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Blog 76 by Tan: Cameroonian Christmas The next morning, we woke up and casually packed before tracking down some breakfast and heading for the border. Although we’d had some memorable experiences in the country, I can’t say I was sad to be leaving Republic of Congo. The obvious highlight of traveling RoC was taking our new friend Jack to visit the Bayaka, and it more than made up for any of the challenges we had faced. However, our time in both Congos had been intense. We were looking forward to moving on to something different and hopefully a bit easier. Souanke – Republic of Congo. Sadly, we didn’t stay long enough to get the measure of the place. According to my reading, Cameroon was described as 'Africa in miniature' based on its geographical and cultural diversity. We saw it as a gateway between Central Africa and West Africa, and a kind of fusion of the two. We couldn't have been keener to get there. Fun fact - Cameroon was named by a Portuguese sailor who arrived at a river in Douala and noticed it was full of prawns, so he called it Rio Dos Camarones (River of Prawns). Let's face it, ...

I Believe an Update is in Order Well, well, well…look who finally showed up to this dust-covered, moth-balled blog of ol’. That’s right, after an insanely long hiatus, we are back! This extensive break from blogging was never supposed to last so long. In fact, finishing writing up at least the Africa part of our trip had been my New Year’s resolution for the past 2 years. But in the grand tradition of New Year’s resolutions, its come to nothing. But alas, I am giving in another crack before the ravages of time further erode our memory of events. This blog, after all, is our attempt to record the memories of our grand adventure so it will serve as our memento of the trip and that time in our lives where we threw caution to the wind, worked and saved then lived out a dream of motorbiking the world. For those of you who’ve stuck around, we issue a hearty, fond hello! Perhaps a recap of what’s gone on since returning to Oz is in order before jumping back to our African travels. After riding across Australia, we returned to our home base of Perth, Western Australia. The timing of ...

Blog 74 by Tan: Adventures With Opera Jack – Part 3 After spending the day in the village, we decided to go ahead and stay another night in order to hear some of this singing we had heard so much about. We also wanted a little more time to see Jack nicely settled. It was a brave thing for him to be doing and we had just met we wanted to make sure he would be well looked after all the way out in the forest. Morning breaks. Funny how closely our tent resembled the traditional dwellings. Morning chill session. Our trail back to the logging roads. Jack informed us the BaAka enjoyed few things more than singing…. listening to themselves singing is one of those things. Jack also told us that Louis Sarno had told him the forest people he lives with also enjoy watching his DVDs. The standout favourite film in his village is The Terminator. Jack playing songs of Aka from Central African Republic. Child rearing is a communal affair and as is common throughout Africa, kids play a central role. Here you can see this young girl has had her teeth filed. Most places in African ...

Blog 74 by Tan: Adventures With Opera Jack – Part 2 The next morning we rode the short distance to the BaAka settlement and met Jenga, the village chief once more. As Jack had informed us the BaAka are considered by anthropologists to be one of the most egalitarian societies ever studied and considerably more so than our own western cultures. Sharing, cooperation, and autonomy are front and centre of BaAka core values. More signs of malnutrition in these kids. Sad. Quite a different look to the nearby Bantu village. The dwellings were more rudimentary and easily assembled and disassembled when it came time to move on. Having a designated chief is a relatively recent development and one thrust on them by the outside Bantu tribes. Formerly decisions were reached by consensus and there wasn’t an individual leader as such. However as the Bantu tribes came to dominate the BaAka group, Bantu traditions of having a single authority figure to serve as the point of contact have became the norm. Jenga, as chief, was the only member of the tribe with closed in shoes and corrugated iron on his hut. It was he who dealt with the neighbouring chief, but ...

Blog 74 by Tan: Adventures With Opera Jack – Part 1 So there we were in Ouesso in the far northwest of Republic of Congo. We had no plans to stay. We were only there to get enough fuel and oil to see us across the border into Cameroon that same day. We were focused. We were determined. And then we were totally spun out to see a young white guy in a cap, walking down the street. Smooth tar for the efficient extraction of natural resources. Wow. Cynicism from the first photo. It really isn’t the part of the world you expect to see tourists so we couldn’t help but wonder what on Earth this guy was doing here. We figured he had to be either an NGO worker or a missionary. However before we got a chance to stop and ask, the fella was gone. It seemed a mystery that would remain unsolved. We got to the service station, filled up, bought a snack and were about to jump on the bikes when mystery young foreign bloke walks through the door. Not far from Ouesso, our fuel stop before the border. “We know what we are doing here, ...

