What a Ride

Traveling in Congo is always interesting, but this truck trip was really unique. Our Saturday journey started out at the riverbank crossing in a dugout canoe equipped with an outboard motor. The ride is rather short but refreshing none the less. Immigration and customs consists of two wooden shacks on the side of the river. The process went smoothly and surprisingly expediently. All of our trunks, bags , backpacks and selves loaded into an open truck to meet our driver and Land Cruiser on the other side of the broken bridge about 40 km away.  What a wild ride that was – 4 mondelas (white people) and a few Africans bouncing down the red clay road - what a site we were indeed.

At the rendez vous point I could immediately see the collapsed bridge which had been destroyed In January by an overloaded truck. Foot traffic, bicycles and motorbikes are the only means of travel over the bridge.  All the cargo was unloaded, reloaded and we were on our way again.  Every inch of space was taken up by people and baggage- we were literally “packed” into this vehicle. Mind you, this is not a smooth ride by any means. The potholes are the size of small craters and crevices comparable to the Grand Canyon (ok not that big – but you get the gist!) Our average speed was around 35 kph topping out at about 60 kph on the good stretches of road. It took us 11 ½ hrs to go approximately 250 kilometers.

Highlight! We stopped on the way to visit briefly with Nzawala my GlobalFingerprints sponsor child. She has grown so much in 2 years and at 14 she is very beautiful. She hopes to go to school in Gemena to further her education.

What a welcome sight the lights of Elikya were. Oh to stand up and stretch!

Thank you Lord, for our safety on the road where so many things could have gone wrong. Thank you for the excellent skills of or driver, Edison and our first driver Bosco. Thank you for the bed, shower and your provisions all around.

open truck ride