The Heart of Darkness

Toto made the rains sounds like so much fun. Toto lied.

To travel up the West Coast of Africa there are many hurdles, but there are three or four that stand out.  If you time things right, you can minimise these headaches, but if you time it wrong, you have to deal with Central Africa in the wet season and the Sahara in the summer.  I have timed it wrong.

The first major hurdle to be faced is finding a way across the Congo River. The second is finding a way through the sloppy roads of the Congo jungle to Gabon or Cameroon.  The third, is the persistent need to obtain expensive visas in advance, which instead of wading through mud and rain, necessitates wading through bureaucratic bullshit. 

The Calm (and Storms) Before the Storm

Before leaving Namibia, I had to spend a few days on the Kavango river bordering Angola, waiting for the visa.  These days were spent at Camp Hogo fishing, weathering the daily storms and playing drinking games with the elderly Afrikaner proprietors, O’Pa and O’Ma (as they liked to be called).  O’pa had the look of a retired steam locomotive engineer, always sporting a dark battered flat cap and a button-up collared shirt that managed to appear loose fitting, whilst also spanning his not insignificant (but well-carried) beer belly.  When O’Pa wasn’t propping up the bar, drawing firm gulps from pint-sized handles, he pottered about the camp with two dogs, one that was the spitting image of Tintin’s Snowy and the other a dark disagreeable Dachshund that never warmed to anyone but the old couple.  

Though she had a perpetual air of worn-out exasperation, O’Ma was sturdy, and committed to her daily mission of pouring you a handle as early as possible.  Though she was a perfect host, I never could quite avoid feeling guilty whenever I ordered some food, or did something that prompted action on her part.  I found myself offering to help out around the place, though I was never allowed to. 

The pair were homely, welcoming and romantically old school, though with a hard edge, like you might imagine your Grandparents if they owned a bar at the edge of the world.  Very early one morning I woke to the sound of an ‘air raid’ alarm followed by a couple of gunshots.  I had thought maybe O’Pa had gotten up early to shoot birds or something in the river reeds, but over the braai that night he told me that the alarm was for the bar and the gunshots were for the blacks.

The highlight was playing Knobbe, a drinking game that involved rolling three dice in thick leather cups, bottle caps, a dried out bone and a potent liqueur dubbed ‘Crocodile Piss’, home made by O’Pa with condensed milk and vodka.  We were joined by O’Pa and O’Ma’s friends, Johan and Hanties.  Johan was round faced and stocky, though he managed to jump a clear metre in the air when a snake slithered through the bar.  Hanties was a wiry mechanic who’d led a hard life and looked it, though he never stopped laughing or smiling once and enthusiastically looked over the Baja for me for free.  Knobbe was ostensibly a game of chance, though as the beginner I found myself getting the bone (losing) a lot.  There was a constant twinkle in O’Pa’s eyes as we played and he would whisper to the dice in his leather cup before each turn, which had an uncanny knack of turning up the goods.  All the while, O’Ma kept the ledger a few metres down the bar, her silent smoking and book-keeping interrupted only by cackling fits as the newbie copped the bone.  Later in the night, I was challenged by Hanties to a round of Kavango-Lotto.  Also ostensibly one of chance, I was informed that this new game involved wrapping one’s tackle in tin-foil and swimming (the 100 metres) across the river.  As Hanties chucklingly put it, “if you make it to the other side and a tiger-fish hasn’t bitten off your #@$&, you win!”

It was a wickedly fun night and in the morning I had the hangover and bar tab to prove it.

Whilst I declined Hanties’ offer for a round of Kavango Lotto, my main objective whilst staying at Camp Hogo was actually to catch a tiger-fish.  A devotee of River Monsters and having had a ferocious strike not hook up on the Zambesi (think the strike of a trout, but with the weight and strength of a cod), I was desperate to add this fish to my line-up.  Every afternoon I spent a couple of hours dragging a lure through the swollen waters of the Kavango to no avail.  It was a very nice few days though.  Each evening I would stand on the bank flicking a lure, with the sun setting over Namibia, watching storm after colossal dark storm roll in from Angola.  Each day the storms came in and the water level of the river rose, surging its way inland to flood the Delta.

