The Twilight Zone

By Steve Bouey in

May 12, 2008 – 8:40 am

I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know what month it is. Luckily someone reminded me that it was Mother’s Day so fortunately, I did not let that slip by without letting my Mom know that I am still alive… where, I don’t really know.

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TWBR crew in from of La Pyramide, Pointe Noire, Congo

It has been over three weeks now since we arrived in Pointe Noire, and it seems like we are no closer to getting our Angolan visas than when we first applied for them. “Come back tomorrow,” “Come back Wednesday…” I do not think they understand that I no longer want to come back. If I had my way, I would forget Angola even existed. Unfortunately, reality interferes with my fantasies of jumping off bridges with bungee cords and going to rugby matches in South Africa, Angola clearly out of sight in the rearview mirror of the Tundra. Reality forces me to acknowledge Angola’s existence and come to terms with the fact that we have no choice but to drive through it.

We tried to see if it was feasible to skip Angola, we really did. We investigated shipping the trucks, a drastic step considering how painful the shipping process has been in the past for us, but we have reached the point where we are willing to endure that pain to progress the expedition. In true keeping with our past experiences, the shipping companies informed us that for hefty fees they will be more than happy to transport our trucks around Angola in the amazingly quick time frame of 50 days. No one was ready subject themselves to that type of pain just yet.

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Thinking of ways around Angola

We investigated driving back around to Brazzaville, through the “pool area” where rebel groups known as “Ninjas” lurk in the jungle waiting for vehicles to pass, collecting valuables from motorists with the aid of rusting, yet still fully functioning Kalashnikov assault riffles. The funny thing is, in considering this option, the Ninjas are not our biggest concern. We have instead been focusing on the reports of overlanders being turned away at the D.R.C. border for not having onward Angola visas, (even though they are reportedly issued at the border town of Matadi) Having already paid large sums of money to take the ferry across the Congo River to Kinshasa, with the end result of being denied entry, coupled with an expired Congolese visa and a mounting pile of “paperwork problems,” aka financial problems, this option could backfire and leave us in a much worse position than the one we are in now. We do have some Dutch friends whom we met in Nigeria that are in the process of making the Brazzaville-Kinshasa-Matadi run this week and based on what we hear back from them, will decide if we will follow suit.

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Little did we know, another problem was looming on the horizon

However, even if we wanted to pack up shop and make a run for it, there is no fuel in Pointe Noire and both trucks are nearly on empty. That’s right, they ran out of petrol a few days ago, gasoil (diesel) is expected to run dry in the near future and according to our friends at the Toyota dealership, the supplies will not be replenished for another few weeks. The situation is so bad, that they do not have any more Jet-A aviation fuel at the Pointe Noire airport, so all airport operations have been temporarily suspended as well. Apparently, the supplier has had some refining issues that have resulted in production shortages. All this is very ironic considering how many times we have watched the sun set over the Atlantic at La Pyramide over the last three weeks and subsequently watched as the flaming, burn-off of gas from oil rigs a few miles offshore slowly lit up the darkening sky. Signs of petroleum production are everywhere here in Pointe Noire. In fact, on some days you can even smell it, yet for some reason, there is no fuel.

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Oil is coming out of the ground here in PN, but it goes somewhere else

To top this all off, I have somehow managed to contract malaria again, only days after starting to feel better from the last bout and Shoppman finally lost his odds battle with the local mosquitoes as well. Twilight Zone I tell you, Twilight Zone.

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Congo, Expedition Updates, Trip Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

Gone Fishing…

By Steve Bouey in

May 5, 2008 – 8:15 am

We have been waiting for word on our Angolan visas now for nearly two weeks. That fact that this past Thursday, May 1st was May Day, or International Workers Day did not help our situation in the least bit. May Day is celebrated throughout the world, except in the United States where we honor workers with the Labor Day holiday in the fall. Depending on where you are, May Day shuts down the country from anywhere from a day, to over a week, as was the case when we were waiting for our paperwork in China.

