Crossing the River M'Bomu into the Belgian Congo / stormy weather!.

( Connecting this post to Gaelyns Friday Fun. Sure that the ferry is a little more modern in this day and age but on the other hand........ Bangassou is a city in the south eastern Central African Republic, lying on the north bank of the Mbomou River. It is the capital of the Mbomou prefecture. It is known for its wildlife, market, and nearby airport and is linked by ferry to the Democratic Republic of Congo on the south bank.)

February 26 1953 (Thursday) Land Mileage 4575

After a pretty good night's sleep in Bangassou, we tidied up the rest house, cooked breakfast, then managed to buy four dozen bananas for about one shilling; we thought that this was very cheap!!  We then reported to customs and the police and then boarded the ferry on the River M'Bomu - this was the only route we could take into the Belgian Congo from French Equatorial Africa at this point.  The ferry, as you see below, was  composed of a planked vehicle platform spanning four long dugout canoes, and propulsion delivered by 8 rowers, one at each end of each boat!    This did not look the safest of ferries that we had seen, but it obviously did the job and we had very little choice!    The rowing speed was controlled by the "captain" beating a steady rhythm on a large drum!  We nevertheless arrived safely on Belgian Congo soil at 09h15.    

Waiting for the ferry

Arrival of the ferry from the opposite (Congo) bank

On board!

Off we go under paddle power!

Naturally we had to go into customs yet again and there met a very nice man  who was particularly helpful.   The guns all had to be sealed while going through the Congo and even the cameras had to be checked, so it was 11h30 before we finally got on our way.

The road was dirt, but in excellent condition, although not very wide and quite winding.  The Trans-African Highway Book says 'Good but sinuous and hilly road.  Several bridges and rather awkward corners.  Country wooded with dense vegetation'.    We thought that the countryside was very clean and palm trees lined the route, with very thick forest further back on either side.  We stopped at 13h00 for a meal and managed to buy six eggs from one of the 'materialising locals'.  We would soon find out how fresh our purchase was!  We continued our drive, passing through Bondo, which consisted of the Hotel Vicicongo, a small garage and an administrative centre.   The rain had now started and it was coming down quite heavily by the time we reached the ferry at the river Uele at 18h30.   The ferry guys managed to get us loaded and across the river in what turned out to be one of the first storms of the rainy season.   We had never seen lightning like this before and it was quite dramatic, if a bit scary; it zig zagged down, lighting up the whole countryside.  Dad gave the ferry guys quite a good tip for managing to get us across in such bad weather.    There was nowhere to stop on the other side and we drove on in the terrible storm for almost another 30 miles before we found a point we could pull off the road.   It was not a pleasant drive, on an unknown dirt road, with the rain and lightning not giving us a moment's peace.    The sides had been removed from the Land Rover earlier because of the heat and packed on the roof; it was impossible to remove them from there and try to put them back on.     David was holding a piece of tin up to the opening on the passenger’s side, trying to prevent the main force of rain coming in, when a lightning strike knocked it out of his hands, giving us all a huge fright.   Obviously it was not a direct strike or more damage would have been done, but it was close enough to cause us to decide that getting wet was better than another strike.   With the road awash, it was almost impossible to see anything ahead and we were very worried that we might come across an invisible hazard.  We finally stopped just to the side of the road on what appeared to be a safe area and just settled down for what we hoped would be a reasonable night's sleep.

