Jan 242014
 

Of all the parts of this difficult trip, I’ll admit that this was the one I was most aprehensive about. There’s not much information online about making this trip by taxi, and given the fact both Congo and Angola have notorious levels of corruption and bureaucratic BS up the wazoo…oh and combine that with my minor princess status…it promised to be an adventure. We’d pieced together enough information online, but for starters, we weren’t even positive the land border would be open on a Sunday!

On paper, it didn’t look too bad:

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See, Cabinda is a small enclave of Angola, surrounded by Congo on the north and Democratic Republic of Congo on the South/East, and then after about 20 miles of DRC in the south you come to Angola again:

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For this reason, we wanted to visit.  As if Angola wasn’t difficult enough, Cabinda has been an active war zone from time to time.  In 1975 when the liberation movements in Angola signed the treaty with Portugal, they reaffirmed that Cabinda was a part of Angola, even though it wasn’t connected.  This was preceded by the formation of MLEC and FLEC, guerrilla movements advocating the secession of Cabinda.  They operated a guerrilla war until 2006 when they finally signed a peace treaty.  That’s not to say things have been happily ever after.  In 2010 the Togolese football team bus was en route from Pointe-Noire to Cabinda for the Africa’s Cup, and was attacked by a FLEC splinter group, killing three people.  So, Cabinda’s kinda…edgy!

So an edgy place, little information, and corruption…what could go wrong?!

I was prepared for the roughly 100km trip to take 8+ hours, and fully expected everything that could go wrong to go wrong.

Taxi to the Congo border was slightly more than we expected at 15,000 CFA ($30) but he wouldn’t budge, given the fact he had to pay tolls along the way, and would likely return empty.   We probably could have saved $10 by taxi shopping, but weren’t in the mood to waste time so off we went.  We’d read online it was somewhere around 20 minutes to the border, but ended up taking closer to 35 with traffic.  Our taxi dropped us off maybe 500m from the border, and we walked the rest of the way.  We were harassed by touts and people offering help from the instant we got out of the taxi, but when we ignored them they gave up after maybe a minute.  Really?  That easy?  On the Ghana-Togo border I never did manage to shake them.  They must not see many western tourists here!

Asked a few people, and easily found the exit immigration shack for Congo.  Piece of cake, one or two questions about why we were in Congo, why we were going to Angola, and that was it.  Stamp, stamp, stamp, we were out of Congo.  I confirmed where to go next from the immigration guy, and left the house and turned left.  Someone started yelling after us…

Turns out he was the health dude, and wanted a look at our vaccination cards.  Nothing unusual there, until he grabbed a stamp, and stamped in both of them…”Cholera – Waived”  Um, excuse me?  I’ve had that vaccination.  But he was having none of it.  He’d exempt us from having that vaccine (probably chosen because it’s obscure) but we’d have to pay a 3,000 CFA fine each for the stamp.   It wasn’t the money, but the scam that set me off…and I went off on him…in that way that you know you’re gonna eventually have to convince him you’re alpha dog or you’re going to end up arrested.  50 or 100 countries ago, I would have been scared by his authority, and done whatever he asked.  I was now enough of an Africa veteran to push things.  I started chewing him out in French, and made up a great story…told him I worked for the WHO (World Health Organization) and if he was going to insist on this corruption I was going to call the Ministry of Health back in Brazzaville and confirm this.  He could decide to give up his scam….or (assuming he believed me) potentially have to answer to his big boss AND a UN agency.  To emphasize my threat…I pulled out my cell phone and started fake dialing….he paused….and we got an ALLEZ-Y!  GO AWAY!  …and it worked.  Jason and Jordan 1 – Corruption 0

Then, it was time for the real test.  Angola immigration.  Waited in one line, whose only purpose seemed to be to verify we had a visa, and he sent us to a small booth in the middle of the road.  This turned out to actually be the immigration officer….brief questions (since he didn’t speak english, and only a little french) about our plans in Angola.  “Today – Cabinda.  Tomorrow – Luanda.  Next – Sao Tome.”  He seemed to get what we were up to, was pleased with it, and stamped us in….wait, that’s IT?!

