Democratic Republic of Congo - the one that got away

Sometimes the Angolans were a bit too helpful. Sometimes they told us things that weren't true, not out of spite I don't think, but because it is better to say something than admit to not knowing. That is why we ended up yoyoing up and down the main promendade for three hours one hot Luanda afternoon looking for an office. It is also why we ended up bypassing the DRC on our journey.

Actually, that is a bit of an exagerration. We decided in Luanda that given the slightly volotile circumstances in the DRC, an uncertain route to get from the boredr to Kinshasa on public transport, to save some of the pennies which Angola had sucked out of us, and to save a page in our passports, that we would catch a ferry up to Cabinda (the separated Angolan territory between DRC and Congo), or even more ideally to Pointe Noire in the Rep of Congo. "No problems at all" we were told. "Boats go all the time" we were told. "But you have to go to Soyo" we were told.

And so it was a day and a half later that we found ourselves in Soyo somewhat bruised, battered and really rather pungent from a minibus journey which included two breakdowns, the loss of both our wallets and a rather painful hour holding onto an axle. "There's no boat from here" came the answer we really weren't wanting to hear from a security guard at the port in between mouthfuls of the lobster he was devouring. "Fiddlesticks" I said (though that might not be wholly true).

Fast forward an hour and we had been offered a "legal" trip to Cabinda on a barge that evening which we felt was one step too far even for adventure seekers such as ourselves. Three options remained. Fly, turn back, swim.

The twenty miute flight was unpleasant for all the other passengers on board I have no doubt. But we covered the distance it had taken the previous 18 hours to do in 20 minutes and landed in Cabinda where we promptly hightailed it out of there to arrive, quite unexpectedly given our situation just a few hours earlier, in the Republic of Congo.

So that was that. We turned down the opportunity of "legally" canoeing through without valid visas, but that was as close as we came to the DRC.