Riding my Yamaha TTR250 solo from London to Cape Town was never going to be a breeze, but that aſt er all, was the whole point! But as I approached Angola, unsure of what awaited me, I have to admit to feeling a little world-weary. I knew that twenty-seven years of civil war had wrecked this vast and once perfectly functional country. T ere were no roads, railways or infrastructure leſt , and by all accounts the entire place had been reduced to one giant poverty-stricken bomb crater, except for a small enclave of rich, foreign oil workers. Not exactly a top holiday destination, which might explain the authorities’ reluctance to let me in.


Going back a few weeks… I had found myself dumped by the Congolese military in the unlikely surroundings of the fi ve-star Meriden Hotel in Congo’s capital, Brazzaville, and I have to admit, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to facing the outside world again. T e Visa card was taking the strain and I was wallowing shamelessly in a world of room service, hot baths and people opening doors for me. But aſt er a couple of days of extravagance I had to face facts: I couldn’t live out the rest of my days in the Meriden Brazzaville, like some eccentric ex-pat recluse, being addressed by the bell-boys as Madame Lois. I knew the time had come to move on. But the next step of my journey, into the Democratic Republic of Congo, was not an appealing prospect.


T ere are two Congos - plain Congo, where I was hiding out, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - a byword for corruption, violence and out-of-control African insanity. T e two countries are divided by the great Congo River, and their respective capital cities, Brazzaville and Kinshasa, face


each other across some impressive rapids as fast, furious and violent as the two nations themselves. A ferry sails between the cities, and it was with a fast-beating heart that I rode to Brazzaville’s port to catch the Kinshasa boat.


Aſt er the usual hoo-hah involving small men with big rubber stamps I clattered up the rickety gangplank to board the rusting hulk that passes for the ferry and watched the other passengers arrive. T ere were plenty of folk carrying enormous sacks of grain on their heads, several men who were already drunk at 10am, and for some reason, lots of cripples dragging themselves around on their withered limbs. A few chancers were diving off the wharf into the brown swirling water and swimming round to the other side of the boat, where they clambered aboard to avoid paying for a ticket. T ere was a bit of a commotion when a fi st-fi ght broke out between an old woman and one of the deckhands, but aſt er that burst of excitement, the attention was turned towards me and I was soon surrounded by a curious crowd, bombarding me with questions: Where was I going? Where was I from? Where was my husband?


I told various lies by way of response, but my inquisitors were quick to warn me that I shouldn’t even be thinking of going to Kinshasa - it was ‘very dangerous for a woman alone’, and ‘the people are not nice like the people here in Brazzaville’. I nearly choked, especially considering the Brazzavillean’s reputation for driving around with severed human heads impaled on their car aerials. It seemed that by going to Kinshasa, I was jumping out of the frying pan and into the blazing, fi ery depths of Hell. When the ferry cast off from the dock my nerves were jangling at the thought of what awaited me on the other side of the river.


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