The Gabonese border guard dressed for work in his uniform this morning, something he probably doesn't have occasion to do very often. After we broke camp, Elsa went to speak with him. The "reference number" problem had mysteriously disappeared, but for some reason we now had to wait until the Congolese agreed to let us in before he would let us out. The Congolese, he said, would be arriving on foot, and would take longer than normal today because of the mud.

Last night we saw an amazing thunderstorm. It started with lightning in the distance, far enough away that we couldn't hear the thunder. By 3 am it was raining hard and it continued until almost dawn, leaving our campsite a muddy mess. At about 10am a truck drove up on the Congo side of the border bearing about a half-dozen people, including another down-on-his-luck Nigerian and a German man who was traveling by public transport to Libreville. We were told that we had to return with them to see the chief in Mbinda, the first town we would encounter in Congo. Jen, Graham, Elsa, and Vicky piled into the pickup with Graham and Jen in back next to a guy with an AK47.

The rest of the group settled in for more waiting. We pored over maps and a detailed report from someone who had recently driven from Namibia to Point Noir. He had spent about 14 days on the journey and recorded towns, distances, and drive times. There are three sections in particular that seem nasty, requiring a full day's drive to cover 100 km. Connie's parents are due in South Africa at the beginning of May, and we are starting to be concerned that we won't make it there in time to meet them. About two hours later the truck returned from Mbinda. Elsa (who is French and has helped us out tremendously in talking with officials and locals) convinced them to allow us to enter, and in fact reported that the Congolese are very excited to welcome the first tourists in 7 years into Congo via their border.

Graham got his bolt cutters and cut the lock on the Gabon side of the gate, having decided that was easier than digging up the dead guy to retrieve the key. We drove through 100m of tall grass to reach the Congo side of the border. The officials stamped our passports at the border, then we followed the pickup 10km to Mbinda. The road was very slow and there were many deep mudholes filled with water from last night's rain. Toki got mired once as the dead spot in the steering makes for some tricky driving. A quick tug from the Pinzi got us moving again.

The Prefect in Mbinda gave us an extremely warm welcome and was happy to have us in his town. We walked down the main street to buy bread, bananas, and some dough balls for lunch. The locals seemed astonished to see us. As we left they all (about 40 people) stood in the street and waved. As we drove along toward Myoko, we received similar looks of amazement from the people we passed. We passed a man in a military uniform who told us we had to check in at a nearby police post. They were all very excited to have someone whose passports they could inspect, and whose details they could copy down. We spent about 30 minutes there and were set free. The road continues to be muddy and rutted and we've seen only 3 vehicles all day. The track is slowly being overtaken by the jungle and at times there is a wall of vegetation scraping along both sides of the car. We drove through a section that was strangely flat and devoid of trees, although the grasses were still higher than our cars. Connie checked Fugawi and found that there was once an airstrip there! Fortunately it is marked "unusable" on our map.

We eventually found a spot to camp after a bit of searching, although it was quite muddy. We built a fire and Slade grilled some chicken for dinner.

It rained again last night, but thankfully not too hard as we were camped near a stream. After breakfast we set off for Makabana where Elsa has a contact with someone who will know the route to Point Noire.

The road was good and we were able to make almost 100km to Mossendjo by lunch time. We found a restaurant in town where we shared the four portions of gazelle and two of porcupine between nine of us. It was in a sort of stew and came out cold. It wasn't the best meal any of us had ever had. By the time we were finished the whole town knew we were there and then we were told that we had to go to the customs post in town. The official there was on a major power trip. He inspected all nine of our passports and laboriously copied down the details. He asked us various questions about our professions, our mother's maiden name, and our shoe size, but didn't ask a consistent set of questions to all of us (he was just making them up as he thought of them).

Next he wanted to search our vehicles. He climbed into the front seat of the Pinzi and was looking around when Bayo, Elsa and Urs' 120 lb Burmese mountain dog, stuck his big furry head into the front. The guy freaked and whacked his head as he made a mad dash for the exit. There was a crowd of about 30 standing around us, who found this very funny and started laughing. This didn't make the stern official very happy at all and he insisted on inspecting Bayo's medical record. He got out a piece of A4 paper and wrote down:
Chien (dog)
Nom (name): Bayo
He seemed disappointed that he couldn't think of anything else to write. After he inspected our carnets, he told us that we had to go to see the police next. The entire process was repeated with guy tasked with searching the cars absolutely terrified of Bayo the Schlobberhund. "Is he tied??!!"