Blog 73 by Tan: Seeing the Wood For the Trees The Brazzaville side of the river was a breeze in comparison to the Kinshasa side. There were nowhere near the number of police, immigration and customs people around and things were a lot less hectic. One of Boris’s E.C Air employees was already on the Brazza side waiting to help us with our paperwork. After grabbing our passports and documents he disappeared for 20 minutes or so only to emerge with papers in hand and approval for us to move on. We were on our way. Kinshasa and Brazzaville were like night and day. Brazza’a population at just over 5 million making it positively sleepy in comparison to Kin. While we loved the energy of Kin, the calm vibes of Brazzaville were a welcome change. We were exhausted, both physically and mentally. We had been getting by in Kinshasa by the enthusiasm of our bike club mates and by the need to get things done. Now with visas in order for the road ahead, the bikes running well and our friends in Kin gone, we crashed. The rival cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa facing off across the Congo River. One ...

Blog 72 by Tan: Kin la Belle And just like that, we were in Kinshasa. With so much of our efforts and attentions dedicated to getting our bikes and selves to Kinshasa, we realised we hadn’t put all that much thought into what we would actually do there. We knew we needed to sort out a visa for Republic of Congo but beyond that there was little on our agenda. After our eventful slog across country the most immediate requirement was a long sleep-in in air-conditioned comfort. The next day we woke up just in time to hit the breakfast buffet and soon enough we were once again in the company of some members of what has to be the most enthusiastic and welcoming motorbike club getting around. Christine and Patrick picked us up and took us to the office of yet another bike club member who works in logistics for an airline and freight company. Boris was going to help us organise getting our bikes across the river to Brazzaville. We had made the decision to take a pass on riding the off-road route that goes from Kinshasa to Luouzi. This route is a common one for Overlanders as ...

Blog 71 by Mick: Day 8 on the Dirt – The Last of the N1… Day 8, and final day, of off-road riding 115km off-road and 102km on-road from the Construction Camp to Kikwit We were relaxed when we left. We had been reliably informed by the guys in the construction camp that Kikwit was only about 8 or 9 hours away by car depending on the efficiency of the many checkpoints, including both the necessary paperwork and inevitable shakedown we would have to endure. We hoped and expected that on the bikes it would only be about 6 hours; we would not only be able to travel faster on the track but expected to weasel our way through the bribery game a little faster than the SinoHydro guys who have such a huge target on their backs. So we gave ourselves a casual morning start and left around 11am, far more pleasant than the 7 and 8am starts we had been enduring on the trail. We got out the gate and straight into it… some deep sandy ruts which were thankfully reasonably firm from the overnight rain. There was a village in a river valley about 2km away which ...

Blog 70 by Tan: Day 7 (pm) on the Dirt - The Great Road of China Following on from the last post: But first a bit on the Chinese in Africa. We have previously been asked by blog followers of our opinion on the ‘Chinese in Africa’ and now (and blogs to follow) seems a good time to answer. Chinese activity on the African continent is a hot topic at the moment and a subject I am quite interested in. Unfortunately a lot of what you come across on the subject is remarkably rubbish reporting – totally partial, wracked with hypocrisy and for this day and age surprisingly riddled with borderline or outright race based prejudices. But what is certain is that China represents an alternative to the status quo of business, power and diplomacy in Africa. This makes them unpopular with many and results in accusations of ‘neo-colonialism’ rather hilariously levelled by actual former colonisers in Africa, aiming to do the same thing as the Chinese. But of course when they do it, it is called business or globalisation. We stopped for a bit of lunch, crackers and a tin of tuna. And soon enough some bike porters accumulated ...

Blog 69 by Tan: Day 7 (am) on the Dirt – DRC, Where a Half Day is a Full Blog Day 7 of off road riding 178km from unknown slightly larger village to ‘the Camp’ Our progress for the day. We woke to the sound of enthusiastic chatter outside the tent long before the alarm clock chimed. We slept soundly but not nearly enough to fully replenish the batteries, but likely enough to get us through another day’s riding. We groggily started packing up our gear from inside the tent while mentally preparing ourselves for an onslaught of excited villagers the moment we stepped outside. Sure enough a sizable crowd had amassed once more to greet and gawk at us. Thankfully, it seemed a good amount of the village had already gone off to start their day’s labours so there weren’t nearly as many people as the night we arrived. Once more the mood was friendly and curious and we thought how fortunate we were to have stumbled across this unusually welcoming village right on sundown. Luck had been very much on our side the whole time we’d been in DRC. We couldn’t help but note our good fortune and ...