rootsinafrica's blog

We saw the skyline of Brazzaville, the stepsister of Kinshasa, from the ferry and felt very exited to start the next leg of our trip. If we thought the embarking of the ferry was chaotic, the disembarkation was nothing short of sheer hell. It was absolutely impossible to move and what made matters worse was that most of the ground section was loaded with at least 100 bicycle type carriages carrying hoards of

As you will notice, our site was not updated for a while and this was due partly to non availability of connections and partly to the fact that we had a hard time surviving. But, at the end, we are well and ready for the next chapter.

We finally made the border crossing in a record time of 1hr45min, and entered the DRC at Matadi with trepidation. Other than slow motion officials, we had no problems at the border with the officials. Great was our surprise to see the amazing Congo river and low and behold……for the first time since before Angola, a huge BRIDGE !!!!,  and an amazing one to boot.

The following are some stats as well as some info that might be helpful to future travelers:

We managed an early start from Ambriz, anticipating a long day of bad roads, and we were not disappointed. We averaged 24 km per hour for just over 9 hours, which included an enforced passport and visa inspection stop. We 'negotiated" for 45 minutes with a uniformless official, who eventually wanted us to pay US$ 150 for some imaginary offence - but refused to issue us with a receipt! So we took our chances, and simplygot back in the car and drove off!

We traveled for 4 ½ hrs and then realized we would not make the secret bush camp south of Nzeto, as once again the roads were worse than we thought, and it was getting dark earlier and earlier as we traveled north. Fate was on our side; however, as we decided to take the turnoff to Ambriz, as someone at some stage mentioned that it was a nice coastal town. The little side road, needless to say, also quickly deteriorated,

We had been told to stop on our way in to Luanda at the newest , fanciest shopping centre, Bellas, and so in the notorious Luanda traffic, we nosed our way into an area just south of Luanda, that consisted of brand new housing complexes, office parks, and a shopping centre of Canal Walk-like proportions. It was totally disorientating to park in a

The following are some stats as well as some info that might be helpful to future travelers:

The following are some stats as well as some info that might be helpful to future travelers:

The following are some stats as well as some info that might be helpful to future travelers: