Ninjas in the Jungle

The past week and a half have been a bit wild. After exhausting all our options in Pointe Noire and having to part ways with Steve S., we decided to head to Brazzaville to try our luck crossing the ferry there into Kinshasa and then head to Matadi on the DRC/Angola border to get our Angolan visas. The guys heard from a dutch couple just ahead of us on this north to south route that the Brazzaville-Kinshasa-Matadi way worked out, so we were encouraged by the good news and optimistic leaving Pointe Noire.

That was before 48 hours of nearly impassible roads and hours spent traversing the most potholed, muddy, wreck-your-car roads I`ve ever encountered. At one point we were forced to hire ninja rebel guides to show us a backcountry detour route around a semitruck that was fender deep in muck and blocking the main road. The route took us far into the bush and then dumped us in the middle of a ninja village a few hundred meters from the main road. Of course nothing could be that easy, and we found ourselves stuck in a ninja dug-out trench meant to make the passing `easier`. By the time we were unstuck it was dark and we were missing an expensive flashlight, flipflops and a cell phone. Help in the bush is definitely not free...

Stuck in the mud! This is actually a nice patch of the road compared to what was up ahead.

Semi truck stuck up to his headlights in the middle of N1.

The chief of the ninjas was nice enough to tell the guys to quit hasseling us for money and let us stay the night in front of his house before continuing on to Brazzaville the next day. We picked up a Moroccan hitchhiker as well as a guide from the chief for the rest of the trip to Brazzaville. The extra hands ended up being some of the best luck we`ve had in the last week as the road from Mindouli, the town just before the ninja village, to Kinkala, the next major town 40 kms away, was horrific and literally impassable in parts. We had to take another detour route--this time the road was much more picturesque and followed the contours of grass-covered rolling mountains. The detour was meant to take only three minutes according to the locals we asked, but ended up taking well over an hour and required us to reconstruct a bridge using thick trees and six inch wide steel tresses.

Deep breath Dad: Welcome to Ninja checkpoint number one on the N1 main road to Brazzaville! The guys were actually quite friendly.

After three grueling days, we finally made it to Brazzaville and were excited to be on the right track and making progress. All we had to do was get a letter from the Angolan Embassy saying we were headed to Matadi to get our visas in order to be admitted into Kinshasa, DRC. HAH! As if we were so lucky!

Ordinarily you just photocopy your passport and the information for the cars and you can get the letter for free the next day. It just so happens that the day we were to recieve the letter, the power had gone out so the consular was unable to write the letter. To make matters even better, he left that same afternoon to work for some other department in another town and will only be back in Brazzaville this coming Tuesday. There is no one else who can write the letter, so we are stuck. Again. And this time without the great expat community to help us out. Brazzaville seems to have more stuff to do and see, but is still wickedly expensive--the most basic of accomodations still costs $30US a night!

Right now I am feeling extremely frustrated and tired of being in the Congo. We have been in the Congo now for five weeks and it is getting old fast. This `jaunt` has been eye-opening, though, and I am starting to understand more and more how complicated life is in this part of the world. As we are in limbo, my updates are still going to be sparse. I have some unreal photos of and with the ninja rebels that turned out great and aill probably give my dad a heart attack that I`ll post as soon as the internet is fast enough (don`t worry, though, I am of course being safe). I am still trying to work out my response to everything we`ve been through. I find myself becoming less and less compassionate, which isn`t necessarily a bad thing for what we have to go through to get in and out of places around here. I`ll write more later...

Six Month Reflection

We are still waiting for our Angolan visas here in Pointe Noire and are lucky enough to have some new wonderful Canadian hosts, Heather and Dan. Our current setup includes satellite TV, wireless internet, good nutritious meals, comfortable clean beds, and excellent company. Tough life, this traveling business is!

Having been in limbo for the past three weeks, there's been plenty of time to meditate on my travels thus far. I've had hours to reminisce; to remember where I've been and what a crazy journey it has been to get to where I am now. I am in the middle of the Congo! Never would I have thought this journey would include an overland trip through Central Africa!

It's curious to think about how I've changed as well. When I first started this trip, I was so sure of myself, so sure of what I was searching for. But then everything changed. My first stop, Utila, Honduras, ended up shaping my entire approach towards my travels.

Finishing my dive master program four and-a-half months ago in Utila, Honduras.

I don't have to conquer places. I was having a blast in Utila, so there was no need to leave. The day I decided this--that it was OK to stay longer and let my itinerary flow naturally--I felt a weight had been removed from my shoulders. This is my trip, and, selfish as it may sound, I will do it my way.

My original goal of hunting for new music and dances was too confining. If I narrowed my travels to this theme, I would have missed out on so many other experiences. For example, in Brasil, the home of capoeira, samba, axé, forró, etc., I could have spent my time in samba school learning how to dance in a class. Instead, I found myself samba-ing in the streets of Salvador during Carnaval, trekking in the mountains of Lençois with my new friends Kellie and Diogenes, exploring Rio with my friend Leandro, lounging on the beaches of Buzios with Santiago, and learning Portuguese with my adopted family in Uberlândia. Not to say dance class wouldn’t have been an experience in its own, but I am glad I’m able to let myself flow and be open to new places.

