we went to bed exhausted, but happy in the knowledge that these guys could get anything done for us, and that we’d be back on track the next day…

 

Well, things just weren’t going to be that easy for us. It seemed that either we were being used as pawns in some sort of wrangle between the two countries, or that we’d really pissed somebody off over in Kinshasa, but regardless, the easy job that the expats had envisaged turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Our one night with Daniel and Chou Chou stretched to two, then to three, as more and more people got involved in our problem. Jack had the UN logistics guys involved, Daniel had his construction company, Jody had the SA’n Embassy, Ed had the UK Consulate (bloody useless!), and we also had contact with people from the Angolan Consulates in both Brazzaville and Point Noire, as well as the DRC Consulate, and Congo Immigration in Brazzaville!!!

This time was incredibly stressful, each night we came up with new plans and avenues to try, only to have them ultimately end in crushing disappointment as time and time again the answers came back as no’s, or impractical options like waiting another 3 weeks for an Angolan visa. Josh in particular had a very tight timeframe, as he needed to be in Durban on the 4th of May in order to start his advanced pilot’s course financed by the owner of the American super yacht he works on.

Conversely, with new plans each evening our hopes were renewed, and each night became a leaving party. We had dinners out with Fred and Marina, Daniel and Chou Chou. We played marathon tennis games against the Monnet “Davis Cup Pairing” at their lovely tennis club. We enjoyed the fantastic lunches that Michelle, the Monnet’s houseboy cooked for us. On Friday we went enduro riding with Fred, Jack and Jean François down sandy rutted out roads to see a Mig Fighter that crashed here back in the 60’s. On Saturday we rode the motocross track on borrowed quads and motocross bikes, and bugger me if we haven’t stayed a whole week and it’s Sunday waterski day again!

 

While we were having the time of our lives living the good life in Brazzaville, it was becoming increasingly unlikely that we were going to be able to realise our dream of riding across Africa. A kind of dull resignation had set in, and we had started to investigate how we could get us and the bikes out of the Congo, and somewhere further south. But you can’t keep a good Frenchman down (as the All Blacks have learnt on more than one occasion), and Daniel’s persistence, and quite frankly astounding dedication to our cause, paid off. Daniel was able to offer the DRC Consul a bribe in a way much more subtle than we were capable of, and within a couple of days we had the all clear to pass through the border! Woo Hoo! Leaving party!

On the 15th of April we finally got back across the Congo river and through the border into Kinshasa. A full 10 days after our original attempt, and after just shy of 3 weeks in Brazzaville. It was with a real sadness that we said our final goodbyes to our new friends in Brazzaville, particularly Daniel and Chou Chou, and Fred and Marina, who had all shown us so much hospitality, generosity and just the most amazingly good time! Our time with them was definitely a top highlight of the trip for me.

The ride down to Matadi was relatively uneventful, save for being awoken from our tents by armed military, after making the deliberately naïve decision to camp by a gas pipeline supplying Kinshasa. We were promptly ordered to pack up and follow them, but when they saw how long it was taking us to break camp, they lost interest, told us that as long as we moved on early in the morning we were OK to camp there, and buggered off!

In following the theme of this post, all good things must come to an end. On the ride to Matadi Jody’s bike began to have problems starting that were getting progressively worse. By the time we arrived the bike wasn’t starting on the starter motor, and had also just given up the ghost for kick starting. The only way we could get it to run was with some very aggressive bump starting, not really the ideal situation when we were due to enter Angola, famous for the terrible state of its roads in the north of the country…

Optimistically we pushed on, obtaining visas in Matadi on the same day as we arrived, allowing the four of us to theoretically enter Angola the following day. Realistically though, Jody and I had grave doubts about his bike, and both of us felt that until we established what the problem was and repaired it, we weren’t going anywhere.

We had a stressful afternoon of tearing the bike apart, testing electrics, studying the wiring diagrams, and reading the workshop manual trouble shooter guides, but without much real hope of actually stumbling upon what was wrong. Enter another saviour, the “Master Mechanic”, Paul at Bracken Bikes, who right away put his finger on the problem. The pulser coil, or igniter, which tells the coil when to send the spark, was buggered. It turns out that the starter motor had sheared a tooth off the gear it drives, which had then entered the flywheel housing and badly damaged the igniter. We pulled a broken piece of magnet from the igniter, hoping to improve its poor functioning, but unfortunately, the end result was that we stuffed it completely! Jody’s bike wouldn’t run at all! The poor fella was as wound up as a slinky coil! When we pulled the igniter from my bike and fitted it to his and it fired back to life the relief was massive all round, and Jody even shed a little tear!

With solving the problem of the badly running bike, came the realisation that this was the end of our partnership with Ed and Josh, or “The Renegade Super Mega Cops from the Future to the Max” as we sometimes liked to call ourselves (guess you had to be there). Josh simply didn’t have time to wait for us to fix the bike, and neither Ed nor us wanted him to have to ride by himself.

On Thursday 17th we said our second set of goodbyes to new friends in 2 days. We’d formed a real bond with Josh and Ed and we were sad not to continue to ride with them. We said our goodbyes and best wishes, and while they continued south into Angola, we turned back around and headed back to Kinshasa, riding the 350kms two up on Jody’s bike. The bike it turned out was still running like an absolute dog at low revs, surging and refusing to idle, which I strongly suspected (and hoped) was due to a very worn carb needle, fortunately included in our parts order. When we left Matadi, neither of us actually thought that his bike was going to make it all the way to Kinshasa! Shit, why is this never easy for more than about 2 days at a time!

The final group of people that came to our rescue were the “Parts Crew”. We want to thank Rod Forrester for organising the parts, Carey Forrester for getting them to the SA offices, the pilot who flew them out to Kinshasa for us (not the first pilot who forgot them on the Friday though!), and especially the team at Maritzburg KTM, Rod Gray and Brandon Suttie, who we believe actually tore a showroom bike down in order to get us the parts faster than the week wait that KTM South Africa have for seemingly everything but stickers! We owe you guys a few beers, whiskeys, or brandys – whatever it is you drink!

So that’s where my post finished more or less. We’d made it to Kinshasa and were still waiting for the parts to arrive, we had no idea whether fitting the carb needle was going to sort Jody’s bike out, and we had no idea where we stood in terms of our Angolan visa, which was due to expire the day we were due to arrive in the country…

Read on with Jody’s post to find out how things turned out. All photos are up in the gallery too!

Cheers,

Dan

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