Right next to the booth Jordan changed the last of his CFA for Angolan Kwanza (most awesome currency name EVER btw) and that was it…we were done.  Terribly anticlimactic….really?

We’d read a taxi to Cabinda city would cost $100 US, and no sooner were we out of the fenced in area than a nice Toyota SUV pulled up, let out 6 passengers, and asked “Ciudad?”  Yes, we wanted to go to the city.  I’d used google translate for basic portuguese, so I knew “how much” as well as “80” and “100.”  So, I offered him $80.  He shook his head…”no $100″ ok, fine…it was a nice air conditioned SUV instead of a taxi, so we figured we’d go for it.  The ride could be up to two hours.  So we set of….

10 minutes into the drive, was a police booth on the side of the road….he wanted to check our passports to make sure we’d entered legally and had visas.  Yup, everything in order, we’re on the way.  What, no bribe?  Seriously?

The drive had some great views….notice the driver’s American flag air freshener:

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After a wide, we drove by the large oil complex, fenced in of course, home to tons of foreign oil workers.  Like Pointe-Noire, Cabinda exists for oil…part of why it’s so important to Angola.  As we approached the city, nearly 100km later, we approached the Cup of Nations statium, the destination for the ill-fated Togolese football team that had been attacked a few years prior:

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…and with that, we were in Cabinda.  The taxi driver made a weak attempt to tell us the hotel we’d picked sucked, and that he knew a much better one.  I’m sure you do, and I’m sure “much better” means my relative owns it and I get a kickback.  We declined, and he took us where we wanted to go.  Just like that…piece of cake.  It was surprising just how perfectly everything had gone, and I was still sure disaster was looming around the corner to pounce on us!

Jan 232014
 

Since I’d arrived so late the night before, I made a point of sleeping in a bit, but got up to enjoy breakfast. I guess this would be a good time to talk about the hotel. Based on reviews online, and the fact it came in the middle of the trip, I decided to book at the Atlantic Palace Hotel. I figured by this point I’d want something a bit nicer and more “comfortable.” Let me just say – the premium was completely not worth it in this case. The rooms were comfortable enough, maybe high three star. The beds were comfortable, the AC was nice and cold, and everything was clean. Common areas were also clean, and the pool was nice…but nothing life-changing.

I’d gotten up early for breakfast because I was told the night before at check-in that it was included. Well, first I accidentally put the wrong room number on the receipt, and when I was walking through the lobby later the restaurant hostess yelled after me “THIEF! COME HERE!” Um, honest mistake? Hello? Then, I found out why…breakfast was not included, and no amount of protesting was going to make them care that they’d given me misinformation….I was going to have to pay the 10,000 CFA – over $20. Ouch, I would have just stopped for coffee in town had I known.

Overall, the hotel was “nice enough” but certainly no more than three star. Definitely not worth three price of the other 2-3 star options in town, especially when you factored in the service which left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth. Most of the management staff were Lebanese, and rather rude and nasty to other customers as well from what I saw in a few interactions. I can’t say I was the least bit impressed.

Oh yes, breakfast. Got sidetracked there…it was again, “good enough” although the pastries seemed a bit stale, and there were lots of lebanese inspired dishes, hummous, feta cheese, etc. Again, good enough, but certainly not worth going out of your way for. I wish I’d slept in another hour and gone to the delicious coffee shop across the street.

At least my room had a pretty cool view:

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Jordan’s hotel looked to be about 1km away, so decided to walk down to meet him. Was an interesting walk and let me see a bit of the city, so was glad I did it. We sat in his hotel’s lobby planning the day a bit, and once we had a rough plan we set out.

First stop was to head down to the waterfront where the giant Total complex was, to check out a restaurant I’d heard was good for dinner – it was about a 1km walk from his hotel, so we set off.  Found the restaurant, inside the Total complex, and it was packed with a busy lunch crowd.  Not too busy, however, that we couldn’t get a few pics off into the water from the deck, since it would be much too dark later that evening:

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Jan 222014
 

Up at the crack of dawn, checked out of the hotel, and grabbed a cab to the train station. Picked up Jordan along the way, and we were there at about 5:15am for the 7am train. We’d been sternly warned that we had to be there two hours in advance…which turned out to be quite a joke. A picture of the station, waiting to get inside.  Unfortunately poor quality because of the lighting, but enough to get the idea:

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A shot of the ticket window, courtesy of Jordan. He got much better pictures than I did of several parts of the train ride, and several of the pictures in this post were taken by him.