The Wet

                In a way, heading into Angola felt like the beginning of the adventure, even though I’d been on the bike almost two months by then. Cam had opted to ship the Badger from Namibia to Ghana (check out his latest blog here), so the Baja and I were now going it alone. With a cache of US dollars and fuel, the Baja and I rode into Angola and before long were cruising along the ‘wrong’ side of the road through the jungle past rusting army tanks and waving locals. However, eventually we rode into the rain and got wet. Really wet. This wasn’t unexpected, but I decided to head for the arid coast to defer the rain as long as possible. The difference between the two was pretty clear cut. After about half an hour, there was an incredible road that traversed an escarpment down to the desert. Descending out of the cloud and the forest, the rain stopped and before long I was tearing through the desert.

The destination was Namibe, on the coast. Specifically, the Flamingo Hotel, which had been recommended as a great fishing destination and a ‘do not miss’, despite the serious ‘off-road’ trail to get in. So, later than I would have liked, I headed out of Namibe into the desert. I found the ‘turn off’, which was a very generous way to describe the trail. The trail was actually 20kms of old river bed and after less than a kilometre of urging the screaming Baja through deep sand, I was exhausted and out of my depth.  I contemplated the setting sun and my low fuel, water and food levels and decided to use the Baja’s inappropriate tyres to beat a retreat on the tarmac. 

Back in Namibe, a little rattled by the stupidity of having underestimated the desert, I took a walk along the waterfront where the Angolans of Namibe were giving a new meaning to the phrase ‘a day at the beach’.  The sand was a-riot, writhing with lithe, beautiful Angolan bodies. The beach was alive with Afrobeats pumping, beach soccer raging, wrestling, dancing, drinking, shouting, canoodling and frolicking in the waves (though never beyond waste deep), with the thousands of revellers somehow dodging all the broken glass.  Being a former Portugese colony, Angola has also adopted the bright and cheeky Brazilian style of bikini bottom, which when combined with African booty, is quite a thing.  The beach also tipped its hat to the country’s communist past, with rusting junks stranded nostalgically in the more remote stretches, free for the kids to play on.  I bought myself a boiled crab (which I was to later regret) and watched the sunset, reflecting that Namibe wasn’t such a bad second to the Hotel Flamingo. 

But, not to be beaten, the following day I arranged for the hotel manager to meet me at the tarmac to give the ‘trail’ another crack, unladen.  Again, about a kilometre in, I was stuck and feeling defeated.  However, with some kindly words of encouragement lisped in Portugese (“…mois rapido, rapido..!) and a bit of a push from the manager, I gave the Baja a lashing and found myself plane-ing over the sand.  This was my first real experience of deep sand and I realised that the quicker I went, the more (relatively) stable it was.  It was frightening at first, but after a while, in between waves of cold adrenaline washing through my limbs, the sensation of ballooning over the riverbed, ruts and corrugations, through licks of fine, dusty stuff and churning up the rocky gravel, became amazing.  The final stretch was through the dunes and along the beach to the bluff of the hotel.  The Baja ate this up with a satisfying guttural BRAA-AAP and I made the hotel, where the manager cheering away enveloped me in an ample celebratory hug.  It was a high.

At the Flamingo, I met two South Africans (Emile and Henri) from the fishing industry, who were incredibly friendly and happily took me for some beach fishing.  I always find with lure fishing, that it doesn’t work until it suddenly does.  So, standing on the beach (recalling the unfulfilled attempts at the Kavango), I didn’t expect much.  But then, I caught a Kobbe!  The Kobbe, I was to discover, is one of the most delicious of all fish. A just reward for persistence.

Throughout Angola, I was following an itinerary recommended by a Mr Joost Weterings a friend of Mr Mick Caffery, who is a friend of Michael Blicblau (who, if you are lucky enough to not know, is a Queen’s and MUHC man and the bloke who carried my sickly arse through the South of the US and Cuba).  Mick drove the length of Africa a few years ago and has been amazingly generous with his advice.  Joost, who at that point did not know me from a bar of soap, was also hugely generous with his advice and assistance.  He wrote me a letter of invitation to Angola to get the visa and invited me to stay at his place in Luanda.  I’m always blown away by how far people will go to assist others travelling abroad and this seems to be particularly true in Africa.  It’s like the difficulties of living and travelling in this continent band people together.  In the last two months I’ve had a huge amount of help from great people. In fact, I’ve barely paid a night’s accommodation, usually staying with expat mates-of-mates and Couchsurf hosts. 

A good example of this was Emile and Henri, who before we left Flamingo, (unsolicited) lined me up some accommodation with their colleague Mario, further up the Coast.  We convoyed out of the desert up the beach on the wet sand (much easier than the riverbed), they shouted me a breakfast burrito and I was on my way again.