Here in the Congo, the May Day festivities officially only last one day, however, because May Day fell on a Thursday this year, it effectively meant that everyone had a four day weekend, including the consular staff working on our visas. The two “official” days off from work, plus the reduction in productivity leading up to those off days means that we are relegated to waiting even longer for our visas. The current word at the consulate is “sometime this week,” although they are still reluctant to give us any exact days or timeframe estimates. Unfortunately, I am still reluctant to get too excited about this news, because they said the same thing last week.

Luckily one of our new friends from South Africa, Charles, is a budding professional angler and has all of his equipment here in the Congo with him along with some extra gear to spare. Since everyone who is in any capacity to help us get the hell out of the Congo has been out of the office for the past four or five days, we thought we might as well go fishing. Why not? Everyone else has. Unfortunately, our motivation to get up at 5 in the morning was not enough to impress the fish as we did not catch much of anything, but it was a chance to get in the car and go for a drive… something this trip is all about and something we have not really done in quite a while.

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Charles knew of a nice quiet spot to set up and fish

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Mark and Charles try and catch some breakfast

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Still not feeling fully recovered from malaria, I caught some Z’s

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Action Sports, Congo, For some laughs, Trip Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

What Is Wrong With People?

By Steve Bouey in

May 3, 2008 – 1:46 pm

Sitting here in Pointe Noire, Congo, I am starting to go a little crazy. It has been nearly two weeks since we arrived and applied for our Angola visas and we are still waiting. I have been trying to pass the time by reading and reflecting upon the Africa segment of our journey and given all that has transpired here in Africa, I have really only been able to focus on one central theme: corruption. I have become obsessed with corruption. I find myself constantly trying to find out more about the varying levels of corruption in the different countries we have passed through and trying to make sense of our daily encounters with corruption here in Pointe Noire. Each of my conversations with members of the ex-pat community here in the Congo always wind their way back to corruption, and when we are able to get online in between the random yet still somehow consistent power outages here in town, I am looking for more information as to the prevalence of corruption and what if anything can be done to put and end to it… especially here in Africa. I am obsessed to the point at which I can say that in 2007, the Republic of the Congo ranked in the top 10 percent of countries in the world in terms of corruption. (If you want to see where everyone else falls on the Perceived Corruption Index, check out Transparency International’s Annual Report)

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“I don’t think you used your turn signal, give me 100,000 CFA!”

Photo courtesy Schalk van Zuydam, Associated Press

Personally, I believe the problem of corruption in Africa is immense. It ranges from our daily encounters with overzealous and underpaid police officers trying to extort money from us for ludicrous and falsified infractions to the top levels of government… politicians who have padded their own personal offshore bank accounts at the expense of the development of their country and the progress of their citizens. The numbers are staggering. According to a 2006 World Bank report, it estimates that half of all funds donated to health efforts in sub-Saharan Africa… billions of dollars… never reach the clinics or hospitals, instead leaking out in the form of payments to ghost employees and payments for padded customs, transportation and warehousing prices. It seems like you can not build a single road, bridge or building without some public official benefiting. During his 10 year rule in Zambia, president Frederick Chiluba stashed away nearly $46 million of public money in his offshore bank account but that pails in comparison to the estimated $5 billion Charles Taylor had in offshore accounts while he ran Liberia into the ground, or the estimated billions that Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has reportedly stashed away in Switzerland while his country teeters on the verge of total economic collapse.

