An hour later the captain of the ferry arrived. Barthélémy in Ilebo had given us a letter for the captain, but as we could not read the letter, we did not trust it. We decided to bargain first, and then give the letter.

The captain said he could bring us across for 75$US and 30 liters of diesel.
And we had to supply two batteries to get the engine started.
And some oil because the engine was low on oil.
And if possible a diesel filter because his was clogged

Hmm...

The diesel we agreed on, 30 liters is a bargain compared to the 150liters from the last ferry. The price we ridculized and said it was waaaay too much. We discussed for half an hour or so, he was friendly but stuck to his price. Eventually we 'remembered' the letter. He looked happy with what he was reading. Eventually the price got down to 35$US. That is still an inflated price, but we agreed. Don't forget that the average annual income per capita in 2009 in DRC was estimated at 171$US. That's 15$US/month!

Driving onto the ferry required 4x4 and we banged our gearbox (bashplate protected) hard while doing so. We almost cried when we saw the engine of this ferry. The 'machine room' was under water. Not really under water, it was a mucky oily substance. The engine was leaking badly.

This ferry had been used to traverse Kabila's army when they marched in from the Rwanda border to Kinshasa a few years earlier. The captain told us how he was forced to work non-stop for 3 days to get everybody and everything across. Every little piece that Kabila's army could use they had taken. They left little more then a wreck.

We had sent out somebody to buy diesel for us, he had to go two villages down the road to find some (on his bicycle). In the meantime we tried to jumpstart the boat. Our jumpleads were too short to get to it, so we took our batteries out (our Landcruiser is 24volt - 2 batteries).

With our batteries connected the starter motor started turning. Turn after turn after turn after turn. Fast at first, but then slower and slower. Everybody was dead silent, hoping the engine would start.

It wouldn't.

They got to work, and took injectors out and doublechecked various parts. Another attempt was made The battery was getting really low and just when we thought it was not going to work the big diesel engine sprung to life. Hesitant at first, but after a minute or so most of its 10 cylinders were working. No mufflers ofcourse, this was a LOUD engine!

The captain's smile was priceless, he was proud of his machine! He gave it some trotthle and then the engine sputtered and died. He came down and said they had forgotten to purge the fuel system. Air in the system and the engine had died. Our batteries were flat now, not enough juice left to turn that big starter motor. We tried to start our own engine, but even that did not work. Bugger!

But, no problem, apparantly they had 2 batteries in the village on the other side of the river. We could 'rent' them for a small fee. Having no other choice we agreed. With a dugout canoe some guys got across in search for the batteries.

An hour later the captain had purged the fuel lines and we had two 'new' batteries. They were worthless. They measured 10 volt at most, they were not charged! Another solution came up: somebody in the village had a solar panel, and we could rent it. They thought it would take 2, maybe 3 days to get it charged fully.

Rather not...

Sitwrap:

-Our car was sitting on ferry - a ferry we hoped would not sink now
-The ferry was not running
-The ferry did not have batteries
-By attempting to start the ferry, our batteries were now flat
-Our car was not running
-We could not push our car off the ferry as the ramps were damaged.

If we wanted to charge our batteries, we needed a running engine and a functional alternator.

We had to push start our Landcruiser, and we had to do it on the few meters of space we had on the ferry.

Now seems like an appropriate time to talk about our brakes. As we had been doing extreme 4x4 work the last 3 weeks in mostly sandy and muddy areas, it does not come to a surprise that our brakes took a bit of a beating. As a matter of fact, we barely had any functional brakes when we left Kananga. And we have no brakes whatsoever since we left Ilebo. It's just metal to metal... and that does not brake very well. It hadn't bothered me too much until now, the big Landcruiser engine allows for great engine breaking and we are not driving any faster then 20km/h anyway.

This made the situation a bit more complicated now.. :roll:

As you can see on the first picture of this ferry, there is nothing at the end of the ferry to stop us from rolling into the fast flowing Loange river.

5 meters. That was the distance we had. The ferry crowd would push us as fast as they could, I had to build up enough speed to make the engine turn, once started I had to engage reverse gear, let the clutch go - gently without stalling the engine or slipping the wheels - and come to a halt before rolling into the river.

5 meters!

I was a tad bit nervous when the countdown started. I closed the door but left the window open and did not wear my seatbelt. Just in case...

3-2-1 and off we went. I dumped the clutch almost immediately. Way too early ofcourse and we came to halt. The engine was not running. On the second try I waited 'much' longer, but we did not have enough speed to turn the crank. I had about a meter of extra play.

Third try was a good one. I dumped the clutch and immediately declutched again to throw it in reverse and with screeching tyres I reversed again just in time. I like a bit of tension, but this was pushing it a bit!

The next hour we left the engine running with an increased idle to charge the batteries.


While waiting we had a nice view over the river. At one point we could hear drums in the distance, approaching quickly. It was a 'cargo' canoe. 4 or 5 huge dugout canoes tied together with a huge load on it and rowers on bot sides. Somebody was setting the pace with a drum. They were travelling downstream and were going really fast. That was one of the rare occasion where I saw the Congo I had dreamt about when I was a kid.

We figured that after an hour of charing, the batteries should be loaded enough to start the boat engine. So we shut down the engine, took out the batteries and hooked it up to the ferry.

KLIK - KLIK

Nothing happened...