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As the sun started to rise while we waited, a picture looking back onto the town from the front of the station:

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…and the vendors were out in full force, selling food for the journey.  Bottled water, bread, fruit, cookies, and gum seemed to be the most common items for sale.

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Soon it was 6:15, and finally time to Board.  A quick passport/ID check inside the station, and we found the car that would be our home for approximately the next 13 hours – Car #111 in First Class:

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Jan 172014
 

CAUTION:  This post contains nearly 40 pictures, many of which are of extreme poverty and a few are of monkeys…well, being monkeys.  You’ve been warned!  

Yeah, I know it had only been two days since the coup attempt where over 100 people were killed trying to overthrow the government, but I’d spent so much effort planning this trip, and so much money getting close, I was determined to try and at least make it to DRC for a daytrip…in daylight. Fortunately, Jordan was just as insane and was game for it. We started by grabbing a taxi over to the boat docks, and after fending off several touts, we finally found the place to buy tickets on the “fast” boat and clear immigration. It involved about 10 different stops for different papers, taxes, stamps, etc etc etc, most of which seemed above ground, but I’m sure a few of the “fees” went straight into the pockets of corrupt officials. No matter…we avoided as much as we could, and even the fees we paid were no more than $3-4 each. Eventually we were crammed onto the boat with 15 of our new best friends for the 15 minute trek across the river:

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On the other side, things got a little uglier.  Lots of people doing the “wait here” and “this fee” and “that fee.”  We argued several of them, paid a few, and eventually got out the other side about $20 poorer in total.  It took about 20-30 minutes, which wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but once they have your passport they kind of have you by the balls.  Plus, we were in a bit of a hurry without much time, so we were kind of stuck. We’d hired a driver in advance for the day, and finally found him outside immigration.  Turns out we’d thought he was another tout trying to get money from us on the inside and brushed him off, lol.  Would have helped if he had a sign!  He drove us first to the travel agency he worked for, where we paid the agreed upon $250 for a day’s rental of car and driver.  The agency’s building:

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After that, it was time to go.  We were driving about 30 miles outside the city first, to the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary for Bonobos monkeys.  On the way, we passed the stadium:

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Continuing the drive, we went through some quite poor parts of Kinshasa:

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Jan 172014
 

Quick taxi ride to my hotel, the Ledger Maya Maya, and check-in was pretty quick. Room was nice, and pretty much don’t need to say too much about it. Clean, comfortable, and definitely good enough for two days. Did have dinner in the restaurant the first night, and it was pretty tasty, and they did a fantastic beef kebab. The only thing negative I’ll say about the hotel, is that when I woke up in the morning and felt an itch…and saw a cockroach scurry across my chest, I wasn’t impressed. Yes, this is Africa and these things happen even in the cleanest place, but I still wasn’t impressed.

After check-in, I walked over to the Hotel Hippocampe to meet up with Jordan, who I’d be doing the next few segments of the trip. Congo was the 150th country visited for both of us, and we agreed to meet up and knock out some of the more challenging ones together – two heads are definitely better than one when dealing with the random unknown situations that tend to happen in Africa!

We met up at the Hippocampe, and tried the local brew while plotting the next few days.  It was already early afternoon, so we decided to walk around the city a bit, and then rest up because we were planning another shot at the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) the next day as a daytrip.

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Then, it was off for a walk around the city, which seemed deserted.  Streets were all incredibly quiet, probably because it was New Year’s Day.  First stop was a cafe called La Mandarine for a quick lunch since I hadn’t eaten…delicious shwarma and then right outside was this cool fountain:

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Right across the street was the Hôtel de Ville (city hall) with a cool statue in front:

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Jan 162014
 

Check out of the hotel…for the third time…was easy and hopefully this time would be the charm and I’d actually get to start resuming my trip. Then the hotel informed me…there was no driver. Excuse me? I just confirmed the time last night…finally they raised him on his cell phone and he was on his way to pick me up. He drove somewhere around 200 kph down city streets, practically running people off the road, but eventually we got to the airport safely.

