zaherachour
New member
hahahaaaaa, typical congo.
Democratic Republic of Congo: Lubumbashi to Kinshasa
- Thread starter RadioBaobab
- Start date
and rather silly
zaherachour
New member
F & J,
i am in the fordraptordorum.com, was introducing my new raptor to the guys. a person noticed that i lived in the Congo and added this link. what the heck!!! lets read it.
so i signed in and it took me 3 days on and off to finish the 88 pages.
i can honestly say it is the most amazing exciting adventure i have ever read. :drool:
I've been here for four years (my family over 30years) and the only thing that drove me crazy is how come this freekin country has no connection road from border to border, shame. (like you said before, Chinese are preparing and building the roads. but when will it be done??? who knows!!! its freekin Africa baby!!! and Chinese with their inmates are building it!!!:ylsmoke
Frederic, do not listen to anyone. all you actions, decisions were perfect, as for your reactions that only makes human and there is no shame on that, actually its was a good thing to show anger and never fear or surrender.
i was really surprised on how you handled yourself something that an expat or a tourist take lots of time to get into habit with Congolese way. i have seen many ppl leaving the country after a month after giving up with the nonsense.
the best weapon for this country is called patience, smartness and a smile. something that you showed adding courage and optimism. all together gave you the strength to drive out this jungle of chaos. i think the best part of the whole trip is that you made friends which clearly helped you a lot to finish this adventure.
i would like to say to Josephine that you are amazing and a true hero in my opinion. it is very rare to find a woman to go on a crazy and wild adventure, with her partner in the wild and alone, and manage in their worst days of their life, to come up and say calm down everything is going to be OK. wow
as you may already know Frederic, you are a very lucky man, and i am sure that many ppl envy you after reading this thread. not only because of this wonderful undaring trip, but also because you have the coolest wife in the world (pls don't tell my wife i said that:elkgrin
after reading this tread its pushing me go on an adventure to Lubumbashi (i live in Kinshasa, and we have also a store at kikwit, so the white ppl over there grew)
i will wait for my car first prepare it, then i fix a date.
thanks to you i guess i will try to be more prepared. specially with this permit part.
oh yeah!!! i forgot to say, the landcruiser was the best choice for this trip. 2 reasons,
1. as you noticed this vehicle is filled in here
2. if you would have chosen the defender, oh Lord what a mess you would have been into if you had the same issues you encountered in your trip. extreme lack of parts. Land rover is zero over here, and the parts are to to to damn expensive.
so dont listen to LD haters. you did a perfect job.
thank you for this thread and don't forget if you ever come back to Kinshasa, you have a friend.
zaher
i am in the fordraptordorum.com, was introducing my new raptor to the guys. a person noticed that i lived in the Congo and added this link. what the heck!!! lets read it.
so i signed in and it took me 3 days on and off to finish the 88 pages.
i can honestly say it is the most amazing exciting adventure i have ever read. :drool:
I've been here for four years (my family over 30years) and the only thing that drove me crazy is how come this freekin country has no connection road from border to border, shame. (like you said before, Chinese are preparing and building the roads. but when will it be done??? who knows!!! its freekin Africa baby!!! and Chinese with their inmates are building it!!!:ylsmoke
Frederic, do not listen to anyone. all you actions, decisions were perfect, as for your reactions that only makes human and there is no shame on that, actually its was a good thing to show anger and never fear or surrender.
i was really surprised on how you handled yourself something that an expat or a tourist take lots of time to get into habit with Congolese way. i have seen many ppl leaving the country after a month after giving up with the nonsense.
the best weapon for this country is called patience, smartness and a smile. something that you showed adding courage and optimism. all together gave you the strength to drive out this jungle of chaos. i think the best part of the whole trip is that you made friends which clearly helped you a lot to finish this adventure.
i would like to say to Josephine that you are amazing and a true hero in my opinion. it is very rare to find a woman to go on a crazy and wild adventure, with her partner in the wild and alone, and manage in their worst days of their life, to come up and say calm down everything is going to be OK. wow
as you may already know Frederic, you are a very lucky man, and i am sure that many ppl envy you after reading this thread. not only because of this wonderful undaring trip, but also because you have the coolest wife in the world (pls don't tell my wife i said that:elkgrin
after reading this tread its pushing me go on an adventure to Lubumbashi (i live in Kinshasa, and we have also a store at kikwit, so the white ppl over there grew
)i will wait for my car first prepare it, then i fix a date.
thanks to you i guess i will try to be more prepared. specially with this permit part.
oh yeah!!! i forgot to say, the landcruiser was the best choice for this trip. 2 reasons,
1. as you noticed this vehicle is filled in here
2. if you would have chosen the defender, oh Lord what a mess you would have been into if you had the same issues you encountered in your trip. extreme lack of parts. Land rover is zero over here, and the parts are to to to damn expensive.
so dont listen to LD haters. you did a perfect job.
thank you for this thread and don't forget if you ever come back to Kinshasa, you have a friend.
zaher
Thank goodness that there are brave people not hobbled by an attitude like this. Great adventurers don't stay at home, sitting on the couch and worrying about being eaten. If everyone thought like this, nothing would ever get done.
deLabé
New member
If you're where you're supposed to be, you'll make it through.
