mgedwards – Page 89

Crossing into the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Some friends and I crossed the land border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia last weekend for a short trip to Lubumbashi in Katanga Province. Katanga includes the panhandle of the DRC that juts into Zambia and nearly divides it into two pieces. The land border crossing between the DRC and Zambia was so crazy that I thought it merited its own blog entry. If you ever visit Zambia on a longer trip and have some time to take a short jaunt up to the DRC to see the southern (and safest) part of the country, you might consider driving across the border. It’s quite an adventure and (I think) worth the trip.

When you approach the Zambian-DRC border from the Zambian Copperbelt region, don’t drive directly to the border or else you will be stuck in the middle of a long line of trucks and find it difficult to turn your vehicle around.

Look for a tarred (paved) road turning right from the main highway about 200 meters before the border. There you will find the turn-off to the Zambian Immigration and Customs facility. The Zambian side features a brand-new, beautiful structure that houses both the inbound and outbound Immigration and Customs offices. It’s stunningly nice and orderly. Looks can be deceiving however, because the process of exiting and entering Zambia is more confusing than it seems. Following these steps will help make your passage through the border easier and quicker:

Park on the far side of the building.
Go in and do your exit paperwork at Zambian Immigration. Be sure to have a valid passport, visas for both Zambia and the DRC, and your World Health Organization (WHO) Immunization card (affectionately known as the “yellow shot card.”) If you’re a permanent resident of Zambia, your Zambian ID will also be helpful.
Go outside and drive your car to the exit scales where a customs officer will weigh your car and give you paperwork to take to Zambian Customs for processing.
Go back into the facility and process your customs paperwork. Don’t forget to bring your valid driver’s license (Southern African Development Community [SADC] or international driver’s license preferred), vehicle title and registration, and proof of local insurance. If it’s a car rental, be sure your rental company will allow you to take the car to the DRC and provided you with the necessary supplemental paperwork. You may have to pay a customs fee (diplomats are exempt). Be sure to get the gate pass (a small piece of paper like a ticket) and Customs Importation Permit (CIP) showing you’re authorized to take the car in and out of Zambia.
After processing your customs paperwork, go back to your car and drive out through the gate near the building. It’s tricky to locate with all the trucks blocking the way. Zambian officials will open the gate for you to pass through after you give them the gate pass and CIP.

Now the fun begins. Bypass the tarmac (paved road) in the “no man’s land” between Zambia and the DRC and take the rough dirt road to the left of the tarmac. It’s easier to navigate the standing water and potholes with a larger vehicle. The reason for the bypass is that trucks are parked on the tarmac waiting to enter the DRC in the evening and will likely block your way. A number of aggressive English-speaking Congolese will seek you out to “help” you get through the border; they may be helpful but be sure to set expectations first. They are more helpful on the chaotic DRC side of the border, especially if no one in your group speaks French or Swahili, the two main languages spoken in Katanga Province.

DRC Immigration and Customs sits about 150 meters north of the Zambian facility and is to the right of the tarmac mentioned above. Cut through the trucks until you see a locked gate (yes, locked – not too many passenger vehicles apparently are intrepid enough to enter the DRC to warrant keeping it open). Your adopted Congolese border “guide” will help flag down a DRC official to open the gate for you; you can find one yourself if you have the French and the nerve to try it. Drive through the gate on the north side and park in the dirt alley next to the all-in-one gaudy blue and yellow Immigration and Customs facility that looks as if it was built in the 1960s and went through a civil war (sans the bullet holes).

The guide will take you to the small office where you may be haggled or harassed by DRC border officials who sit behind faux glass while hawkers and money changers accost you with whatever they’re selling in their hands. Officials and bystanders masquerading as assistants will be looking for any excuse to solicit extra “fees” and levy “fines,” so have your paperwork lined up. Passport with Congolese visa, check. Yellow shot card, check. Vehicle paperwork, check. SADC insurance valid in the DRC with receipt, check. It’s apparently normal procedure to be harassed and pressured to pay some money to make the problem go away, so don’t worry about being treated with suspicion at the DRC border and go with the flow. It’s part of the charm of the DR Congo. Eventually the issues will be cleared up, problems solved, and you’ll be on your way. If possible, have one traveler watch over the vehicles while you’re processing your paperwork. Lock your valuables in the car and keep your personal items close.

Whatever you do, DO NOT take any photographs at the border unless you are willing to have your camera taken away from you. If you do try to snap some shots, be very, very, very discreet. The Congolese are hyper-sensitive about photos at the border.