Next we were told we had to visit the military post and afterward the Mayor wanted to see us. Most of us have papers with all of our details on it that we can just give to the police to save them lots of effort and us lots of time (although they aren't always accepted) and we gave these to the military official, who didn't notice that there were two missing. We got in our cars and drove off as quickly as possible, blowing off the mayor and heading out of town. This had taken a good part of the afternoon, and a further two police checkpoints in the next 20km stretched our patience further. At one we were introduced to the district prefect who was at the bar drinking beer and could barely stand to shake our hands much less copy down any details. In fact all the officials seemed to be at the bar.

We drove a further 80km in the afternoon to the office of a logging company owned by a friend of Elsa's family. They put us up for the night and even fed us dinner, quite a feat considering that there are nine of us. We were glad of the shelter as we watched a full downpour and thunderstorm from the verandah.

Alan, who runs Foralac along with his brother Frederick, took us into the forest this morning to learn about their logging operation. They have a concession of 300,000 hectares (about 50 square km) from the Congolese government. They take an average of one tree per hectare, both hard and soft woods. The company has 200 employees and harvests about 40 trees per day, generating 2500 cubic meters of wood per month.

First we followed a crew of four guys for about 30 minutes into the forest on foot to a tree which had been identified for cutting by pygmies employed by the company for this purpose. The tree was a beautiful Iroco (a type of hardwood) about 30m tall and 1m in diameter. It took them about an hour to fell the tree using machetes and a chain saw. The sight and sound of this enormous tree crashing through the forest, splintering smaller trees like matchsticks as it went was truly impressive.

We next visited another location where we watched fallen logs being extracted from the forest. The process is one of pure brute force. Part of our group rode on a Caterpillar bulldozer as it forced a path through the forest, driving through smaller trees and bushes, cutting a track to the tree. Once there, workers attached a one inch thick steel cable and the machine dragged the 20-ton log back to a central location for collection by truck. The whole process was impressive; there is no finesse involved here. We all gained a new appreciation for the destructiveness of the western appetite for wood, and for the skill and hard labor required of those whose job it is to harvest it.

It was 3pm when we headed back to the logging camp, and we were all tired and hungry from a day of tramping around in the forest without lunch. We were looking forward to some food and a cold drink. On the way back we were stopped by the gendarmerie who did not look happy. Apparently we had neglected to stop to register with them as soon as we entered Makabana. They had got word of our presence and had been waiting in the sun all day for us. Alan helped to smooth things over for us, and we went back to the company's headquarters with the police truck in tow. We hadn't had lunch, and somehow Alan had Luc, his chef, put on a wonderful meal of sea bass and rice with calamari sauce almost as soon as we arrived. Alan explained to the police that we would go and speak with them as soon as we had had something to eat. We arrived at their office at about 5:30 and spent 45 minutes talking with the town prefect who was pretty full of himself. Again Alan helped us immensely. Eventually they let us go and told us we had to go see the police (different from the gendarmerie.)

It was getting dark by this time so Alan led us instead to Lac Bleu, a local camping spot used by him and his family. We are very grateful to Alan and Frederick for their hospitality, the insightful look into their operation, and for their help with the local officials.

Watch the Iroko come down in a movie.

We spent a very relaxing morning hanging out by the lake. Slade, Vicky, and Krissy have snorkeling masks and fins, and we enjoyed snorkeling in the crystal clear waters of the lake. It was like swimming over the top of a jungle, with bright green grasses and many multi-colored fish in the water.

We departed at about 2 after bees showed up to share our lunch with us and drove for a few hours along a road used mostly by logging trucks. The pinzi developed a leak in a tire at about 5pm and conveniently there was a beautiful campsite near where we stopped which overlooked the forest and the Niari River. Elza cooked some wonderful pasta and we sat around the campfire until it started to rain.

