Day 124: Stuffed by Shrove Tuesday
Soutpiel Safari
John & Jenny
Tue 8 Mar 2011 20:11
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Day 124: Tuesday 8 March 2011, Sleeping in the car in No
Man's Land between Congo and Cabinda. S04 59.350 E012 03.357 Distance driven 37
km
As we had only abut 150 km to go to Cabinda, we figured
there was no rush to leave so we spent the morning stocking up with food at the
very expensive, and very French, Casino supermarket and then doing
email. By the time we had had lunch and were ready to leave it was 1315
and we immediately ran into a mega-traffic jam leaving Pointe
Noire.
Leaving the Congo was a dream, so very helpful, so very
friendly and laid back, that I remarked to Jenny how different it was from most
of the north and west African borders. Then we rolled into the No Man's
Land between Congo and Cabinda - 200 metres of scrub smelling of urine and
populated by a mass of thieves, vagabonds, hustlers and money-changers all
trying to make a fast buck off any susceptible travellers. The first shock was
not being able to understand a word of Portuguese. We had become used to
struggling along in French and were generally able to understand what was going
on, but this was new - a 100% lack of understanding.
We presented our passports at Immigration, filled out
the entry cards with some difficulty and then waited and waited and
waited. Boss man of Immigration sat with our passports on his desk and
spoke continuously on two cell phones. Nothing we did seemed to cause him
to stamp our passports. Whilst we waited I went next door to Customs where
I met two extremely pleasant English speaking officers and very quickly had the
Carnet stamped for the car. Back in Immigration nothing was
happening. It was only as the 5pm closing deadline approached, and an
English speaking officer appeared, that we found out what the problem
was. It seems that the border Immigration post had been trying to contact
Immigration in Cabinda "to obtain information" but as it was a public holiday in
Angola there was no one there. They agreed that there was no problem with
our visas but they still needed Cabinda's clearance to let us in. No
matter how much we argued, nothing would change the situation. we were
told to go back to Congo for the night but refused as we already had our exit
stamp and, in any case, the car had been admitted to Cabinda!
Here we are, sitting in the car, parked in front of the
Angolan border guards prepared to sleep in the car. It is hot and sweaty
and plenty of mosquitoes but it is too dangerous to erect the tent. We
have just started the engine to run the AC and one of the border guards has come
over to check that we are OK so at least they are on their toes.
We have just had a beer from the fridge and a jar of
picked herrings and cheese, so we are not starving! As jenny remarked, it is
probably no worse than spending the night on BA bound for
Johannesburg!
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