Yaounde to Windhoek

Location: Windhoek, Namibia

21 August – 7 September

As Milan was still not 100% from the malaria, we took it easy out of Yaounde and stopped in the southern town of Ebolowa where we stayed at the lovely Hotel Port Jaune. The next day we crossed the border into Gabon and decided to stay at Hotel Ngue in Mitzic for the night. We arrived quite early so we walked down the street to get a drink and relax a bit. This is where we found a bottle for sale called ‘Gin & Tonic’ – since the locals drink from morning to night we decided to join in with a beer and a G&T and watch them down a milk carton of red wine in ten minutes, get back in their car again which was loaded with goats and chickens and drive off.

We carried on to Lopé from where you can go on mandrill and lowland gorilla treks. Having been to eastern Africa before and knowing how good the wildlife is there, we decided to skip any upcoming national parks and not take the chance of being disappointed with the western/central Africa NP’s. We had the coordinates of a well known overlander bushcamp just after Lopè, S00 09° 110, E011°44.449 on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding savanna. It was a beautiful location and we watched the bush fires burning the dry grass in the distance. Next day was Franceville, then Lekoni where we were searching for the well known canyons which are supposed to be about 10 km’s after you exit the town. We drove around for hours trying all the small tracks off the main track but without any luck. We gave up and found a bushcamp in the middle of the hills with nothing around us at all – it was so peaceful. Little did we know that once the sun goes down, lady bug looking things come alive and millions of them fly around in the air. We quickly packed up and escaped into our tent, where it sounded like rain drops where hitting our tent all night, but it was in fact the little bugs.

We continued the sandy track to the Congo border, and thought we had gone back to Europe when we entered the town of Oyo. We later found out that this is where the president was born and hence is full of European looking houses, street lights, fancy motor boats and jetties on the river, its the Chinese invasion. We carried on early and on our way to Brazzaville we met Pawel, a Polish cyclist who has been travelling from Morocco to Congo in 5 months, the same as us. We had a chat with him on the side of the road and said we would meet again at Hippocampe (Vietnamese hotel and restaurant where overlanders can camp for free) in Brazza in a few days. When we arrived in the city we met a German/Austrian retired couple who have driven their Magirus from Europe to Brazza in 2 years(!), so they like to take things very slow. We applied for a transit visa at the Angolan embassy but gave up after realising we were not going to get it since only 2 visas have been issued by them in the last 4 years!

Pawel showed up on the Friday and together we attacked the Brazza (Congo) – Kinshasa (DRC) ferry / border crossing the next morning. We had ‘pre-booked’ fixers on both sides of the border to help us get through. Many travellers get turned back on the Kinshasa side with their visa for DRC cancelled, without any reason. The officials claim that this is because you don’t have a visa for onward travel, meaning Angola, but currently the only way to get the Angola visa is either in Nigeria or in DRC Matadi. We were particularly nervous that we would not get off that boat on the other side. The whole endeavour took almost 9 hours and we witnessed officials beating people for no reason, and the Red Cross people just turned a blind eye to it. It was the worst thing we had experienced on this trip so far. Luckily we made it together and we arrived at the Catholic Mission St. Anne and celebrated with a few local beers! Note for other travellers – the Brazza side is so much worse than the Kinshasa side, and on the Kinshasa side they will spray your car for health and safety reasons which costs around USD 50. Glad to have made the hardest border crossing in Africa, we went to bed in good spirits with smiles on our faces.

Wanting to reach Namibia as soon as possible we headed for Matadi the next day where we applied for the Angolan transit visa, it’s a 5 day visa and the only one they issue apparently. We had heard from other travellers that the visa is issued on the spot, this was unfortunately not the case for us. After filling out the forms and having an ‘official’ interview with them, they said we should come back tomorrow for the visa. Happy to have that done we were well tired by this point and decided to spoil ourselves by checking into Hotel Ledya which is USD 100 per night.
Next day we headed to the embassy only to be told that the visa was not ready and we should come back tomorrow. Having no patience for their embassy bollocks anymore, we argued and argued with them, the crying trick didn’t work either unfortunately. The visa cost USD 80 each and all they need to do is put a silly sticker in your passport. Could we at least have our passports back please so we can leave Matadi and explore some surroundings? No this was not possible, they did not have the key for that safe. We returned to the hotel where we found out that the Hotel Director knows the Angolan Consul in Matadi. We spoke with him the next morning where he called his friend and we were told we would get it that afternoon. The Hotel Director was an extremely nice man who said we did not have to pay for the coming night’s room and dinner, since it was not our fault that we were still in Matadi and could not leave.
At 4pm we could pick up our passports with the visas in them. We have no idea where our passports had been. Had they been flown to Angola to get stamped, or Kinshasa? We got them finally and left the staff without any thank you’s – they were the rudest and most unhelpful people we had met. We don’t know any consulate where the staff is watching ‘24’ during working hours. Maybe our voodoo dolls can come in handy here....