I’ve been reading the blogs from the other Bonderman fellows as well as some true-life adventure books lately (Into the Wild, Off the Rails in Phnom Penh, Blood River). At times I wonder if I am doing this right. All the photos, blog entries and books tell tales of new friends, changing perspectives of world views, crazy exciting adventures, pushing boundaries. And they seem to do so with such enthusiasm and sophisticated contemplation. Do others get that impression from my writing? Are my adventures as dynamic and interesting? Why are there so few popular stories of women adventurers? What are my limitations as a solo woman traveler?

I suppose none of that really matters. I tend to go a little existential-crazy when I have too much time on my hands. I’m here. I’m doing what I’ve always dreamt of doing: seeing the world. And I’m doing it my own way.

Jungle Rot of the Brain

In my last entry, we were optimistically hoping that to have our Angolan visas and be on our way. We are still waiting! And my mind is turning into mush!

This process has turned into a near disaster--there are no other cost and time effective solutions to getting through to Namibia. The guys have even looked into shipping the cars to Namibia to bypass the whole Angola nightmare altogether, but it would take 50 days to get from Pointe Noire, Congo to Walvis Bay, Namibia. 50 days!! We could probably have biked to Southern Africa faster than this all is taking (and indeed, our Argentinian friend who is bicycling around the world will most likely beat us to South Africa!).

Other than the frustration of having to wait in the same expensive city for so long, the delay in the guys' schedule means that most likely they won't be driving through Botswana, Zambia and the like. Rather, we will be racing to get Steve Shoppman to Cape Town on time to catch his May 26th flight back to the states (his sister is getting married, so this is definitely a priority!). I was hoping to get tour much of South Africa with them, but perhaps now I'll have to just stick to my original plans to do so after we part ways.

To complicate matters even more, we were recently informed that due to some oil company distribution blunder, there will be no unleaded gas in Pointe Noire for the next 15 days. What!? We had seen huge line-ups at petrol stations around town, but just figured it was some sort of tax-break day or prices were going to jump; not that there wouldn't be any fuel in town for two weeks! Two of the guys are creating emergency plans to get out of here if things don't start coming together in our favor. If we don't have some sort of good news from the Angolan consulate in the next few days, they plan to store the cars here in the Congo somewhere, fly back to the states for a good month-and-a-half to work on getting more sponsors (i.e. funds) and will return to resume the journey to Cape Town. In the event of this last-resort plan, that more and more seems like the prudent thing for the fellas to do, I will be stranded in Pointe Noire. Their suggestions were to camp out and wait for them to return so I can finish the trip with them, try to get a job here to earn some bucks in the interim time, or just abandon the trip altogether and fly back to SA at an exorbitant price...Not very good options for me!

Fishing camp outside Pointe Noire.

Mark and Charles fishing on the coast outside of Pointe Noire.

On a different note, though, there are worse places to get stuck for the time being. The Pointe Noire expat community here has been so good to us. Patrick and Sabine, the owners of Le Pyramide Bar where we were camping gave us t-shirts and wished us all the love and peace of Jah on our future journey (one of the most flattering blessings from a Rasta-man!). We reunited with the telecommunication guys with a night of whiskey and rubbery bbq chicken and have been staying with them again. Another friend named Chris took us out for a $300 meal at the best restaurant in Pointe Noire and then drinks at a swanky pool bar. The boys have also racked up some sponsorships from a commercial diving outfit as well as a Toyota dealer, just because the owners like the concept of the trip.

So while this jaunt in mid-western Africa is slowly becoming a nightmare of the paper-pushing sort, there are still good memories and experiences that I'll take from Pointe Noire. This adventure has just further confirmed my academic understanding of this part of the world--problems of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency are complicated to fix, and most people here just learn to live despite these encumbrances. People are most definitely disappointed in the governing system, and expressive about their concerns, but continue to go about their lives the best they can. This is perhaps a bad thing* at times, but also has proved important in my understanding of the Congo.

Hopefully my next blog will have news of our departure from Pointe Noire!

*For example: A friend of ours relayed a story about a French woman who was working in a bank here in Pointe Noire. Something like $40,000US disappeared from a client's account, and for some reason she was blamed and thrown into prison. She ended up staying there for three weeks while the French Consul and others pushed for her release or the details of why she was being held (the police couldn't provide this latter detail, or refused to...) As a result, she has been in the hospital for the past three days after losing about 22lbs, coming down with malaria and other maladies. But while she was in prison, she had very few friends visitor her at all, and instead, rumors started spreading. Our friend was distraught by the situation and couldn't believe that other French expats didn't support the accused, especially considering they knew her and are well aware of how corrupt things can be here.

Supposedly there is some sort of organized network of crime in the bank both here in Pointe Noire and in Brazzaville, and the bank manager, and whomever else involved, just needed a scapegoat and blamed the poor French woman. The bank has apologized to her, but just think of everything she's been through!