Africa has a lot of problems. Humanitarian problems, economic problems, social problems. The list goes on and on. I am by no means an expert on Africa and I have hardly been here long enough to formulate any reasonable opinions on the cause for all of the misery here on the continent and I am certainly in no place at this stage to recommend any solutions. But I am observant and I do have a background in politics and public policy and that, coupled with my recent obsession with everyone and everything corrupt, has led me to become more and more convinced that all of Africa’s problems stem from two things: a systematic lack of transparency in government operations and a lack of the rule of law. Without transparency and respect for the rule of law, Africa and it citizens will continue to suffer. Sure, most of the problem can be blamed on the endless list of African dictators who have used government institutions for personal gain, but I think the people too can be blamed for not reining in the excess of these plundering politicians. “People power” can be an effective and successful tool against government largess, but it seems to be stagnant and ineffective here in Africa. It is almost like people do not care that their leaders are driving their country into the ground and taking them with it.

The African continent represents one of the poorest regions in the world, yet in terms of natural energy and resource wealth, it is one of the richest. Oil and gas has the potential to provide much needed revenues and has allowed countries throughout the world to address the problems that they face, yet in in Africa, the revenues from energy production represent a curse: corruption runs rampant, waste is chronic and the gap that has developed between the extremely rich and the desperately poor is essentially insurmountable. It is painful to see how much potential Africa has for development yet in reality, how that potential has been squandered, wasted and tucked away into the pockets of the connected elite.

So what can be done? Is Africa destined to become one of history’s monumental failures? Are the people of Africa doomed to be forever victimized by tyrannical despots destined to profit at the expense of their citizens? It is without a doubt a monumental problem requiring a multitude of complex solutions and one that will take years, if not generations to correct, but I guess I can take some comfort in knowing that people are trying to right the ship. The United States has recently developed the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) which provides funding to developing countries on the condition that they meet strict criteria for good governance; the responsible management of government affairs, services and finances, and other lending organizations such as the World Bank are implementing similar criteria for the disbursement of their loans. Unfortunately, many developing countries in Africa with newly discovered mineral and oil reserves such as Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are turning to other investors, namely China, who delivers billions in development funding in return for access to natural resources but without conditions of good governance, human rights, or economic reform. To the Chinese, “business is business.”

So providing development funding on the condition that the money is used appropriately alone will not work. Pressure has to come from elsewhere, namely from the citizens of these countries and countries throughout the world demanding greater transparency in the public sector and demanding that they become party to the billions of dollars being extracted from onshore and offshore reserves. Given what I have seen here in Africa, if I had to deal with the same problems day in and day out that people do here, I would probably be right along side people in picking up guns and fighting, but violence is not the answer and will only continue to push these countries closer to the point of no return. Something needs to be done to force leaders of countries in Africa to be accountable for their actions and to be accountable to their constituents. One thing is certain, there needs to be a fundamental change in attitude not just in people and nations wishing to help, but in people here in Africa, because the situation seems to only be getting worse… (case in point; Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Somalia) and programs like the MCA are only Band-Aid approaches to stemming the blood flow from a hemorrhaging wound.

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Africa, Congo, History, Trip Thoughts, World News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Playing The Waiting Game

By Steve Bouey in

April 30, 2008 – 4:10 am

We have been here in Pointe Noire, Congo for over a week now. Just what are we doing here you might ask? Well, we are playing the waiting game. We are waiting for our visas to Angola, the link in the chain that currently separates us here in Central Africa with our rendezvous the south. We knew that getting visas for Angola was going to be tricky but I do not think anyone knew just how difficult it would be.

We have heard horror stories of overlanders before us being forced to backtrack hundreds of kilometers because they were unable to obtain visas for Angola, and others who simply gave up and found another way around, usually by sea. Without a doubt, securing visas for Angola has been one of the most difficult exercises in bureaucratic navigation and patience to date. We do have a great contact here in the Congo who has been helping us out tremendously with the visas, but even with his help, the whole process is far from transparent and totally frustrating. Right now we are basically trapped with very few options other than to sit and wait it out.