Only one problem when I finally arrived at the airport – there were no obvious check-in desks!  After asking several people, I learned that they didn’t let you into the check-in area until 90 minutes before flight time, so you had to wait in the arrivals area.  Eventually I found the line to get in, and ended up chatting with an American guy and his daughter, who were lost and had no idea where to check in.  We solved it together, and made it in at T-90, and check-in was a breeze.

Through security and immigration, and into the waiting area.  The “alcool” store was still closed – probably still hungover from New Year’s Eve the night before.

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The Christmas trees were still up in the waiting area, and this called for a selfie:

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Oh, and Santa and his reindeer were hanging out with the trees too.  Gabon was certainly feeling festive!

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Boarding area was empty, less than 50 people, and this despite the fact that two flights were about to board.  First they boarded the CamAir flight to Douala, and then there were only 12 people left.  I was pretty sure they had downsized our plane.  Soon, it was time to walk across the tarmac to our plane.  A look back at the terminal building:

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…and there’s our plane!  It really was a 737 for just 12 people.  Maybe there were through passengers already on board?  Nope!

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RwandAir Flight 211
Libreville, Gabon (LBV) to Brazzaville, Congo (BZV)
Depart 10:35, Arrive 12:05, Flight Time 90 minutes
Boeing 737-700, Registration 9XR-WK, Manufactured 2007, Seat 10A

Was easy to move around on board, since there were a total of 12 people for a plane that seated 150.  I asked the flight attendant if it was ok to move to the exit row, and he gave me a puzzled look.  Turns out, he didn’t speak French.  Despite Rwanda changing its official language from French to English less than 10 years ago, it appeared this guy in his 20s didn’t speak a word of French.  Curious.

The plane felt very new and comfortable, and was in great condition inside.  The crew took their jobs very seriously, carefully doing the exit row briefing and all.  Flight was short and comfortable, and there was even a small snack served.  It was a semi scary looking sandwich, and given the fact this wasn’t a RwandAir hub I was pretty sure it had been on the plane a while, so I didn’t partake.  I was tempted to have a local beer or glass of wine (all complimentary) but opted just for water at this hour.

All in all, I was seriously impressed with RwandAir.  Certainly better that your average domestic US flight with newish planes, professional crew, and even free food and drink!

The Brazzaville airport was very clean and modern as well as being well air conditioned!  Quite unusual for Africa!  Immigration was reasonable quick and friendly, and my bag was already waiting for me when I got to the bag claim.  Even the taxis were honest, only asking 3,000 CFA for the 15 minute ride to my hotel.  So far the trip was starting to look up!

Jan 102014
 

I already posted about the Le Meridien I stayed at in Libreville.  I arrived there a bit after midnight after a long delay, and was supposed to have one full day in Libreville, plus the next day until around mid-afternoon.  Unfortunately, not really enough time to get out of the city, so I focused on seeing as much of the city as possible.  As it turned out, I had three full days there due to some unfortunate circumstances, so I definitely would have had time to get out had I known.  Oh well!

December 29:  This was to be my one full day in Libreville, so decided to walk as much as possible before melting in the heat.  The centre of the city was only about 1.5 miles from the hotel, so I figured it would be a decent walk to see some stuff.  After all, it was 85F but cloudy so how bad could it be?

A view of the Le Meridien from the road:

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About halfway to the city, I found oil!  Big oil!

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A little further down the beach, an interesting statue:

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Park bench on the beach:

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After absolutely melting, I arrived at the cafe I’d been looking for a hot sweaty mess.  Oh well, I was rewarded with pain au chocolate, pain au raisin, and espresso.  Life was grand!

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After refueling, I continued the hot hot hot walk.  Next up was the Cathedral of St Marie:

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…the first of many places I was to see on the trip where Pope John Paul II had visited.