I was heading for Benguela and I had left Namibe too late.  Most of the road was great, but about 180kms from Benguela, the road got agricultural.  It was a scraggy track through the wilderness, punctuated by concrete bridges standing lonely and unnecessarily across dry valleys. These were somewhat connected by a decrepit gravel strip jotted loosely between them, but completely unmaintained and vainly barricaded by high mounds every 100 metres.  I was later to discover that this road had been this way 5 years, since a Chinese project had all the money vanish.  It didn’t take long to realise that the better route was to follow the scraggy bush track which sewed the failed project together.  It was a rough road, but a fun one.

Riding on dirt has been a relatively new thing for me and I’ve discovered that there is this kind of single-point-focus meditation that comes from it.  Tearing down the road, you purely concentrate on every rock and pothole, and get into a sort of mechanical groove that is weirdly relaxing, even though your body pays for it later. 

About an hour in, my meditation was interrupted by a growing slushiness in the rear of the bike. I pulled up and with dread realised that I’d blown the rear tyre and it was deflating fast.  I had a spare tube, but no way to inflate it.  I could manage only about 10-15km/h limping the Baja on the flat, which I calculated would have me in the next town in about 8 hours.  So, I resigned myself to a night in the bush, fired off a text to Mario that I would be late and hobbled on with the Baja.

After about half an hour, I came across a ute going the other way.  In sympathy, they gave me some water and a banana and sped off.  Then an hour after that, another ute pulled up, this time travelling my way.  Two Angolans stared at me incredulously and shouted a bunch of stuff in Portugese.  After a bit of a debate between them, they agreed to throw the Baja into the back of the ute.  We shuffled sacks of bananas, tomatoes and other assorted fruit and veg out of the way, strapped the Baja in and away we went at a breakneck speed.  I clung on for dear life in the back of the ute, munching on bruised groceries in between arse bruising bumps. 

Before long, we encountered a similar ute travelling in the other direction.  Both utes came skidding to a halt and the three men jumped out and began shouting Portugese at each other in a manner that I eventually realised was friendly.  Apparently, the ute coming the other way contained the Patron (which if you watch Narcos or drink a lot of tequila, will know means ‘Boss’).  The Boss was very impressed by the initiative taken by his employees to pick up a foreigner and his stricken motorcycle whilst on the job.  The Boss also came bearing chicken and wine.  Before long, we had hacked up some water bottles for cups and a full blown chicken and wine party was happening in the middle of the road.  Though they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Portugese we managed to have a spirited discussion about a) how good chicken and wine is; b) my trip, and; c) the fruit and veg business.  I never did get to the bottom of why the Boss was also transporting bananas, tomatoes and the same fruit and veg back the way we had come from, and why his wife (who was sitting in the passenger side of the ute the whole time) was so pissed off.  Though I suspect the latter may have had something to do with having to wait while the boys had a chicken and wine party with the hairy foreigner, rather than getting home asap.

Similar encounters continued throughout the evening (without the chicken and wine) and I realised that it is customary for Angolans travelling on remote roads to stop and have a big discussion whenever they encounter any other vehicle.  Either that, or these blokes knew every other person travelling that road.  Maybe both.  We eventually hit tarmac and with a shared wine glow sped through the scrubby hills with the sun setting.  I smiled to myself how fortunes change so quickly and although you may not realise it at first, it's not always for the worst.  Without ever asking for payment, the ute boys drove me all the way to the turn off to Mario’s place, where he was waiting with another ute and a fancy dinner.

Mario runs a fishing plant in Baia Farta, owns an awesome black Royal Enfield (which I’ve wanted ever since I went to India) and is currently training to climb Everest.  His Facebook cover page reads “somewhere, somebody is working harder than you”.  He is a machine and incredibly generous.  Mario hosted me for a couple of days, which we spent riding, working on the bikes and checking out the fishing plant.  I have no doubt that were it not for the ute boys, he would have driven out to pick me up, even though it would have taken him all night.  What a legend.  I spent a few days with him, before hitting the road again.  