Luckily, we have been “marooned” in a place where we are being treated extremely well. The owner of a really cool beachfront bar and restaurant here in town, Patrick, has let us pitch our tents near the volleyball court of La Pyramide, so we have been camping on beachfront property most of the time. Before that, Christo and the South African telecom workers put us up in style for a few days at their house here in town. There have also been a steady stream of patrons at La Pyramide, curious and excited about what we are doing, who have taken us under their wings in various capacities, feeding us, letting us do laundry at their homes, letting us jump on the internet, and including us in the fascinating ex-pat community here in Pointe Noire. If it were not for people like Patrick and Sabine at La Pyramide, Elin, Nathalie and Didier Bardin, Asmah and Christophe, and Christophe the commercial diver, our wait for the elusive Angolan visas would be a lot more painful.

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Borders, Visas and Paperwork, Congo, Expedition Updates, Trip Thoughts | Comments (0)

Going Through A Rough Patch

By Steve Bouey in

April 24, 2008 – 8:23 am

We have not posted anything in a few days, but honestly, we have had a lot of other things on our minds. We are, without a doubt, at one of the most difficult points in the expedition here in the Congo. After securing relatively difficult to obtain visas for both the Republic of the Congo and The Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) in Libreville, we left Gabon and it was not long before we encountered what we had been told would be a long stretch of bad roads.

Actually, the roads heading from Libreville south to the border were not that bad but once we crossed through the bamboo gate signifying the Congo frontier, they took a pretty significant turn for the worse. In fact, the after reaching the first major town, Dolisie, we were informed by some people that our proposed route south through the remainder of the Congo and the D.R.C. would not be possible because the roads have been washed out by rains. Technically, it is the beginning of the dry season here, but the damage had already been done and the lingering rains ensured that nothing has really been done, or will be done, anytime soon to fix the damages.

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We knew we were going to encounter some problems with the roads and we also knew were could potentially encounter some problems with bandits in rebels. So far, we have been lucky with no unfortunate encounters here in the Congo, but again, we were warned about our onward route. We were convinced to deviate from our original route and head west, back to the coast and try and slip through the Angolan enclave of Cabinda before heading down into the DRC and then on into Angola. Well, as it turns out, rebel activity in and around Cabinda has flared up in the last month and so to have clashes between rebels and government forces around the D.R.C./Angola border near Matadi, where we were planning on crossing. So now we are trying to figure out just how to get our trucks, and ourselves, south. We have some great new friends from South Africa who have been going out of their way to help us in our situation here in the Congo and things are looking as well as they can I guess.

Oh yeah, I am also finding out first hand how bad it sucks to have malaria. Yes, on top of the bad roads and the threat from rebel groups and bandits operating in the area I have to do it with a combination of blistering fevers, core shaking chills and body aches that I have never felt before. The most striking part about all of this is that we still have it a lot easier than the majority of the people here.

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Congo, Road Conditions | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (4)

Oh The Places We Have Been

By Steve Bouey in

April 15, 2008 – 7:37 am

I was going through some old pictures on my hard drive, sorting things out to try and make my computer run faster and it reminded me just exactly where we have been on this trip. Unfortunately, I think my computer problems are related not to the amount of space photos are taking up on my hard drive, but the amount of moisture that has accumulated in it as a result of the nearly unbearable humidity here in tropical West Africa.

We are kind of in a rut right now and when you are in a difficult spot, sometimes the only way to make the future look brighter is to look back on the past. Looking back through all of our photos, it was quite obvious that we have been to a lot of cool places and have driven pretty damn far. All of the different environments, all of the different roads, all of the different countries and all of the different people add up to a pretty amazing experience, so even if I did not solve my computer problems, I definitely re-energized my own spirits.

It does not seem that long ago when we pulled off the Stuart Highway in Australia to snap some photos as we passed by the Tropic of Capricorn on our way north to Darwin. Since then, we have passed by the equator (although we did it on a plane and the trucks did it on a boat in route to Singapore), the Tropic of Cancer (although there was no sign in China to actually prove it, so the photo was not that interesting),the Arctic Circle, back past the Tropic of Cancer (this time there was no sign in the middle of the Sahara Desert so no real photo opp there either) and down into the Southern Hemisphere once again here in Gabon (this time pulling over for a few minutes to take a photo… although the risk of getting clipped by a logging truck in the process was fairly significant).