Vivek Thuppil
vthuppil
Frederik & Josephine,
Amazing adventure. Thank you for sharing it. By sheer curiosity, I Googled "driving across the DRC" a few days earlier and found this thread. It took me just over five days to read it, in multiple stretches. I'm glad I read it in short stretches at a time because I was able to digest what you had thoughtfully written rather than skim through it. Like travels themselves, reading travel diaries is very much about about the journey rather than just the destination!
A few points:
1) In any sort of overland driving, you need a fair bit of luck. I have done wildlife research in southern India where I drove my Mahindra Jeep through the forests of southern India for nearly 40,000 km over the last two years. I've had my share of mechanical issues - alternator dying and being without headlights at night in a dark forest, accelerator and clutch cables breaking, axle disengaging like yours, to a small fire breaking out due to shorting of a wire inside the dashboard, and more. I've had technical issues of being stuck in paddyfields and muddy bogholes, as all four of my tires spin away fruitlessly.
But in all of these issues, luck has been on my side. All of them happened when help was close at hand / during daylight hours / when traveling at low speeds in the case of the axle disengaging / etc. None of them happened at times such as the occasion where my vehicle was involved in a standoff on a narrow one and a half lane width road with a giant male elephant standing in the middle and staring down at me just 30 meters ahead, in the middle of the night when there was nary a human to be seen around. But luck can be fickle, so with each event, I thanked my stars that they happened when they did and I prepared myself against it happening in the future. I started changing accelerator and clutch cables regularly, even if they were still working fine; I found a trusted mechanic and supervised the work they did when they worked on my axle; I learned to recognize small sounds or abnormalities and get them inspected immediately; and so on and so forth.
And I hope that's the case with you as well. You make very valid points that having a winch might have made you drive more rashly and got you into extra trouble. But a large part of the axle failure your vehicle experienced was due to the load caused by constantly tipping over, rebalancing and so forth. Luckily for you, your vehicle broke down when you were in a relatively nice part of Congo. Can you imagine if that had been when you were chased by the machete wielding men? So I'm very glad that you bought a winch. Please make sure you get it in working order! I'm sure you learned tons of lessons from your experience that last trip and you won't make those same mistakes again; you'll make new ones! That's what life and traveling is about!
2) Regarding paying for services, I agree with your logic. I'm not averse to paying slightly more than the local rate, since I can afford it and these people work hard for a living. But only slightly more than the local rate. In India, while traveling domestically, I expect to and am comfortable paying anywhere from 25% to 50% more than what a local would pay for the same services or goods. But 10x or 20x the local rate is extortion and fleecing, pure and simple, and I'm glad you've refused to pay it.
This is the same principle I follow while traveling abroad as well. But for me, it's a lot easier, I think. I'm Indian, so when traveling through southeast Asia or former British colonies in Africa such as Kenya or South Africa, I've always managed to pass myself off as a native African Asian (if that makes any sense). Even in Latin America, my basic Spanish skills allowed me to initiate conversations and decide on prices without having the other person realize that I'm not a local. This is a tremendous luxury and the fact that you managed to hold your own despite coming across as a tourist (who in the locals' stereotypes are always rich) is nothing short of commendable. Kudos again!
3) You mention that you bought a new Indian-made battery in the Congo, which was junk. Do you know which brand it was? We take a lot of pride that we make quality products in our country as opposed to the Chinese products that can be found. And Indian batteries that I've owned so far have matched if not exceeded the lifespan and durability of their Western / Taiwanese / Japanese counterparts. Do you remember if the brand was Exide or Amaron? Those are the major brands in India and the ones that I've always used in my vehicles.
Again, thanks for the excellent write-up. I'm glad to have experienced Congo through your words. It's not a place that I would consider visiting at the moment, but if the stability and infrastructure improves a little bit, I'd love to check out the central heart of Africa.
Cheers!
Vivek
Amazing adventure. Thank you for sharing it. By sheer curiosity, I Googled "driving across the DRC" a few days earlier and found this thread. It took me just over five days to read it, in multiple stretches. I'm glad I read it in short stretches at a time because I was able to digest what you had thoughtfully written rather than skim through it. Like travels themselves, reading travel diaries is very much about about the journey rather than just the destination!
A few points:
1) In any sort of overland driving, you need a fair bit of luck. I have done wildlife research in southern India where I drove my Mahindra Jeep through the forests of southern India for nearly 40,000 km over the last two years. I've had my share of mechanical issues - alternator dying and being without headlights at night in a dark forest, accelerator and clutch cables breaking, axle disengaging like yours, to a small fire breaking out due to shorting of a wire inside the dashboard, and more. I've had technical issues of being stuck in paddyfields and muddy bogholes, as all four of my tires spin away fruitlessly.
