Congo

We headed East across Gabon to Francville then out to Congo from there, been so remote we some how missed the border proceedings for Gabon, I looked down at my GPS and it showed us in Congo, with no carnet to be stamped and why get an exit stamp in our passports that were filling fast we shrugged our shoulders and continued on. The track was sandy and it did not see much traffic at all but it was not how I imagined the Congo which my thoughts were of thick jungles, in the north I am sure it was the case but here it was huge high rolling hills covered in grass lands, very beautiful. What people we started to see seemed poor, not asking for money but as we passed they rubbed their tummies asking for food. I cant figure it out the land here is so fertile and lush with life....grow something...I don't know.


Sandy roads of Congo.

As evening approached I got stuck in a bog hole which would have been impossible to get the bike out if it were not for three lovely ladies in their best clothes flick their flip flops off and wade into the mud helping pull it out, one even had her baby on her back, we payed them with water, and away we went, we spent the night in a village hut, one thing is the people of Congo are friendly.

Stuck!!

The road the next day got worse with deep sand and by now I was riding on a rear tire the likes of Valenteno Rossi would only use, it was bald but it only had to get me to Brazzville were I'd hope to find a new one. Eventually we reached the ever so lovely tarmac and cruised down to Brazzville where we ran into Leo, the Spaniard and Del the Pom who had arrived the day before. The city was quite lively with nice bakeries which we treated ourselves to but after an afternoon of searching high and low for a new tire or something that would suffice we turned up nothing, except discovering that there are a load of shot up and bombed buildings from the war and that only two days ago 160 people had been killed in fighting just across the Congo river in Kinshasa our next destination....great.