We drove on in gentle rain, climbing and descending potholed but firm roads through the mountains, and navigating occasional muddy bogs. Banks of thick mist sat in the valleys, hiding the brown river below us. For a while we drove above the tree line, through hills peppered with shrubs, into cloud, and past a mountain side of almost vertical rock. The few huts we saw, linked by paths worn through the grass, clung to the slopes like periwinkles, fire smoke seeping through thatched roofs like mist. The few people we saw, walking along the roads, were backdropped by spectacular landscapes.
Eventually we reached the valley floor, where we lunched among cow shit with a huge audience of villagers. We tossed our rotten cabbages and potatoes out of the side of the truck.
The weirdness of Zaire accompanied us to the border. The douanes/guards wanted to see my “sac” (bag), then requested our money exchange forms, but then told the people who rocked up with their forms and their "sacs" that he didn't want to see them, asking Jim instead for his money. But he didn’t wat to see US$, he wanted to see his Zaires, which we had just spent. The sanitaire/quarantine man came to the back of the truck asking for our vaccination certificates and got such resounding silence in reply that he left us and retreated to his desk, whereupon we drove on unimpeded. Wondered about his level of job satisfaction faced with our blank stares and lack of cooperation.
A few minutes at the Burundi border put us in a new country, the beautiful hills of Zaire and 27 days of wonderful and weird experiences behind us.
Camped in the lovely grounds of the Centre de Nautic Sportif, on a Lake Tanganyika beach. Everyone was high for some reason, and our dinner preparations were great fun, beneath a sky splashed with whites, greys, pinks and oranges and cottonwool clouds on the Zaire hills. We ventured close to the water to watch the sunset, hoping to see hippos, but although we saw their tracks, no animals showed themselves.
Two of the centre’s men were paid to guard us overnight and their shadows stood behind us as we wrote in the cook tent. Two friendly camp dogs attached themselves to us for the duration of our stay.
Add comment
Comments