hostile trek through modern congo 26

- We: "Bonjour Maman! Ca va?' - "Hello 'maman', how are you?"
Maman: "Bonjour, ca va un peu bien. D'ou venez-vous comme-ça?" - "Hi, We are a litle bit ok. Where are you coming from?"
- We: "Lubumbashi"
Maman: "aaaaaah ?!?!? C'est trop loin! Et vous allez où?" - "aaaaah ?!?!? That's too far! And where are you going?"
- We: "Kinshasa"
Maman: 'AAAAAAH !?!?!"
- We: "Au revoir et bonne continuation!' - "Bye, and a have a safe journey"
Maman: *silence* (eyes and mouth wide open)

They were the first people we met since we started walking. 2 ladies with a kid on their back. It must have been the weirdest sight to see two wite people walking here, coming from apparantly nowhere. With no luggage, no transport, no nothing. And then these white people claim they all the way from Lubumbashi - They did not ask how we got here, so we were not lying! ;-) This must have confused them! I am sure they would understand when they saw a broken down car a few kilometers down the road.

It was a 2 hour hike to Kapia. It had been a while since we made such fast progress.

Kapia was just a small village on a crossroad, we actually walked passed it at first, it was that small. We talked to a few people. The bad news was that nobody here would be able to help us. The good news was that in Dibaya Lubwe, there was a mission. And the father there had a Toyota Landcruiser. The chef du village gave us the phone number from the father. In kapia there is barely any cell phone reception. On top of a little hill in the middle of the village is the only place where - sometimes - there is some repection.

It took us a dozen of attempts to actually make a call (reception kept dropping) and get the father on the phone. It was a very bad connection. We could make out that his 4x4 was in Kinshasa to get it fixed. Then the connection dropped again.

We figured that going to Dibaya-Lubwe was the only way to find help.
30km would be a very long hike. There are a few bicycles in the village and we try to rent them. But they only want them rent them with a 'driver'

So we get chauffeured on the back of a bicycle. The luggage rack exists of nothing more then 2 iron bars. There are ofcourse no steps to put our feet on. I am not sure who suffered most, our drivers or we.

It got tricky on a long downhill when my driver said that we were going too fast because of all the weight. I shouted to him that he should brake. He then replied that he did not have brakes! Nice! They brake with their bare feet on the ground.

Our biketaxi's dropped us off at the Catholic mission of Dibaya-Lubwe were we were greeted by the father (whose name we have forgotten). He did not seemed to be very interested in us. He had received the SMS message we sent from Kapia but he did not reply because he was not sure if we were travelling on a bike or in a car. Strange reasoning.

His Landcruiser had its injectors replaced in Kinshasa at the time and he was about to leave to Kikwit himself for his annual 'holiday' by bushtaxi. He eventually hooked us up with some guys who own one of the few trucks in Dibaya-Lubwe. They wanted to drive to our car and tow us into the mission, but when asked about the price they were vague. "Pas beaucoup" - "Not much" they said. As they looked and acted very dodgy we insisted but this was a very difficult topic apparantely. The father eventually persuaded us that we should trust them. That would prove to be a mistake.

30 minutes later they come to pick us up. We then spend the next hour picking up people and goods. There are not a lot trucks running here and they never leave empty. Many people grabbed the opportunity to transport them or their good as far as Kapia. But this was a paying service ofcourse and the way the drivers handled it was not pretty I must say.

It was a rough ride and they ride these old truck hard. Very hard. It's hard work for the driver. The seat had long desintegrated and this gearbox required doubleclutching trough A LOT of gears. Cool truck though. I don't want to know how much this beast consumes. Actually I did want to know as we would be paying for the diesel!

When we arrived back to our truck papa Likas was waiting for us. He had brought us water and a branch of a banana tree full of little banana's. He also wanted to talk to me about what we thought was best. Whiskey, brandy or cognac. This flabergasted me. I could not produce an answer to that question at that time. At least we knew what he was planning to do with the money he earned from us..

Fortunately the truck too was 24volt, so they could jumpstart us with our leads. We would need a running engine to power the steering.

Ever since we arrived in Kapia everything went very quickly. We had been lucky to find a vehicle that could tow us so smoothly. We just hoped we could trust these guys as they were very dodgy. The fact that they owned a truck was obviously a status symbol. They showed of their power and wealth too. Smoking a lot of cigarettes, flashing their new mobile phones.

Both suggestions above have some possibilities in it. Although in both cases it would damage even more parts and it might only work for a short period of time. I see these kind of Macgyver tricks as last resort solutions.

In this case we knew a larger city was not too far away, walking out was an easier/safer thing to do then starting to work on the truck locally.

There is also a bit of long term thinking involved. If we had buggered up our hubs and half shafts by welding them, we would be in for a very costly repair and probably have difficulties sourcing these parts. If we reach Kinshasa, that is the end of the Congo episode, but not the end of our trip. We still have to drive back home all the way trough Africa.

We told the truck driver not to drive too fast on the way back. "Polé-polé" (swahili for slowly-slowly).

He might not have been the most pleasant person, but he did know how to drive his truck. At a slow tempo he towed us all the way into Dibaya-Lubwe and dropped us off at the catholic mission. We used our kinetic strap for the tow, that reduces the jacking about when he takes off. It was a scary ride at moments. Driving a few meters behind a truck, with no brakes.

It was close to midnight when arrived at the mission, but there was still a lot of action going on. We obviously drew a crowd. But at the same time the weekly bushtaxi to Kikwit was about the leave. It's a regular Toyota Landcruiser, like ours, who does this run - loaded to the brim. The only person we 'knew' here - the father of the mission - was about to leave with this taxi.

Then the discussion about the money started. The drivers of the truck were still very vague about how much we owned them. They eventually told their price: 650$US !!

At first I thought I misunderstood them, after all their French was not that good and mine is far from perfect too. But no, they really meant 650$US. This made me angry, very angry.

We had to make a split second decision here. If we hestiated too long, they would think we were considering the amount and talking the price down would become very difficult. If we pissed them off too much we were making ourselves very vulnerable. We very well knew we had nowhere to go and we would be needing the help of the people here to get us going again.

0.1 seconds later I started shouting in a very African way. Gesticulating with my arms. Clearly indicated that their price was completely ridiculous (it was!) and we would never pay this.

A heated discussion started. This drew an even bigger crowd. It was pitch dark and we were in a city we did not know. Several hundred people were around us and some of them were getting quite upset. They saw an opportunity to earn a lot of cash. We could not give in to it now, it would make our situation impossible if we ever wanted to get our car repaired here. Josephine would later tell me that this was a very scary situation. I was too much in an adrenaline rush to even notice at the time.

The father - clearly very annoyed as he wanted to leave - eventually came to negotiate before things got out of hand. We had calculated that the the truck used 50$US in fuel. We offered to pay 75$US, still way too much. The driver was very dissapointed, he probably had visions of what he'd be able to buy with 650$! It took the father an hour to talk the price down to 100$. We agreed.

We saw the father off and thanked him for his help. He gave us permission to camp in the - unfenced - garden of the mission. There was a small workshop at the mission. The only one in town apparently. We could make use of that to get our car fixed.

Still with a big crowd around us we set up our tent and tried to go to sleep.

It was a miracle that we were able to get our car towed to the mission in one day. We were glad we could sleep in our own tent that night and that we did not had to leave our car in the jungle overnight. Getting our car going again would be another story. We might be stuck here for a while.

We did not make any friends in Dibaya-Lubwe today.