Congo Drive

Driving through the Congo has been some of my most favorite scenery yet.

The grass lands are beautiful and the hills are funny, it looks like God took a scoop and plopped them down on earth.




Plop, plop, plop, plop...




Plop!



Congo road after rain shower.

Bush camping in Congo was awesome. Here is a road we took when searching for a bush camp one evening:





There was a log in the way on this road so Steve got out the chainsaw to cut in up so we could pass. Then we met some people coming home from the fields. The man helped take apart the log. We had a bag of clothes and goods from someone who left the tour in Accra so we gave him the bag. After saying au revoir (the Congo speaks French) from the top of Nala, we found a bush camp down the road and they passed us again. I saw the man was wearing his new shirt.

As Jenny and I were looking for a good place to set up our tent, a few women were curious as to what we were doing. Jenny told them that we wanted a good place, not rocky or muddy, to sleep for the night, out here in the bush, and they got a kick out of that.




Steve and the man taking apart the log.



A woman and girl. The girl is probably carrying her own weight on her head.


When driving, we pass villages and houses that come out of nowhere.


Grass, grass, grass, grass, grass, hut!, grass, grass, grass, grass...






While making dinner one bush camp, we had 10-15 people come and watch us. Reality television much?


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I Slept On A Barge

Yep, you heard me correctly.

On. A. Barge.

Maybe a bit of background story is needed...


The group left our site, Beach Club, in Libreville, Gabon after a wet, rainy start to the day. We were leaving one tour leader short, as Nancy had to go home for personal reasons. We miss you Nancy! (I get to see her at home in Seattle though!)

Our goal was to make it to Pointe Noire, Congo. But to start our journey, we had to cross a bridge out of Libreville. Sounds simple, right? Hahaha!

Turns out the bridge had been deemed "structurally deficient" and only small cars (not our 18 ton truck) were allowed to cross it. Because semis still had to somehow cross the river, there was a barge (see where this is going?) to get them from point A to point B.

But everything was slow and oh so very (I cannot stress this enough!) INEFFICIENT. It took hours to load 10 trucks onto a barge. And traffic was backed up for miles.

The main road and the bridge were paved but the road the trucks took to the barge was slippery mud with ingrains so deep because of the trucks. So then the trucks would get stuck and spin their wheels making the ingrains deeper. Then the caterpillar would have to come and push/dig the semi out and help it onto the barge. The process was the same for unloading the semis:
















See all the men standing around? There were about a hundred of them. They were shouting about, feeling very important about themselves, and making 'this way' motions to the driver of the caterpillar. OF COURSE he's gonna go that way! He can only go two ways and he's coming from one! And he's already repeated this motion 15 times today! Pretty much, they worked hard all day and produced zip.




Sitting up on the top on Nala, I saw the whole ridiculous scene play out before me. It was like it was being run by 5-year olds! We kept saying "why don't they put some gravel down so the semis don't get stuck in the mud?" or "they should have one lane of cars going one way and one going another way so they could all get across the bridge." Because you can see in the picture below, there was no organization. If you look at the row of cars on the right, you can see after 4 cars, they meet up with a row of trucks going the other way! This is true for all the rows. They were all at a stale mate!




It was all rather funny and even after 8+ hours of waiting we were still laughing (cause if we didn't laugh, we might've cried! ;)).




The bridge off in the distance


We finally got onto the third (and last) round of barging of the day thanks to Jenny, translator extraordinaire. Nala had no trouble getting through the mud and onto the barge. By then, it was night time and the barge could not cross the river because it was low tide and it didn't have any lights for crossing in the dark. We were told not to worry, it will leave in the morning.

So I slept on a barge, with a truck filled with cows to the left, bottles of pop and beer to the right, and drunk truckers everywhere. (Don't worry mom- we operated on the buddy system for late night bathroom runs!)

And by golly, it did leave in the morning. Not at the time we were expecting, but we left none the less! It's experiences like these that make overlanding so much fun. Or at least very, very interesting!

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Equator

Here in Gabon, we took the big leap and crossed into the southern hemisphere. As the GPS said 0, we all piled out of the truck and crossed the equator on foot.





The night before, we camped in the middle of nowhere in the Gabonese rainforest. We were still far from any town and when we got to the equator, there was no sign or notice so Nancy drew a line in the dirt road.





Here I am, in two hemispheres at once!

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Wanna See Our Bush Camping Bathrooms?

So here are our 'toilets'. We have a few shovels and the bottle on the left has water and sanitizer in it.




So ready, set, squat!!! ;)

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Rush Hour

Here is an idea of mid-morning traffic in Foumban, Cameroon.




Moo!



Careful, bulls don't have turn signals.


Also, I don't believe I've mentioned this before but taking taxis here is very different from at home.

First off, they are usually a shared taxis which mean I hop in with other people if we are going the same way. These taxis generally have assigned routes somewhat like public transport.