Once you’ve gone through the border once, it’s easier to go back through and should take you less time. Just do the steps above in reverse order. The entire process took us 1.5 hours to enter the DRC and one hour to re-enter Zambia, which may be a record. I’d heard horror stories of visitors stuck at the border for over four hours! We got lucky.

Windhoek, Namibia

We arrived in Namibia on an evening flight from Johannesburg, South Africa in April 2011, and drove to Windhoek, the capital and largest city, in the middle of a torrential rain typical at the end of an African rainy season but somewhat unusual for a dry country like Namibia. The rains wreaked havoc on the relatively smooth tarred highway, leaving behind gaping potholes that tested the suspension of our sub-sub-compact Nissan car rental not much bigger than a Mini. For a reason I can only chalk up to terrain or available land, Hosea Katuko International Airport sits far out of town in the middle of nowhere. Heavy rain and darkness obstructed my view as we drove on in a car that offered the challenge of driving for the first time in manual left-hand drive vehicle in an unknown location.

We arrived in Windhoek, a city of about 500,000 residents, late at night and dead tired after a long afternoon of commuting from our home in Zambia. The complimentary maps of Namibia and Windhoek given to us by the car rental company helped us locate the general vicinity of our hotel, the Protea Thuringerhof, on the city’s main thoroughfare, Independence Avenue. Contrary to the stereotype that men don’t stop to ask for directions, I stopped and asked where we were at a downtown petrol station. We were off by a couple of blocks. GPS with African coverage would have been helpful, but alas we did not have one at our disposal. Because the hotel is in the center of the city, we were concerned for our safety in a nearly deserted part of town. Fortunately, we weren’t in any imminent danger. Windhoek has a reputation for being a relatively safe African city far different from its neighbor, South Africa, where violent crime and carjackings are far too common.

Protea Hotels is a mid-scale (3-4 star) South African chain virtually omnipresent in cities throughout southern Africa. The quality varies by property, as we soon found out. The Thuringerhof where we stayed is centrally located and was cheaper but decidedly no frills and lacking in ambience; its sister property, Furstenhof, is more expensive but may be a better option for those looking for comfort. The Thuringerhof was obviously an aging hotel that Protea had purchased and remodeled. We received a discount during our stay because the hotel was painting the hallway and room on our floor and had covered the hallway with tarp plastic. The elevator was also broken. Porters carried our luggage up and down several flights of stairs from the postage-stamp sized fenced parking lot adjacent to the basement. We can’t really complain because the price was right in a country where lodging can cost $400-$500 per night, and the hotel was merely a base from which to explore the city. The complimentary breakfast each morning let us pore over our maps and plan our sightseeing strategy for the day. If you visit Windhoek on vacation, consider staying at the Thuringerhof if you place a premium on affordable lodging in a good location and can dispense with any other amenities.

Roadmap for future travels

I never seem to be able to keep up with our travels and happenings on this blog. Here we are heading to Namibia for the first time tomorrow, which of course I’ll have to blog about, and yet I still haven’t finished narrating the Kilimanjaro climb I did in January! Life always seems to outpace technology, doesn’t it? Our brains (still) process faster than a keyboard so that our fingers miss out on some of our thought waves. Blogging can never keep up with real life, particularly when it goes by so fast. Too fast lately, it seems.

Over the next couple weeks I plan to write a short series on our Namibia trip — assuming that there are some adventures to be told as we zigzag from Windhoek to Swakopmund and Walvis Bay to the Namib Desert and back on rough roads with a sardine can-sized car rental. I have a couple more installments of the Kilimanjaro series to post, and then I’ll be done. I hope to have the Namibia series written over the next month or so but will no doubt be interrupted by future trips to Lubumbashi, DR Congo, one final trip to Livingstone, and a visit to South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia, the last trip we’ll take in southern Africa before heading to our next destination in Asia via North America. In the next six months my family and I will visit three continents and multiple countries en route to our next home in Bangkok, Thailand, which is a great jump-off point for regional travel in southeast Asia.

While all this travel may sound “cool,” “awesome” or “exciting,” it’s going to be a grind. Imagine packing up your entire life — including all that stuff you’ve forgotten in your garage or attic — and moving it cross-country every 2-3 years; then, imagine yourself moving half way around the world and getting everything you own — and yourselves — there intact. When we finally land in Bangkok after having been back to the United States for a short trip to visit family, we’ll be more than ready to take a break from traveling. For a few months at least until we head to Shanghai, China next February for Chinese New Year. During all this travel I will do my best to document it with of course more random posts about issues of personal interest to mix things up.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.