From Baia Farta I ventured back inland, where lo-and-behold, it was still raining heavily.  I rode through some beautiful territory, camped and got wet.  Before long, I decided it was back to the (relatively) dry coast to the beautiful bay Cabo Ledo and its lovely bungalow style resort, Carpe Diem.  There was surfing, great food and the ocean was literally teaming with fish.  When swimming one day, I thought it was raining, before realising it was in fact just thousands of tiny fish nipping the surface.  Watch the ocean from the beach and you would see a fish jump every few seconds.  Each day the sun would set over a point down the bay, where thousands of swallows nest.  Lying on the grass one evening, a few beers on board, one of the managers contentedly summed up swallows perfectly, “they fly so nice…”  In what by now should not have been surprising, Paulo, Dan and Dio the owners and managers hosted me beautifully, allowing me to camp for free and eventually presenting me with only a fraction of the food/drink bill that I’m sure I accumulated. 

Only very recently (September 2017), a new President of Angola was elected (the previous bloke had been there 25 years) and he has massively opened the country up for travellers.  I can highly recommend going.  It’s friendly, its beautiful and its unspoilt.

I was eventually joined at Cabo Ledo by my new travelling buddy, Bastien.  Bastien is also heading north up the West Coast of Africa on a 250cc motorbike.  He’s French, though has spent the last few years working as a pilot in the Okavango Delta.  We met over Facebook and given the above anticipated hurdles, we decided to team up for a bit.  He is incredibly positive, adventurous and helpfully in Francophone West Africa, he speaks French.  We make a good team.

The Wait

Begrudgingly, we left behind the beautiful beach to ride into the chaos and grubbiness of Luanda, where Joost was to be our gracious host.  Joost grew up in Zimbabwe and was educated in England.  He has a Firth-class* accent, is an irreproachable gent and takes genuine pleasure hosting travellers.  Having worked in a variety of interesting and adventurous places throughout Africa and the world, including a stint as a safari guide, he now runs a successful pan-African insurance brokerage from Luanda with his brother.  I don’t care what you think, insurance is cool.

(*pun intended)

Luanda started out well, with Bastien and I easily getting Gabon visas and getting involved in the Carnaval.  Our lovely new friends Ninda and Paola, took us to the beach, out for a fish lunch, then down to the parade.  It was a nice way to create some good memories of Luanda, before the frustration that was to come. 

As mentioned previously, a big hurdle heading up the West Coast of Africa is the Congo River.  This can be done overland through the DRC, but we hadn’t taken on the three week headache of getting this visa back in Namibia and it wasn’t possible to do so in Angola.  It can also be done by travelling to a separate part of Angola, north of the river, called Cabinda.  We had heard reports from Travellers coming south from Cabinda that they had skipped the DRC and gotten over the river by taking a flight on a military cargo plane (see for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTkezaePjB0).  We hadn’t heard of anyone doing it north, but we figured that in theory it should be possible.

So we rolled up to the military airbase, knocked on the gate and tried to get it done.  On each occasion, we were told that “it is possible, but [insert one of the following excuses here]”;

1. The plane goes this afternoon/tomorrow;

2. The plane has been sent to Benguela/Cabinda/somewhere else to fly supplies for a surprise presidential visit;

3. The plane has a VIP load of football (read: soccer) players.

The key thing is here, that we were never told ‘no’ or ‘maybe’.  On every occasion, the answer was always, “yes, yes, certainly, just not right now…”.  In fact, we were actually told again and again, “you are definitely on a plane today”.  It would usually go along the lines of, the night before – “the flight leaves tomorrow morning, be near the airport around 6am”, then at 6am – “the flight has been delayed until later today, but don’t worry, you are definitely on it, you have been put on the manifest…etc’, then that afternoon – “the plane had to go to XXX city/the plane is currently in XXX but its raining there, but it will be back soon and you will go tonight”. 

As you might guess, the frustrating thing about this was not the wait, or not getting what we wanted, but the constant rubbish, yet convincing promises.  Day after day was wasted, as we accepted the excuses for why it didn’t happen last time and the promise that it would happen this time.  I have reflected on this and I’m assured by those working/living in Angola that this is a cultural thing and not necessarily about self-gain.  Angolans love to help out, so it is more a matter of face.  They did not want to say they couldn’t help and probably genuinely wanted to, but this prevented being up-front about their real ability to assist.  In the moment, it felt a lot like lies, but after a few deep breaths I resigned myself that it was just another of those many things you have to accept is a part of Africa.  One thing I have gotten used to is that in response to most requests you will get an immediate knee-jerk 'yes that is possible', or 'no that is not possible'.  This response usually bears no resemblance to what is actually possible and only after three or more requests, put in different probing ways, or several days of testing the request, will you get an idea of the true situation.  It’s just Africa.

