T1B

This was posted on a travel message board by a couple who drove a Land Rover across The Congo. They're the first people to drive across The Congo in 20 years. It's very long, but enthralling. I've been reading it in bits and pieces.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/s ... hp?t=50799

You think Indiana's are bad, Spray? You should see Michigan's highways.

(Indiana's off-main drags are pretty atrocious, though)

at first I thought, looks more like I-80 anywhere in PA, but, then I realized that the potholes aren't quite big enough and there are no expansion joints or white tail deer.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:They're the first people to drive across The Congo in 20 years.

ha, i noticed on the map they're basically skirting the southern border. wonder why they made no plans to drive through the northeast...

The border at Kasumbalesa was the usual chaotic affair. Especially the Zambian side proved to be an annoying experience.

zambian customs has to be the worse clusterfuck in the universe, especially if you're trying to bring a car in. every other country i've been through in southern africa checks your passport then sends you to customs to pay a nominal road tax or some shit for your car. 15 minutes at the most. zambia requires about three hours to wait in eight different offices while some fat worthless fuck is in the back eating a cookie or something.

dude, sounds like you're just real shitty at paying the proper bribes up front.

Damn, a Congo-traveling snob? I've officially seen it all.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:This was posted on a travel message board by a couple who drove a Land Rover across The Congo. They're the first people to drive across The Congo in 20 years. It's very long, but enthralling. I've been reading it in bits and pieces.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/s ... hp?t=50799

If you liked that blog, Mgo, you might wanna pick up the book ‘Blood River’ by Tim Butcher. It’s the story of the author retracing the route taken by the earliest explorer to chart the almost 3,000 mile waterway, the Congo River. Possibly the most dangerous country in the world, even today, it is a great read.

M Club wrote:

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:They're the first people to drive across The Congo in 20 years.

ha, i noticed on the map they're basically skirting the southern border. wonder why they made no plans to drive through the northeast...

They didn't want to end up in a stewpot?

smackaholic wrote:dude, sounds like you're just real shitty at paying the proper bribes up front.

what bribes? you don't have to pay bribes unless you're about to go to jail. you still have to get all 428 documents they make you get at the border if roadblocks are set up every 15 miles so they can check and recheck the pile of paper you have to carry around with you. suppose you could just bribe your way through those, but probably just ends up being cheaper to get the documents and wait.

i get a kick out of how you can negotiate bribes down just by saying, "fine, take me to jail then."

Isn't that stretch of Interstate in Arkansas ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ricalton



This guy lived in Waddington NY where my Mother was a little girl. When he died his wife gave my Grandmother a bunch of stuff. I have a hand carved table from India, my sister has a vase and stand from the Empress of China's palace. Once my Mother got out his "Magic lantern slide projector" and we looked at a ton of glass slides of his journeys projected onto our refrigerator door. My Mother gave all the slides and the magic lantern to some museum down in NJ. The guy sure got around in his life.

So what were you doing in the Congo M Club? Big game hunting? Peace Corp? Basketball player hunting? Wife Hunting? National Geographic writer?

i was working as an elections monitor for the UN. that or i've never been to the congo. i ain't fucking around with an actual free market.

So when did he find the time to travel on Indiana's Interstate Highways?

That's nothing. Soon the "roads" turn to this:



And most of the day is spent doing this:



I'm only about 20 pages in though, and there's some foreshadowing as to the roads becoming even more impassable. Seems like a pretty crazy adventure...even if it's merely the southern border.

M Club wrote:i was working as an elections monitor for the UN. that or i've never been to the congo. i ain't fucking around with an actual free market.

Does it still bother you much that you were only a one-term president, Mr. Carter?

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:

So when did he find the time to travel on Indiana's Interstate Highways?

That's nothing. Soon the "roads" turn to this:

i think i read somewhere once that there are only like 500 miles of tarred roads in the entire country.

Seems like a pretty crazy adventure...even if it's merely the southern border.

skirting the southern border was a joke considering all the raping and shooting is going on in the northeast.

I didn't read the portion where taking bullets and cocks was their top travel priority, though if it was, how do you know there was an adequate enough road to traverse starting from the northeast to Kinshasa?

Are those grass clippings?

no, he's just sitting there crying "if i had just listed to paul and installed the UDPs and CAI...i'd have made it another foot or two before becoming stuck till the dry season.

Rack the hell outta 'coogs

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:I didn't read the portion where taking bullets and cocks was their top travel priority, though if it was, how do you know there was an adequate enough road to traverse starting from the northeast to Kinshasa?

there are like six or seven armies operating in the congo as well as quite a bit of mining. something tells me there are roads from the northeast to kinshasha.

mvscal wrote:

M Club wrote:

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:They're the first people to drive across The Congo in 20 years.

ha, i noticed on the map they're basically skirting the southern border. wonder why they made no plans to drive through the northeast...

They didn't want to end up in a stewpot?

Excellent.

Papa Willie wrote:Never been to Michigan, but God help them if they are worse than what I saw in Indy. Mind you, it was about 20 years ago, but I believe it was Hwy 30 between Ft. Wayne & Chicago. I was a nervous fucking wreck after that drive. I've never dodged that many HUGE potholes in my life - and I mean potholes that were big enough to take out your entire chassis, too - like some being 10 feet wide and a foot deep. Just sick!

The problem with US 30 is that it's the only direct route from Ft. Wayne to Chicago and it's just a four-lane divided highway, not an Interstate. I bet 20 years ago when there was still a lot of heavy industry going from Chicago to Ft. Wayne it was even worse. I've been on 30 a few times, but I didn't notice it to be anything out of the ordinary.

M Club wrote:...there are like six or seven armies operating in the congo as well as quite a bit of mining. something tells me there are roads from the northeast to kinshasha.

And cannibals.

mvscal wrote:

M Club wrote:...there are like six or seven armies operating in the congo as well as quite a bit of mining. something tells me there are roads from the northeast to kinshasha.

And cannibals.

Rack Kobe Bryant for doing his part to promote COD: Black Ops

That's actually a really interesting read, the couple seem a bit obnoxious. Their indignation at 'corruption' gets annoying, they come off as really provincial. When they give up the Range Rover, they'll settle down to perfect little technocratic positions in life.

Nice find - I found something similar to that, but from a Ukrainian girl who drives her motorbike into the restricted Chernobyl area. It's fucked up, great pics, really spooky stuff:

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddo ... links.html