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It was nearly a year ago when we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in Australia

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Several months later, we would find ourselves a lot farther north

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All the way to the northern-most point on the European continent

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Now we are back in the Southern Hemisphere, this time on terra firma

We still have a long way to go and will pass by several more geographically significant coordinates, but looking back, we have logged a lot of miles and ticked off quite a few degrees of latitude and longitude. Actually, about 120 degrees and 275 degrees respectively of latitude and longitude to be exact… nearly three quarters of the way around the world equatorially and about a third of the way around the world north to south. The aim is to make it a full 360 in both directions, the far reaches of the Arctic and Antarctica aside on the north south route, so we have not done too bad for a government auditor, and graphic designer and more recently, a stone mason.

By Steve Bouey | Posted in Gabon, Trip Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Stats From The Road

By Steve Bouey in

April 12, 2008 – 12:38 pm

Africa has been rough on both the trucks and the drivers here at The World by Road, but the wheels keep turning and the gas tab keeps adding up. Here are the most recent fuel prices, and distances covered.

http://theworldbyroad.com/wordpress/mileage-fuel-consumption-and-cost

By Steve Bouey | Posted in Expedition Updates, Statistics | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Travel Advisories

By Steve Bouey in

April 11, 2008 – 12:32 pm

The US state Department does a pretty good job of issuing travel advisories. Travel advisories provide information to US citizens traveling abroad to let them know that either the area they are in may not be particularly safe or to make would be travelers to a particular region reconsider their plans to go there in the first place. The recommendations in these advisories range from telling people to be “vigilant and alert” to recommending against all “nonessential” travel to a particular country or region all together.

At the beginning of the expedition, we were paying fairly close attention to these travel advisories. Our proposed route around the world had us going through at least a dozen or so countries where the State Department had current travel advisories in place. I guess the travel advisories serve a useful purpose, but they also seem to give you a fairly negative impression of a place, especially if you are going there. When you read that there are terrorists operating in a certain country, active abductions and hostage takings, and the general potential for something bad to happen to you, it can start a vicious cycle of negative scenarios popping up in your mind and you can find yourself walking on eggshells when you could be enjoying the experience. Eventually, for better or worse, you start to take these travel advisories with a grain of salt.

Maybe the advisories have served their purpose by placing the possibility of something bad happening in our minds and subconsciously that affects our behavior in a certain country. To date, we have been through at least half a dozen countries on our trip with active travel warnings and about half the time, we are driving through the region of a particular country that directly applies to that advisory. Fortunately, we have had no problems whatsoever. In fact, we have felt quite safe in some of the places that have been issued particularly serious advisories.

We drove through the northern part of Mali where we were led to believe that Tuareg rebels were lying in wait, ready to ambush us on the road and kill us, and we passed through the Niger River Delta region in Nigeria where we thought it would be just a matter of time before we were kidnapped and held for ransom by militants there. Maybe we have been lucky. Maybe it is because we have our own vehicles and have more control over our movements than someone traveling on public transport. Who knows. Whatever the case may be, we actually felt pretty safe there and in Nigeria, we were treated with the utmost hospitality and even more so it seemed because we were Americans.

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We made lots of friends in the Niger River Delta States

To the credit of the State Department, I guess some of the areas we were traveling in were dangerous. One night in Nigeria, some security forces on patrol stopped by our campsite with AK-47’s at the ready. They found out what we were doing and suggested we follow them and camp in front of their headquarters where they could “ensure our safety.” I think they were going a little bit out of their way to make sure nothing happened to us, as the potential danger was not from rebels, but from local farmers hassling us because we were camping on their land. But at the same time, this was in a part of Nigeria that had no current travel advisory in place.