We drove the remaining 150 km into Pointe Noire, stopping for a few police checks which are getting quicker and easier as we go. We phoned a contact that Elza made while in Libreville, and were directed to a yachting club in town where we were allowed to camp on the beach. It's not the most beautiful beach setting you can imagine, but it does have showers, and it's free!

We have one visa for Angola which we obtained in Libreville, but it is single entry only. We need to get another Angola visa so that we can go through the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, then enter DRC for a short stretch, then back into Angola at Matadi. We will visit the Angolan embassy tomorrow to try to sort out that visa.

The security folks at the yacht club made us move from the beach to the gated area where they store people's boats this morning because they are concerned about our security. This may be a good thing, as Graham and Connie were awoken at 6am by someone climbing up the side of Thoki. Connie yelled at him and he seemed surprised that people were sleeping in the tent. He left in a hurry.

We checked with the Angola embassy and learned that it would take a week to issue another visa. Checking further, we learned that it is possible to use our current visas to transit through Cabinda, then get another visa at the border in Matadi. We spent the rest of the day writing web updates and doing laundry. Connie and Krissy went to the Score supermarket to stock up on supplies. We got a cab to the "Pyramids" restaurant for dinner but it was closed. We asked the driver to take us somewhere good and not too expensive. We ended up back at Chez Wou, where we ate last night.

We left the boat yard this morning at about 8am and spent a few hours in town getting fuel, sending emails, and eating pain au chocolate. We drove the 25 miles to the border on good tarmac. The formalities on the Congo side were fast and efficient.

Immigration on the Angolan side, however, required more patience. One guy filled out a long form for each of our passports, in triplicate, by hand. Next, another guy proofreads each of the forms. A third guy pounds out the information on an old manual typewriter. We settled in on the back porch of the office for a long wait. The locals, curious as ever, brought us an assortment of stuff for us to buy. Elza bought a very cute pair of red shoes that match her pants. Rumor has it that there are 25 pairs of shoes in the Pinzgauer! After 3 hours of waiting, we learned that nothing had actually happened. They had put all of our passports (we hoped) and a copy of the papers they had prepared into a large envelope and sealed it. They explained that a guy from the office had to accompany us to Cabinda where the chief would inspect our paperwork. We reluctantly agreed and the guy got in the cramped back seat of Rafiki, the 7-gallon water container hitting him in the back when Witt hits the brakes.

The first 25 km out of town was horrible old tarmac with huge potholes and took over an hour. We encountered one police checkpoint where a very drunk official stared at the Moroccan entry in our carnets for about 5 minutes. It was nearly dark when we reached Cabinda. After driving around on a confusing maze of one-way streets for awhile (our guide didn't really know where he was going) we located the immigration office. We were greeted by a very polite, well-dressed man (#4) but he was just a subordinate and we had to wait for the chief to come from his house. The chief (#3) wanted to keep our passports overnight. After a long argument he agreed to accept photocopies. He sent a guy in a car to show us to the Catholic mission so that he would know where we were. At the mission we were told that we needed a letter of authorization from the police or immigration in order to stay. So Witt and Slade drove back to the immigration office. While we had been away, the next guy up the chain of command arrived (#2). He was very unhappy that we had been given our passports back and followed us back to the mission so he could inspect them. He was drunk enough that he couldn't stand without staggering a bit, so it's fortunate that driving a car is done while sitting. He wanted to take our passports to his boss (#1) so he could inspect them. We weren't very happy having some drunk guy we don't know drive off with our passports, so Witt, Slade, and Graham followed him to a restaurant where #1 was having dinner with his family and a friend. #1 seemed very unhappy with #2 for having interrupted his meal. #1 and his friend across the table started a heated argument in Portuguese that quickly degenerated into a full on shoving match with tables being thrown and family members running for cover. #2 left and started to get back in his car with our passports. Graham, hearing nothing of it, grabbed the envelope and wrestled it away from him, whereupon #2 drove off in a cloud of dust. Our passports safely in hand, we drove back to the mission where Krissy and Jen had made a quick meal. Hoping that the morning would bring greater sobriety and less violence, we opened our tents and fell into bed at 10:30. This office seems to have a serious problem with no one being empowered to make a decision. We figure we'll be seeing the president in a few days.