But in all of these issues, luck has been on my side. All of them happened when help was close at hand / during daylight hours / when traveling at low speeds in the case of the axle disengaging / etc. None of them happened at times such as the occasion where my vehicle was involved in a standoff on a narrow one and a half lane width road with a giant male elephant standing in the middle and staring down at me just 30 meters ahead, in the middle of the night when there was nary a human to be seen around. But luck can be fickle, so with each event, I thanked my stars that they happened when they did and I prepared myself against it happening in the future. I started changing accelerator and clutch cables regularly, even if they were still working fine; I found a trusted mechanic and supervised the work they did when they worked on my axle; I learned to recognize small sounds or abnormalities and get them inspected immediately; and so on and so forth.
And I hope that's the case with you as well. You make very valid points that having a winch might have made you drive more rashly and got you into extra trouble. But a large part of the axle failure your vehicle experienced was due to the load caused by constantly tipping over, rebalancing and so forth. Luckily for you, your vehicle broke down when you were in a relatively nice part of Congo. Can you imagine if that had been when you were chased by the machete wielding men? So I'm very glad that you bought a winch. Please make sure you get it in working order! I'm sure you learned tons of lessons from your experience that last trip and you won't make those same mistakes again; you'll make new ones!
That's what life and traveling is about!2) Regarding paying for services, I agree with your logic. I'm not averse to paying slightly more than the local rate, since I can afford it and these people work hard for a living. But only slightly more than the local rate. In India, while traveling domestically, I expect to and am comfortable paying anywhere from 25% to 50% more than what a local would pay for the same services or goods. But 10x or 20x the local rate is extortion and fleecing, pure and simple, and I'm glad you've refused to pay it.
This is the same principle I follow while traveling abroad as well. But for me, it's a lot easier, I think. I'm Indian, so when traveling through southeast Asia or former British colonies in Africa such as Kenya or South Africa, I've always managed to pass myself off as a native African Asian (if that makes any sense). Even in Latin America, my basic Spanish skills allowed me to initiate conversations and decide on prices without having the other person realize that I'm not a local. This is a tremendous luxury and the fact that you managed to hold your own despite coming across as a tourist (who in the locals' stereotypes are always rich) is nothing short of commendable. Kudos again!
3) You mention that you bought a new Indian-made battery in the Congo, which was junk. Do you know which brand it was? We take a lot of pride that we make quality products in our country as opposed to the Chinese products that can be found.
And Indian batteries that I've owned so far have matched if not exceeded the lifespan and durability of their Western / Taiwanese / Japanese counterparts. Do you remember if the brand was Exide or Amaron? Those are the major brands in India and the ones that I've always used in my vehicles.Again, thanks for the excellent write-up. I'm glad to have experienced Congo through your words. It's not a place that I would consider visiting at the moment, but if the stability and infrastructure improves a little bit, I'd love to check out the central heart of Africa.
Cheers!
Vivek
Containerized
Adventurer
Vivek - Anything we get here in East Africa from India has usually already been used for years in India! So I don't think it's an indication of the original quality of the product. The fact is that most people here can't afford even a fraction of what Indians can afford, so things we get from India are often five or ten years old, sometimes older. The Bajaj motorcycles I see every day are often very old, and even the newer TVS models are ten years behind what is available in India (and tens of thousands of km old!). Even the kitchen and cooking equipment has usually been used for years in India in small restaurants before it is either scrapped or shipped to Africa as a working unit.
I don't get it?
Thimba
Observer
recent Kinshasa to Lubumbashi tour
Perhaps already mentioned somewhere in this amazing(ly long) thread:
A biker from Belgium (what is it with these Belgians..), Tony Peeters, rode from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi. He was part of a convoy with a Mercedes camper van, a Toyota LC camper conversion, and a Land Rover Defender 110 hard top. It took them 3 1/2 weeks during the dry season, last June, using almost the same route as F&J. They kept a score of the times they got stuck: the Mercedes got stuck 20 times, LC 15, and the Landy 2 (!). He shot some great footage as well!
I noted one important conclusion from Tony: "In DRC definately the road is your enemy and not the people."
Happy travels!
Perhaps already mentioned somewhere in this amazing(ly long) thread:
A biker from Belgium (what is it with these Belgians..), Tony Peeters, rode from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi. He was part of a convoy with a Mercedes camper van, a Toyota LC camper conversion, and a Land Rover Defender 110 hard top. It took them 3 1/2 weeks during the dry season, last June, using almost the same route as F&J. They kept a score of the times they got stuck: the Mercedes got stuck 20 times, LC 15, and the Landy 2 (!). He shot some great footage as well!
I noted one important conclusion from Tony: "In DRC definately the road is your enemy and not the people."
Happy travels!