13th February 1986 : More Pot and Potholes

Published on 15 February 2026 at 10:45

Walked on with Bob after breakfast, my stomach finally settled after some time. The bird chorus was loud and mixed after the overnight insect hum. It was easier walking than when we continued in the truck on a hellish potholed road with Stanley rocking backwards and forwards and side to side. Being last into the truck I was sitting up the back and got thrown around like a sack of potatoes - very tiring. 

 

Managed to buy some sugar and peanut butter at a shopping stop but my heart not in Zaire market mood.

 

Continued on narrow holed roads, crossing wooden bridges over wide and tiny rivers and creeks, the water looking much cleaner today. Our progress was blocked by a broken-down truck coming in the other direction, so we retreated to the last creek and had lunch and a welcome wash while the road was cleared.

 

Got a seat further up the truck after lunch and read about the Challenger explosion (on 28 January - being pre-internet era, we only became aware of the disaster days after) and then slept, draped in my wet shirt to keep cool. Overhanging foliage came into the side of the truck now-and-then, but my head was below the firing line. Woke up to cooler, late afternoon sun. Saw fewer villages and drove through longer stretches of thick greenery right to the roadside but passed lots of graveyards of one or five or six graves, tiny clearings carved out of the jungle wall like green shaded chapels.

 

Camped in the grounds of a village church, the villagers quickly gathering and inundating us with gifted pawpaws. Smoked some wacky tobacco with birthday boy Jim, but this time didn't enjoy the rushing and falling sensation nearly as much.

 

 

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