Second, when I hail a taxi, the driver and I agree on a price before hand- there are no meters. Lately, taxis have been rather inexpensive. For a 20 minute shared taxi ride to the beach, I paid 300 CFA (about 60 cents).

Last, and the most different from home, is how many people we pack into a taxi. Think of a normal car. Then put four or five squished people in the back. And have one person sitting in the driver seat and the driver on top of him, on his lap. And two more people in front for a total or four people in front. Then put babies and children on knees and you can easily have 8-12 people in this small taxi car!

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Fun With Fon!

In Cameroon I and a few other people signed off the truck for awhile and went to a series of towns in the north dubbed the 'Ring Road'. The Ring Road is known for the selection of Fons (Kings) and their palaces.

We took a 7 hour bus ride from Limbé to Bamenda. We stayed on Bamenda for two nights, taking day trips to Bafut and Bali. And then one night in Foumban.

At the Fons palace in Bafut, I met a prince who proceeded to tell me how beautiful I am and the Queen slapped me (no worries, there was a mosquito on my arm- or so she said! ;)). I even caught a glimpse of the elusive Fon himself.

In both palaces, Bafut and Bali, we learned about the secret societies and traditional ceremonies. Everything is separated by gender.



Entrance to the Fons Palace




Entrance to the men's secret society. Shhh! It's a secret!




A statue of the late Fon.




Walking back from the palace. The shouts of "white man, white man!" could be heard whenever we walked past kids. They are a bit cautious but if I smile and wave, they'll usually crack a smile or giggle and come and see what's up with these weird people :)

We went to the:


The Bamoun Art and Tradition Museum.




It looked kinda spartan when we first walked in, but our guide (who only spoke French) was so knowledgeable all the pieces came alive.




That's just about how we make dinner on the truck! ;)




Kisses for chunky monkey cheeks!




Our lovely guide, Aemoié.

The next day, in Foumban, we were at another palace/museum:






Sharlene trying to kill me ;)




This royalsymbol was embedded on everything.

After our adventure, it was time for another adventure- the bus ride home!:



I was on that for hours!


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Roads of Cameroon

We left Nigeria and entered Cameroon. Our first night there we stayed in a little village named Ekok because the roads we impassable because of the rain.

The next morning it was gushing down rain. We left Ekok, got 3 miles down the road and were stopped. Local people were protesting the horrible condition of the roads by not letting any trucks go past. Which meant no goods could get place to place. There was a road block and we were not go past.

Eventually, after the commissioner pleaded on our behalf and lots of men talking and arguing, we were allowed to leave after waiting for half the day. Although it was frustrating going nowhere for hours, I can understand where these people are coming from. Some roads in Cameroon are horrible and in the rainy season totally impassable.




A main road through Cameroon




Muddy mud...




See the big puddle?



If you're not careful, those trees will getcha!


Unfortunatly, we didn't end up having to push Nala out of the mud. Bummer, too, because I was looking forward to it. But there is still more Africa to go through!


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Flippin' Awesome Swedish Pancakes

My mom has taught me lots of things in life. One of the tastier lessons was how to make a darn good Swedish pancake. While in Calabar, Nigeria, my cook group made pancakes for breakfast and they turned out yummy!




This is me flipping my pancake in the air. It's a blur because it was so fast!








The finished product with banana, pineapple and mango :D



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Afi Mountain Drill Ranch

After Abuja, we went to Afi Mountain Drill Ranch, a place for for primates who are the victims of poaching, bush meat, being orphaned, human abuse, sickness etc. and could not survive in the wild. The people in Afi mountain work to rehabilitate them as much as possible.

We got to go on a tour of the whole place, do a canopy walk, and swim in a waterfall at the end.




Getting ready to go.



A drill



First no shame...



Then a bit shy!




A gorilla behind the fence. This big guy is the dominant male of the group and was pounding the ground to show his dominance.








Yum yum :)



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Classy

After driving through Nigeria, we finally made it to the capitol, Abuja. Abuja, which is in the middle of the country, was made Nigeria's capitol in 1981 and the capitol before that was Lagos, which is in the very south. However, in an attempt to bring the Muslim north and Christian south together, Abuja was dubbed the new capitol because it is between the two groups.

Abuja was hurriedly built up after 1981 so it doesn't have much character as far as cities go. There are no big markets, museums, or other things to do except shop at minimarts and eat at restaurants. I found it is a clean, sharp looking place with trimmed shrubberies and good roads. The people are very nice and extremely friendly. But if you were looking to experience the many different cultures of Nigeria, Abuja is not the place to go.

Don't be too impressed when I tell you we stayed at the Sheraton. Yes, it was the Sheraton but we were still camping. And we camped next to the dog kennels. After bush camping for so long, we were told to please "shower as not to offend the other guests". Pretty classy, eh?





The view of the Sheraton from behind the dog kennels.

Actually, I really enjoyed my stay. After we did shower, we could enter the lobby, lounge, and bar. They were all quite posh and AIR CONDITIONED! For a fee I used the pool and had a nice relaxing pool day.

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