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There are more prominent risks to your health in some places than gun-totting rebels

I can sense that I am rambling here a little bit so I will get directly to the point. I do feel the State Department has an obligation to inform its citizens traveling abroad that there is the potential for danger. At the same time, I think the language in the advisory itself can sometimes be a little strong and does people a disservice. The bottom line is, use your head. Common sense can go a long way to ensuring your safety. (Maybe the State Department feels that citizens traveling abroad are total morons)

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Mark and Shoppman seem more concerned with what the street food will do to them…

By reading the travel advisories, you are meant to think that the rest of the world is this terribly dangerous place where people are lurking around every corner waiting to turn your trip into a total nightmare, and by traveling to these places, it will ensure that your photo is not only on your personal blog, but on CNN as well. Yes, there are dangerous places in the world and you would serve yourself well not to go for a roadside picnic in Somalia. But at the same time, I would also be wary of pitching a tent for the night in a park in East Oakland or taking a midnight stroll in parts of St. Louis, but you do not really see advisories on these domestic places where the homicide rates exceed those of some of the “conflict zones” we have been through.

By Steve Bouey | Posted in Nigeria, Overlanding Tips, Trip Thoughts, World News | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Something Is Not Right Here

By Steve Bouey in

April 10, 2008 – 12:54 pm

The number one expense on The World by Road is fuel. To date, we have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $23,000 on fuel. We thought that Africa was going to be cheap, and compared to Europe, it is, but it is still fairly expensive to fill up here in west central Africa. As a result of the higher fuel prices we have been encountering in Africa, we were looking forward to making it into Nigeria where we heard that gas is relatively inexpensive.

Gas is cheap in Nigeria costing only about $2.25 per gallon compared with prices that exceed $5 per gallon in neighboring countries, but in order to get gas in Nigeria at $2.25 a gallon, you must pay another price: a huge commitment of your time. I would estimate that over 90 percent of the gas stations we passed in Nigeria were either abandoned, shut down, or out of fuel. When you do come across a gas station that is open and has fuel in it’s pumps, you are forced to wait in excruciatingly long lines. Sometimes, the wait for fuel at a service station can occupy three or four hours of your day.

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One of the countless closed service stations we passed in Nigeria

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People wait for fuel at one of the few open stations near Gusau, Nigeria

Nigeria is the number six producer of oil in the world, but most of the oil that is pumped from Nigeria’s territorial waters is exported. Despite its position as an OPEC heavyweight, Nigeria is forced to import gas to meet it’s domestic demand. Refining capacity in Nigeria is almost nonexistent and the refineries that are operating in the country are run by the government which even admits that they are poorly managed, inefficient and plagued by maintenance issues.

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Signs of Nigeria’s dilapidated energy infrastructure

In some regions of the country, like the state of Sokoro, none of the service stations had fuel available, so one is forced to search out fuel on the black market. Sokoro was where we entered Nigeria and we were totally amazed at the fuel situation there. No one had fuel of any type and no one expected to have any for days. One service station was expecting a shipment in two days, and already there was a line of more than 50 cars outside the gate. We obviously did not want to wait for two days for the fuel to arrive and then spend another day waiting in line, so we found some illegal fuel for the trucks at a roadside black market stash.

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Black market fuel vendor in Zaria, Nigeria

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We were not willing to wait so black market fuel it was

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Fortunately for us, black market fuel in Nigeria is still cheaper than legal fuel in other parts of West Africa

Nigeria has a well established black market for fuel and some people’s sole income is derived from selling illegal fuel. Most cities have an organized group managing black market fuel and you can even spot local authorities purchasing fuel from roadside vendors. Because it is black market gas, you can expect to pay more for it. Throughout Nigeria, and depending on the overall availability of legal fuel in a region, you can expect to pay anywhere from 90 to 140 Naira per liter on the black market compared to the fixed price of 70 per liter at a service station. This is a pretty significant price difference, but a difference you are willing to pay when confronted with a seemingly endless line of cars in front of you at the service station. Unfortunately, for many Nigerians, this is a price difference that they can not afford, so they must either find alternative means of transport, or dedicate a large portion of their time to filling up their vehicles at legitimate stations.