February 27 1953 Land Mileage 4757

The rain had stopped overnight, but by the time we had generally tidied up and managed to have a meal, we only started driving again at 07h45.   We really needed to get on, as we did not want to get held up in the Congo by thunderstorms.   We had not gone far when we read in the Highways book that there was only a railway bridge, not a road bridge, over the River Likati, and we would have to cross by ferry.   We were so lucky that we had not gone any further the night before; we could well have been washed away, as we may never have properly seen the river crossing point ahead of us in the torrential rain.   After crossing by ferry, we passed the Likati Station and carried on through thick forest and narrow roads for another 90 miles until we reached the village of Buta.  Here there was yet another Hotel Vicicongo, petrol, garage, bank and stores.  Dad decided that he should stop at the garage as he needed to do a bit of welding on the bumper, and he wanted to check the remainder of the vehicle.    When he was satisfied that all was in order, he went to pay but was told that it was 'on the house'! The owner said it was in recognition of his friendships in the R.A.F during the war!  We filled up with petrol, did a bit of shopping; exciting products like cheese were on the shelf here, and went to the bank to top up the finances.  We left Buta at 11h45 and continued on until we found a lovely spot to stop at 13h00 for lunch.   Luxury, cheese and biscuits!    The scenery was quite lovely around this area, with so much to see after the desert.   We carried on until 16h45 when we decided that we would stop and have a cooked meal while it was still light enough and dry, but after the meal we carried on driving for a while before we finally found a good stopping place at 21h00.    We were still worried about the storm the night before and felt we needed to get on as far as possible while we could.   During this last part of the day’s drive, we saw lots of monkeys swinging through the trees and crossing the road in front of us.  How I wish I knew now what species they were!

To be continued :-) 

 

I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1

French Equatorial Africa to the Belgian Congo

February 25 1953 (Wednesday) Land Mileage 4383

We started later than usual, due to the fact that we had been late the night before and we were definitely less rested than in previous days!  It was 07h00 before we got going, only to find after a short distance that we needed to stop again, as the petrol line was choked. Dad removed it and used the air line  to try to get it clear, but in the end he had to give it a really good clean out, with the result we lost another hour before we were moving once more.   David, meanwhile, had found some bananas; they were very green and never did ripen, but it was exciting to think that we had found bananas straight from the tree, even if inedible! We were used, of course, to getting our bananas  from the supermarket!

We passed several of the locals, who all appeared to be out hunting, carrying spears, bows and arrows. They seemed to be following a fire, which we later found out that they had lit purposely. They followed along behind the fire and collected the dead animals caught up in its wake for food; this we understood included things like rats and snakes. I must say we found the whole idea pretty revolting, but presumably it was an easy way for them to get a meal.

At 11h30, we went through the village of Kembe and crossed the Kotto River; here we stopped to enjoy the view and take some photographs. There were some really stunning rapids where we stopped; they were quite lovely and sparkling in the bright sunshine, as the water rushed over the rocks.

Kotto River Falls

After a brief break, we were on the road once more. Passing through the village of Gambo, we saw a Citroën with a Cape to London sticker on it. We discovered later that it was a man from Bulawayo, Rhodesia, who was in the process of breaking the record for this trip. He had no idea how lucky he was to pass us by where he did! Only a few minutes later, we were crossing a wooden bridge over the M'Bari River, when one of the planks collapsed underneath us, leaving us tilted at a pretty precarious angle. 

Apologies for the lousy quality of this photo; however,  I am  surprised that Mum even remembered to take it!  Looks like my Dad on the right of the photo..... thankfully the Land Rover did not roll over on to him!

David, Mum and I scrambled out over the driver's seat to safety and fortunately the water level was very low, though very smelly and unpleasant. Dozens of locals suddenly appeared on the scene and said they would help to get us out for the equivalent of £2. We had very little choice but to go along with them and with much chanting, the four of us doing most of the work, we finally got the vehicle on an even keel again, but on the wrong side of the bridge!   By this time, more reinforcements had arrived and we seemed to be surrounded with people demanding more money. Dad gave us a wink to get back in the vehicle and after parting with the promised £2, (a vast sum in that part of Africa in those days) he started up and before they realised what we were about to do, we had shot across the bridge missing the broken plank. David looked back and said they obviously thought it was a big joke, as they were all laughing and waving to us.