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Walking another 15 minutes or so, I came upon the restaurant where I was considering dinner that night, a place that did local food called L’Odika.  They had reservations, and the menu looked good, so I reserved for later that night.  Lovely outdoor setting in the gardens:

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I’d been told by colleagues that the Port was one of the most interesting things to see, but unfortunately it’s completely under construction, part of a huge hotel / mall / marina / port complex scheduled to be finished in a few years.  So, unfortunately, it was a bit of a mess at the moment:

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I was roasting at this point, so decided to seek refuge in what I think is one of the most fascinating parts of any city:  the local markets and supermarkets.  They really tell a lot about the place, and Libreville was home to the largest Casino supermarket I’ve ever seen!

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Walked all the way back to the hotel through some back streets, but was too hot to take any pics along the way.  Eventually got back and cooled off for a while before grabbing a taxi to L’Odika for dinner.  Only took a pic of the first course, a delicious carpaccio of capitain fish.  Yum!

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December 30:  little bit more than a half day, so I took another route through the city, and along the beach, to grab pastries and coffee at the same cafe.  A view out onto the ocean:

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Was reading my e-mail on my phone at breakfast, when a friend texted me:  “Is what’s going on in Kinshasa going to affect you?”  Now, keep in mind, I had an afternoon flight to Kinshasa.  I quickly started googling, and the news wasn’t good.  Armed “terrorists” (the government’s words) had tried to take control of the state tv station and airport, and dozens were killed.  Kinshasa airport was closed, and it appeared flights were being diverted.  My flight, however, showed on time still.   The funny thing is, my first thought wasn’t “shit, it’s not safe to go there now,” it was “how am I going to salvage my trip.”  I swear, if ASKY was going to operate my flight, I was going to go!

I hightailed it back to the hotel to call my travel agent, who had the semi-reassuring words:  “it looks like your ticket has been changed.  Your flight is not going to Brazenville.”  Um, do you mean Brazzaville?  “Yes, that place.”  Ok, so they were going to still operate the flight, just to Brazzaville instead.  Hmmm, I would be missing my stop in Kinshasa, but at least it wouldn’t throw off my entire trip.  Decided to quickly check out, get to the airport early, and pray.

Took the airport shuttle to the airport, but checkin for ASKY airlines was nowhere to be found.  Asked several dozen official-looking people, and they all heard the flight had been canceled.  Hmmm.  Kept asking around, and eventually one very helpful lady told me she knew where the ASKY office was, so let’s go ask them what’s going on.  Upstairs, bang on their door, no answer.  So, she just walked right in…where we found ASKY’s airport manager hiding from the public.  Yes, the flight is canceled.  No, we don’t have any others for three days, yes, you’re out of luck, GO AWAY.

Just as we walked out, the manager of “Trans Congo Airlines” walked by, and he had a flight at midnight to Brazzaville.  Um, yeah, I don’t think I want to fly something called Trans-Congo at midnight and hope I get where I really wasn’t planning to go in the first place.  Back to the hotel to plan options, and fortunately when I told them earlier my flight was uncertain they’d held the room for me.  Great!

Planned and planned, and everyone was right.  There was just nothing at all I was finding.  Nothing today for sure, and nothing to either city on tomorrow the 31st either.  I was stuck in Libreville another two nights it looked like.  Rebooked myself to Brazzaville on January 1 instead, turning two nights in Gabon into four.  Called it a night, and got some sleep.

Woke up early on the 31st, and went back to the grocery store to stock up on supplies, including the champagne from the previous picture.  I was going to have a decent New Years Eve even if it was just me!  Hung around by the pool much of the day, which was nice and relaxing.  An amazing final sunset of the year from the pool:

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To bed a little after midnight, since I’d have to be up around 7am to hopefully catch my flight to Brazzaville, and get my trip back on track as much as possible!

Mar 082012
 

I like to think I’ve been some pretty out of the way places – Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

However, anyone who checks out the VICE Guide travel website – especially their guide to the Democratic Republic of Congo – will realise there’s a whole different world out there that’s even more off the beaten path. This isn’t your mother’s Starbucks – even if she lives in Fairfax VA and openly totes her firearms at Starbucks. Just watch their video – it’s some pretty amazing stuff!

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