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Waiting for fuel in Gboko

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You can make a good living buy legal gas in one state and reselling it for double the price in the next

The situation here is pretty bad and the black market also perpetuates attacks on pipelines and refineries that are operational by rebel groups who sell fuel on the black market to finance their activities. The demand for fuel in Nigeria far exceeds the supply (the power grid is so unreliable in Nigeria that many hotels and businesses run generators which further reduces the available supply) and this is strange coming from a country that has so much oil to go around. If there is one positive, I have one more for the I never game: “I have never bought black market fuel from rebels in Nigeria…”

By Steve Bouey | Posted in Africa, Nigeria, Trip Thoughts, World News | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

This One Takes The Cake

By Steve Bouey in

April 9, 2008 – 12:49 pm

We have covered a lot of miles on The World by Road and the terrain we have driven is as diverse as the countries we have passed through. Obviously, the road can get pretty bad from time to time and it always leads to the same question: Is this the worst road we have been down? There have been quite a few occasions where the answer to that question is an assertive “YES!” However, on a road trip like this, just when you think you have seen the worst of it, there is always something else lying in wait around the next corner.

The road that was waiting for us just on the other side of the Nigeria-Cameroon border on the way to Mamfe was a beast, and for the time being, it is without a doubt, the worst road we have been down on the expedition. We had been warned about this stretch of road, but the warning did little to prepare us for what we actually encountered. Mud pits, fallen trees, more mud pits, etc. Hopefully there will not be any roads in much worse shape than the road to Mamfe because if they are, they are for the most part impassable. In fact, I can hardly believe that we actually made it through some of the obstacles on the way to Mamfe. I guess that is a testament to the durability or our Toyotas and our driving skills!

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Kilometer 26 of the worst road yet

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This is the MAIN road from Southern Nigeria into Cameroon!

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The current No. 1 was no problem for The Thundra

All this talk of bad roads led us to sit down and reflect upon all the rough stretches of road we have had to navigate during the course of the expedition. The end result of that reflection is a list of the worst roads on The World by Road. So without further adieu, here is The Top Ten Worst Roads On The World by Road. It is funny looking back and remembering what these roads were like at the time… when we went through Poipet on our way to the Ankor temples in Cambodia, that was the worst road any of us had ever been on. Now, that stretch or road barely makes the top ten. Obviously this list is subject to change before we are through with this whole thing, but for the time being…

 

The Top Ten Worst Roads On The World by Road

Rank

Road

Length
1 Ekok to Mamfe, Cameroon 82 km
2 Douentze to Timbuktu, Mali 200 km
3 Beyneu to Aktau, Kazakhstan 327 km
4 Ban Hinboun to Pakxan, Laos 89 km
5 Kaffrine to Tambacounda, Senegal 178 km
6 Renhe to Shimian, China 485 km
7 Anywhere outside of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia * N/A
8 Poipet to Siem Reap, Cambodia 60 km
9 Rubtsovsk to Georgievka, Kazakhstan 325 km
10 Anywhere in Central and Southern Nigeria ** N/A

* Outside of UB, there are very few stretches of paved road in Mongolia. In fact, I would not even really consider most of what we drove in Mongolia to be a road. If you are going anywhere in Mongolia, most likely, it is off road and can get a little bumpy every now and then.

** The road surfaces in Nigeria are pretty good for the most part, however, the drivers there are so reckless and bad, that simply venturing out on the roads in Nigeria is a risk to your health. Nigeria may not have the worst roads in the world, but hands down, they have the worst drivers so we had to include them on the list.

By Steve Bouey | Posted in Cameroon, Expedition Updates, Road Conditions, The Toyotas | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)