At 14h30, it started to rain, not too heavily, but the first we had seen since leaving France and it was enough to make it an unpleasant driving experience. We carried on for another one and a half hours, until we arrived at Bangassou. This was on the border between French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo, and we had to cross by ferry over the River M'Bomu. We also needed to fill up with fuel; this we discovered was very expensive there and we did not have enough cash on us!   We found another very helpful Frenchman, who extricated us from a difficult situation by cashing a traveller's cheque and he then invited us to his house for a drink.

Having decided to stay the night, we managed to arrange a room at the local rest house. This had stand-up baths, which we found quite unique, but loads of hot water, so we managed to have really enjoyable clean up. We then cooked our own supper and had the privilege of sitting at a table to eat it!   David slept on our own camp bed in the room, but Dad, Mum and I slept in the Land Rover. The room had no beds, and as we only had the one camp bed, David was the only one who slept indoors.

To be continued :-) 

 

I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1

French Equatorial Africa

February 23 1953 Land Mileage 3883

French Equatorial Africa

We were up early to see a crowd of 'spectators' and we were on the road by 06h50.   We again passed through several villages and the road certainly had not improved!  The countryside comprised pretty thick forest, with many birds and small insects, but not very much else to see until we reached the ferry over the Bahr Sara river.   Twenty three miles later, we drove into Fort Archambault, a small village with a store and even a post office!   We tried to find a garage where we hoped to repair the spring, but this was an impossible mission, so we just had to hope that the spare that was on the vehicle would hold out.   We did manage to replenish some of our food stores and fill up with petrol before moving on.

On leaving Fort Archambault, we saw large crowds of baboons crossing the road; this caused a certain amount of excitement with the four of us.    There were some huge animals in the troop and with a lot of babies they would not have liked any interference.  I have since seen how much damage baboons are capable of with their teeth. During the time that I worked for a vet in later years, three dogs were brought in that had been attacked by baboons and it was not a pleasant sight.  Dad drove on for another hundred miles before we managed to find anywhere suitable to pull off, simply because of the thick vegetation; by then it was almost 22h00.   The road was very narrow and in very bad condition.  This had been our longest day on the road and the first time that we had difficulty in finding anywhere to stop.   Even then we were still parked very close to the road and not really in a proper clearing.   While getting supper, we were suddenly joined by a woman with a small baby and three men!    It never ceased to amaze us how people seemed to find us within minutes of us stopping; we had not seen a human being for many miles except at two small villages that we had passed since leaving the Fort.   When we went to bed we still had company, but we were all very tired after the very long day and we hoped that they would just disappear back to their own homes.

Mum cleaning the dust off the camera!

February 24 (Tuesday) 1953 Land Mileage 4103

We got up early, but our 'neighbours' were already sitting on one side waiting for us.  Perhaps they had been there all night!  The woman now had a 'wrap around' on, presumably in our honour, or so we thought!  She seemed to be very friendly, although of course we could not understand her any more than she could us.   We took a few photographs and by 06h45 we were on the road again.

Our visitors.  On the ground you can see his small tom tom or drum that he was carrying.  Our equivalent today of a mobile perhaps :-)

The road continued to be very bad, thick forest and the occasional small village.  We arrived at Fort Crampel at 09h30; this really only consisted of a rest house!   We carried on straight through the Fort towards Dékoua and Fort Sibut; the latter also only consisted of a rest house and a small store and again we just kept on going until noon.    We then came across a very quiet lonely spot, which was ideal to pull off the road, have a break and some lunch.   There was thick jungle and forest all around, but this was a particularly pretty little clearing that looked as if it had been made especially for us.    We had not seen a living soul for miles other than near the villages, but the moment we had stopped, the locals seemed to appear as if dropped from the skies!!    We were starting to get used to having an audience every time we stopped to have a meal or go to bed.    They were fascinated by the tins that we put down and they happily cleaned out the jam and the condensed milk.   The usual photograph was taken and we were back on the road again.

