Even though we were just crossing the Democratic Republic of Congo as quickly as possible, before our Angola visas expired, it has been some of the most interesting driving days of our whole Trans- Africa trip. This is where our four wheel drive, ex military Bedford truck got to show what it was built for, as some roads were just walking paths through villages or extremely worn down dust roads. I also held my breath every time we drove over a bridge, as they pretty much all were simple wooden bridges looking like they would not handle the weight of our truck, but they all did and we managed to cross the mountains and roads leading through the country.
What also made it interesting to drive through was to see how people reacted to us coming through. On the smaller paths we saw women and children run out in the grass to hide or climb up trees. Some men were also carrying guns with them, which must mean that they are still a bit on alert, maybe first thinking that we were rebels coming through, but waving friendly when they saw we were just tourists. Other times people, especially young women, were holding their hands in front of the mouth or jumping up and down while screaming, just as if they were star struck after seeing Justin Bieber drive through. There were also school kids running after us for a couple of kilometres, most of them asking for money.
The driving was probably the roughest it had been on our whole West- Africa trip. That was until we got to Luozi, a small town by the Kongo River, where a ferry was waiting to take us over. When I first saw the ferry, which looked more like a raft, I though to my self that it was not big enough to gir our truck, but soon after one car, one even bigger truck, around fourty people and us were on board heading towards the other side. It was also quite a smooth sail where I got to enjoy the view from on top of a big cassava truck together with some locals.
Worn out roads
Walking paths or even no roads between the villages
And sketchy looking bridges