But this aside, the week-long struggle to catch the military plane in fact turned up a big highlight.  In our recurring wait, we found that the KFC just down the road from the military base was the most comfortable spot to wait, as it had air-conditioning, a roof to protect from the rain and fried chicken.  On about day 4 we were just hanging out at KFC waiting pointlessly for a phone call when we were approached by a local named Helder.  His young son in tow, Helder informed us that he was a biker and that he was very interested in our bikes and our trip.  Before long we had recounted our difficulties getting the cargo plane and crossing the Congo River.  Eager to help out, he told us that he was part of a biker club and that he was sure the club President could help out.  The club President, we were told, had friends high up in the military.

So, it was following this lead that we found ourselves at a Sunday afternoon biker pool party in the suburbs.  The President of the Papoites bike club was Carlos, a former military and government man, turned privateer and biker clubman.  Before long, Carlos was on the phone to an Airforce General from the club and the problem appeared solved.  We became honorary members and were bestowed stickers for the bikes and shirts for ourselves.  We spent the next few days in the same process, but this time from the comfort of Carlos’ pad, enjoying his fantastic hospitality, his pool and his shed to work on the bikes.  In the end, even with this great contact, time and the impending expiration of my visa got the better of us and we had to go for plan B.  I do wonder though, if we had had Carlos on our side from the get-go whether the military cargo plane would have been possible.

Plan B was riding to Soyo and putting the bikes on shanty boats over the Congo River and getting a short flight to meet them on the other side (it was prohibited for foreigners to take the boats, due to the odd sinking).  Carlos lined us up with the Papoites Vice-President, Basilio, who was the head of security at the Soyo petroleum refinery.  Basilio is a big man with a big heart and upon arriving in Soyo we were scooped up in his hospitality.  He arranged passage for the bikes and the next day had us on a flight over the river, a tiny 10 seater prop (that had Bastien fanboying).  He also lined up a customs man to make sure we got our bikes on the other side. 

Recovering the bikes did however come with the standard amount of stuffing about, which mainly consisted of a head-to-head with the local ‘shanty-boat unloaders union/cartel‘ (SBUUC), an action that was in the end elegantly diffused by Bastien.  The beach where the boats landed may well be the worst, most disgusting beach I have ever seen (though I will say that as night darkened, the myriad of gas flares from all the offshore oil rigs pricking through the sunset was actually quite pretty, in its own way).  The boats had to wend their way through the shallows, which were littered with rusting scuttled junks and the SBUUC men had to toe their way across the beach, which was little more than a rubbish tip.  The beach and shallows were so filthy that when Bastien joined ranks with the SBUUC and started unloading the boats in bare feet, the ‘union men' were so worried that he would hurt himself on all the glass and refuse that they agreed to unload the bikes free of charge.  My heart was in my mouth as ten blokes carried the Baja through the salty shallows onto the beach where she started first go.  By the time we were on our way, Bastien was a serious candidate for Union President.  I admired the way he had creatively and amiably resolved the situation, and wished I’d also been as willing to put my feet on the line.

The Wade

The worry about wet season in Africa was always more than simply getting wet.  The worry was central African mud.

My research told me that the worst unavoidable stretch of road was going to be getting out of the Congo.  There seemed to be three ways, each of them through the Congo jungle into either Gabon or Cameroon.  The shortest stretch also happened to be the least out of the way, so that was what we went for.  I had been in touch with an American mate Patric in the weeks prior and he described ‘puddles’ like river crossings and having had his engine completely submerged on at least 4 occasions.  He described 200kms of serious off-road, followed by a nightmare 40kms of slop after crossing into Gabon.  So in preparation, I figured the Baja needed a tyre upgrade from on-roads, to off-road ‘knobblies’.  Conveniently, there was a Yamaha tyre shop in Pointe Noire, though I recoiled somewhat at the quoted $500 for a new set, particularly as they were only going to be really needed for 40kms.  However, in a massive stroke of luck, the shop’s proprietor took pity on me and gifted a pair of his barely used knobblies for free!