We drove for only a short distance when we came across a lovely clear, bubbling brook.  Temptation got the better of us and we all decided this was the ideal spot to do some washing and have a good clean up.   It was too early to stay overnight, so once more we went back on the road.   We covered quite a distance in thick forest until we crossed a bridge over the River Kouango, then a further two miles on, we arrived at the village of Bambari at 16h45.    This village was quite a lot larger than any we had seen for some time and consisted of a rest house, store and petrol station.    We managed to get the broken spring leaf  welded, and this gave us a temporary spare once again, but by the time we had managed to do this job, the petrol station had already closed.   We then discovered the worst; not only was the petrol station closed, but they also had no supplies and their tanks were dry!   This left us in a bit of a quandary and they apparently had no idea when the next petrol tanker was likely to arrive.   Eventually we were taken to an American missionary who thought that he might be able to help us out.   Meanwhile we were invited into his home where we could have a good wash and we were asked to join him for supper.   We all felt pretty scruffy, but no one seemed to notice except ourselves.    We were given pancakes, ham and eggs which were quite delicious, followed by a cup of excellent coffee.  While there, we saw our first scorpion; the missionary took it all quite calmly, but I have to admit we all got out of the way in a hurry as it scurried across the dining room floor.   Meanwhile the fuel had been arranged and we had enough in our tanks to get us to the next fuel stop.  We left at 21h00 and managed another hour on the road before finding a place where we could bed down for the night.    We were all very tired, especially myself and we settled down very quickly, only to find we had to do a quick change around in our sleeping habits; we could hear lions roaring not very far away!    David moved into the Land Rover and Dad moved to the outside, gun at the ready.   The missionary had warned us that it was lion country, but it was only when we heard them, that the fact actually sank in!!   Thankfully, we had no need of the rifle and we were careful not to stray too far from the vehicle.

Mum, gun in hand, just in case........

To be continued :-) 

 

I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1

French Cameroons

February 21 (Saturday)1953 Land Mileage 3550

When we woke up, the birds were still in full song, with more joining in all the time.   We   finished breakfast to the 'Bird Chorus' and we were back on the road at 07h30.  Three quarters of an hour later, we were at the Frontier station between British Mandated Territory and French Cameroons, at the town of Gamboro.

A police permit was necessary to travel across French Cameroons between Gamboro and Kussere, but we had previously arranged this.    Out came the passports and permits yet again, and while we were there we had to go to the French customs as well! We managed to fill up with fuel and water, plus we also managed to do a bit of shopping to replenish the food.   Gamboro was where the ferry goes across the River Logone and this we managed to get on at 08h45, with our destination being Fort Lamy.   We were lucky enough to be on the move again right away, the ferry being "docked" on our side of the river, as you can see below! 

I have no idea why the back is down on the Land Rover, but I see it is!

Soon we were back on the road again and then onto a second ferry over the River Chari at 10h30.  

You can see some quite large vehicles crossed on these wooden ferries.

We drove on through lots of thick bush country and very rough roads.  The countryside changed very little, but nevertheless it was very interesting, with many birds and large very colourful butterflies seen.    How I regret we did not have books with which we could have tried to identify some of the beautiful birds and butterflies that we saw on this particular part of the journey.

At 15h30, another back spring broke; proof of what the roads were like.     We managed to find a sort of clearing at the side of the road and David and Dad got started on replacing the spring.    They were getting plenty of practice at this particular job!   This stop in fact turned out to be a blessing in disguise; a bus pulled up while they were working on the spring and informed us that a bridge was down on our route and we would be unable to cross.   This meant we would have to retrace our steps and take the road through Bongor.  We were still quite some way from the bridge, so the bus had saved us a lot of wasted fuel and mileage!

While we were busy with the spring repair, one of the locals came over with fresh cow's milk for us.   We gave him some cigarettes and he went off obviously delighted, but then so were we with the milk.  What a pleasure it was not to have powdered milk that night.   By the time the spring had been changed and knowing that we had to retrace the route, we decided that we should make camp right where we were, so we could set off first thing again in the morning.

