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For Africa that is. That’s right, we made it all the way to South Africa. We have a few more days before we arrive in Cape Town and hopefully ship the trucks to Argentina on the 6th of July, so  we are taking in some of the sights on the Garden Route. It has been a pretty hectic month and a lot has happened. Here are some of the highlights:

D.R.C

After getting deported the first time we tried to enter the DRC, we were more successful the second time with a little bit of help from our friends at the US Embassy in Brazzaville. On our way to Matadi where we hoped to finally obtain our Angola visas, we took some time to camp a little bit at the Zongo Chutes, a waterfall churning out a huge volume of water that eventually empties into the Congo River. It was quite an interesting sight and probably one of the only semi-developed tourist attractions in the entire country.

At the Chutes, we also met some people from the Netherlands who are working for Heineken in Kinshasa. We had some good conversations around the campfire about living in the DRC and life on the road and they were kind enough to let us crash at their guesthouse in Matadi while we waited for our visas. That’s right, we waited for our Angola visas at the Heineken House… enough said. After three days of waiting in Matadi, we finally had our visas in our passports and headed south to the border.

The guys from Heineken pose for a photo at Zongo Chutes, D.R.C.

View of Matadi from the Heineken House

Angola

It was hard to believe that we actually had our visas to Angola… it was almost as hard to believe that we only had five days to drive over 2,000 kilometers on roads that were reported to be pretty rough. The roads in Angola did prove to be pretty bad, but if you are planning a visit there in the next five years, the Chinese will probably have completed most of the wide scale construction projects we witnessed there. Angola was an interesting country. The people were exceptionally friendly, the natural beauty was astounding and given all of the construction going on, it was obvious that they are preparing for an explosion of tourism in the not so distant future. Someone just needs to tell them that if they want people to come to Angola, they need to chill out on the whole visa thing. It was also very interesting driving through a country that up until a few years ago, was in the midst of a brutal civil war. Signs of the war are still everywhere, from wrecked military equipment littering the side of the road, to completely destroyed buildings pockmarked with bullet holes… not to mention the thousands of landmines still hiding in the ground waiting to be found by an unlucky farmer or pedestrian. It was too bad we only had five days to experience Angola, because there is a lot more that all of us would have liked to have seen and experienced there. In the end, we made it through Angola in the time we were given, but had to log in about 60 hours behind the wheel in just under five days to do so.

Much of the Portuguese architecture did not survive the civil war

Military equipment dots the Angolan countryside

Most of the horrible roads were no match for the Thundra

But when the bridge is washed out, there is not much you can do but find another way around

Namibia

After spending four months in the developing countries of West Africa, Namibia was a welcome change. The roads were in great shape, the ATM’s worked, the official language was English and the grocery stores were stocked with a variety of items that did not cost a fortune. A lot of the change is probably due to the fact that the wildlife in Namibia attracts a healthy stream of tourists and the country has invested in infrastructure to keep that stream flowing. We were still behind schedule, but we could not miss the opportunity to see some of the amazing wildlife in Namibia, so a few days after entering the country, we headed out to Etoshia National Park to see what we could see. We saw a lot, but unfortunately missed the opportunity to see any of the big cats, but rest assured, they are there waiting for you.

No Photoshop… the shot of the day!

The Etoshia Pan is the only waterhole for miles so animals are everywhere

This bull elephant felt we were a little too close to his family and charged the Sequoia

Wildebeests share the pan with Zebra

It was amazing how close you could get to the animals in the park

Surprise, we are still in Pointe Noire, Congo. We were originally planning on passing through the Congo on our way south in only two days but the powers that be decided that we needed to spend a little bit more time here. One month to be exact. We have been here for so long, I should probably look into hiring a real estate agent. To make matters more interesting, we have now overstayed our Congolese visas which is potentially a big problem, but here in Africa, even when you see a problem like this looming on the horizon, you are in many cases powerless to act on it. In the continuing saga of hearing absolutely nothing from the Angolan consulate on the status of our visa applications, we anticipated that we might be here longer than our original visas permitted, so last Wednesday, we started the process to extend them. The visa extension process was reportedly only supposed to take a day, but three days later, we still do not have our passports back. The main reason for the delay in processing the extensions is the arrival of the Congolese president here in Pointe Noire yesterday. Apparently, every public official and half-ass, passport stamping bureaucrat was needed to prepare in advance for his arrival and to attend all of the ceremonies celebrating the great and wonderful things the president has done for the country.

Being stuck here in the Congo for a month longer than anticipated has forced us to change a lot of our plans. Zambia and Victoria Falls will have to wait for another day as will the wildlife reserves in Botswana and South Africa. I came to Africa hoping to see some exotic wildlife, however, I fear that the only wildlife I will most likely see on this segment of the trip are the lions and cheetahs prancing through the savannah in faded paintings hanging in the musty office of the Angolan consulate in Pointe Noire. “C’est tres tragique!”

We were also on a relatively tight timeframe so that we could fly back to the States from South Africa to attend the wedding of Steve S’s sister, Katie. In order to avoid a lifetime of regret and condemnation to the dog house, Steve was forced to spend an extra $1,500 to ensure that he did not miss this important event. In total Steve spent about $2,900 on his flight back to Denver including the original ticket. Mark and I on the other hand had no choice but to stay behind and continue to try and get the trucks and ourselves out of the Congo and past the giant roadblock that is Angola. Steve waited until the last possible moment, but was ultimately forced to fly home yesterday. Luckily for Steve, he flew out in the morning because officials closed down the airport a short while later to receive the president and his entourage. Steve will make it to his sister’s wedding, but will miss the last 5,000 or so kilometers of Africa and the trip down to Cape Agulahs; the southern most point on the continent and the end point of the “cape to cape run.” (North Cape, Norway to Cape Agulahs, South Africa) So TWBR is one man down until we are reunited in Argentina… a country that for the time being feels like it could not possibly be any farther away.