So, we struck for the border and after a minor (unwarranted) spat with a roadside tyre guy, we hit the dirt.  We covered about 100km’s to the ‘town’ of Kibangou where, in an extraordinary instance of serendipity, Bastien had realised a mate of his, Sylvan, was staying on business.  If you could see Kibangou, you would appreciate how random this was.  Kibangou was literally a blink-and-you’ll miss-it, collection of three of four buildings and a smattering of mud huts, in the middle of the Congo wilderness.  At first I wondered what ‘business’ there could be in Kibangou and figured that Sylvan must be an ivory smuggler.  Far less dramatically, it turned out he was there investigating the prospect of a small-scale farming project (or so he says…). We arrived just in time to share a beer with him and the chief, and apparently this was one of the more momentous things to happen in the village this year.  We we found ourselves with an audience witnessing the spectacle of us drinking a beer and copping a lecture from the chief for failing to have yet produced progeny.

The following morning, before we set out, we took breakfast in a small mud hut, which consisted of scrambled eggs, bread and coffee from a bowl.  Don’t anybody steal my idea of reproducing this for the hipster brunch crowd in Brunswick at about $50-65 a pop.  The road continued as normal for a short while before it started becoming wetter and wetter.  Still 80kms from the frontier and the dreaded sloppy 40kms, we figured it wouldn’t last long.  We were wrong. 

This 30k stretch had copped a downpour overnight and it was diabolical.  There was a 70 metre stretch of water, twice during which my engine went under, the Baja choked a little and I thought I was stuffed.  We then found ourselves in shin-deep sticky mud for kilometres.  We were reduced to wading pace and the bikes were screaming.  On two occasions, I went over, face first flat in the mud.  I managed to squirm my may from under the Baja, slowly lift her up and take the opportunity to scrape kilos of mud from around the wheels, chain and engine with a tyre iron.  I lost both my mirrors going over this way.

At long last, I found a stretch of relatively dry stuff on an incline, propped the bike stand on a rare bit of solid rock and waited for Bastien to catch up.  I waited and waited, until Bastien came walking round the bend, without his bike.  I plodded back to meet him and he told me that his clutch was cooked.  We checked it out and indeed it was, right next to another logging truck that had suffered a similar fate.  Bastien couldn’t believe that he was only 100 odd metres from clearing the mud.  Our plan involved me riding on ahead to the next town to organise a truck, whilst Bastien waited to flag anything down in the meantime, which he successfully did.

I waited in the next town (the final before the frontier and the dreaded 40kms) and eventually Bastien arrived in a 4wd, with his bike perched on top.  As we figured he would be quicker in the truck, I pushed on to stay at the border and get a head start on the Gabonese stretch in the morning.  Despite, setting out with clear skies and an hour and a half of sunlight, of course before long the rains came down again.  Even though they were light, I began to appreciate how the horror stretch of mud had come about.  The bright red clay that when dry made for some great rally riding, with the slightest of moisture instantly turned glossy and slippery.  With a little more wet, it became this horribly sticky material that clogged the tyre tread and reduced you to a snail’s pace.  Mercifully, the rain remained light and I made the ‘frontier’ on sunset.

The ‘frontier’ was little more than another collection of huts.   The border man, stamped my passport that night so that I could head off whenever I wanted the following day.  I had bread and a beer for dinner and paid too much for a mattress in a mosquito-filled brick shed. 

The following morning, I was up early and struck out through a deep foggy mist.  I lifted the border gate myself (as everybody else still seemed to be asleep) and entered Gabon to do battle with the dreaded 40kms.

Of course, this was nowhere near as bad as anticipated.  Yes, the road was a warzone of mud filled craters and I would not have liked to be on 4 wheels, but this stretch was actually much easier than the mud from the previous day.  I think the quality of the entire 200kms came down to how recently it had rained, so given the season we actually got relatively lucky, though it had been a pig of a road.  There were a few bogholes I had to wade through first to check for depth, but they were nothing the Baja couldn’t deal with.  By mid-morning I hit the tarmac (which I kissed) and looking like a mud monster and reeking of a fetid swamp, went looking for immigration in the next town.

Coming Soon

I’m now in Nigeria, a couple of weeks ahead of where I’ve ended this blog.  Mainly because it’s too damn long already, as I’ve been overdue to write for a few weeks.  Basically, I’ve been having too many adventures and too much fun to chain myself to the laptop.  So, it won’t be long ‘til the next instalment which catches up to where I am and will recount more battles with Africa.

Thanks for reading this far, I’ve thrown up some photos from Angola, Congo and Gabon.  There was no room for the SLR on the Baja, so don’t expect the same quality as Namibia.  Most of them (if not all) were taken on an iPhone from the Baja.  I’m going to say that this was a deliberate and edgy artistic decision to draw the viewer into feeling something of life from the bike…

Slowly but surely, progress is being made.

Love,

Stu