February 22 (Sunday) 1953 Land Mileage 3669

On waking, we discovered that we were being watched by a quite large crowd of the locals who suddenly appeared on the scene.    They appeared to be a 'gang' of men who were going out hunting; they carried spears and all they wore was a thong, presumably of animal skin, around their waists, with a small piece of skin down the back, which we guessed was to sit on.   We had not realised that this particular area was quite so primitive.   One of them put his finger into the jam we had been eating and from the look on his face, we gathered that it was not approved of!  Our 'farmer friend' of the night before, brought us some more milk and he went off with a few gifts that we gave him. We were soon on our way again, away from the broken bridge.

It was thirty six miles before we came to the cross roads that turned off to Bongor, this was on the Logone River further down from Fort Lamy.   We pulled into Bongor at about 09h15, so we had not really wasted that much time on our diversion.    We found a very immaculately dressed Frenchman, who took us in hand.   We explained the situation to him, and asked him what he thought would now be the best route for us to take.   He was very angry that the authorities in Fort Lamy had not informed us of the situation; he said that they must have known which route we were most likely to take and the bridge had been down for a while.   He took us to his house which was quite beautiful, situated on the edge of the River Logone.   It was incredibly cool inside and he offered us long iced orange drinks that were delicious.   The Frenchman gave Dad a Cognac, but he admitted afterwards that he would have much preferred the iced orange!   Dad then said he was afraid that we did not have enough petrol to make up for the detour.   He had not taken on a full load previously, as he was trying to keep the vehicle as light as possible to save the springs, but the extra seventy two miles would leave us short.   Being Sunday, of course everything was closed but with the help of the Frenchman, Dad managed to locate an Italian gentleman who had some 40 gallon drums of fuel and he allowed us to buy enough to get us to the next 'town'.    Bongor, on the border of French Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa, was the most primitive place that we had seen to date; luckily for us, the border post did not close down on Sundays!

Driving on, we saw many of the local residents, the men all dressed as we had seen them earlier, with "loincloths" being just a skin at the back.   The women wore nothing, but they had large discs in both the top and bottom lip.   We were told that the French had provided schools and hospitals in the effort to help them. They were quite lovely buildings, but the locals at that stage had refused to go near either.

We had asked if it was safe to swim in the rivers and the answer had been yes.    This was a huge benefit to us all, as the evening 'bath' was now laid on in most places.   We just had to pick the right camp spot.   When we left Bongor we drove along the side of the Logone River. After a short distance, David, Dad and I went for a swim while Mum kept watch over the Land Rover and all our belongings.   It was parked on a steep incline and was almost out of sight of the river, too far to leave it in safety without one of us around.  

Dad, myself and David just coming in from a swim.

 We then carried on along our new route which took us through Ham, a typical African village, and then on to Lai.   There was much wooded countryside around Lai, but there were also several cotton plantations that we presumed were being farmed by the French.  We were still following the River Logone and at 14h30, we decided that perhaps we should stop and have a swim as it was so hot.  It also meant that Mum could do some much needed washing of clothes at the same time.    The water was wonderful and very refreshing. It was a very reluctant family who finally went back to the vehicle to continue on our way along dusty roads.

Mum catching up with the washing again.

We travelled through some cotton plantations and  having passed the small village of Doba, we turned left, leaving the river behind us.   We passed several more villages before pulling up for the night at a piece of ground that had been burnt out.    We felt that this was a safe place to stop as there was quite thick bush everywhere else around us.   On stopping, there was not a soul in sight, but within minutes, we suddenly had many spectators!   Where they had all appeared from we will never know.  We were watched intently for the remainder of the evening as we cooked dinner and prepared for bed; it was a very strange feeling but we did not feel threatened in any way, it was purely curiosity.

To be continued :-) 

 

I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1