Happy to leave Matadi we headed for the Songololo border early. It was an easy border crossing and our impression of the Angolans was good. The Angolan roads are known to be the worst on this continent and only too soon did we realise the damage to Edmund. The 2 shock absorbers on the back right had come off. This was not such good news as that meant that we would only drive on the worst roads possible with 1 shock on each front side and 2 shocks on the back left. Spirits were down but we carried on driving 30 km/h on the sandy road and made it to Nzeto for the night. Up at 5 we drove and drove, through the capital on the day of elections (no problems at all – it was good to see they all wanted to vote) and found a place next to the road, in a dug out area, for the night, S10°50.261, E015°02.266. Having a huge landmine problem from the recent war we decided it probably best not to go off road and be blown up in the process.

Angola turned out to be an extremely beautiful country which could be a great place for tourism. The nature is stunning and would be perfect for hiking, rock climbing etc. Angola was a bit of a shock to our system as this is the first country we have visited which was Portuguese. This was also the first country we had travelled in where the people in the villages were asking us for food. After 4 days of early starts and early nights, we crossed the border into Namibia on the 7th and were extremely happy campers! (The Chinese are building the roads in Angola so a lot of it is brand new tar).

Garoua to Yaoundé – Cameroon

Current Location: Windhoek, Namibia

5 – 20 August

We headed for a Toyota garage in Garoua which we knew stocked Yamaha parts and could possibly help with Anne and Reiniers falling apart bikes. Once we were on the street of the garage, we stopped for a quick chat to let the bikes go first since they knew the name of the garage. As we were about to leave a serious looking officer walked over to us and demanded our passports. Thinking this was a normal police check we handed them over but after 10 minutes of not knowing what was going on and no sight of the officer, Milan walked into his office to ask what was going on. It turned out he was going to fine us for stopping in the middle of the road. After a lot of hot air from Milan and Reinier had been exchanged with the officer and possibly a lot of foul language, we left the station with Anne receiving a warning for the wrongful parking. It makes no sense at all we know!

We found the garage just up the road where they ordered the parts they needed with pick up in Douala. We found a so-so hotel in the town, the only one open out of the 3 available, ready to carry on the next morning. As we were getting new car insurance with AXA, we got a call from Reinier that Anne had fallen off her bike. It turned out that in the rain, she had slipped and her bike had fallen on her foot. We caught up with them in the hospital and after a lot of waiting, buying medicines, bandages, etc etc, Anne was allowed to leave with her broken leg. Being Africa it seems they do not stock anything in the actual hospital, the patient/friend has to take the list of items the doctor writes down to a pharmacy in the town and buy them over the counter. We went to four pharmacies before we found crutches for her as well..... This caused a bit of a crisis to their travels. What to do next?

After a lot of discussions they decided to courier their bikes down to Yaounde and they would take the train, then see what to do once they were there. While they were packing together their belongings and separating what they needed and didn’t need in the coming weeks, Milan decided to add to the fun and get malaria again. We went to a clinic to get tested but at that time of night (19:30!!) they couldn’t do tests anymore, but the nurse was sure it was malaria and said he should start with the treatment and come back if it doesn’t get better.

Coartem it was and a very feverish Milan spent the next few days in the room. Not getting much better and starting to get kidney pain we decided to take him to hospital and see what the experts say. He didn’t want to go to the same hospital Anne had been to – too many fat mozzies and looking like it was a Russian hospital from a 100 years ago. We took him to a private clinic where he was put into an air conditioned room, had blood taken to run tests and eventually had a drip stuck into his hand with quinine, painkillers, vitamins, antibiotics etc.

After 2 nights in hospital he was allowed to leave, but had to continue taking quinine tablets for some days. Still feeling quite weak the next few days we took it easy to get down to Yaounde. Anne and Reinier hopped on a bus to N’Gaoundere where they would catch the overnight train to Yaounde. We met them there for some lunch and waved them goodbye, before carrying on another 30km’s to stay at a very nice place called Ranch De N’Gaoundaba. The next day’s drive was really beautiful through the rain forest, it was just getting denser and denser. We stayed overnight at Hotel Montagnia in Bertoua, and carried on early next morning to Yaounde. The only place you can camp in this city seems to be the Presbyterian Mission (N03°52.770, E011°31.344), which is a bit unfortunate because it’s run by a witch and her family and they lock the bathrooms in the evening which can cause certain issues, you can imagine. Nonetheless we could camp in their large garden which was away from all the traffic and noise of the city. The next day we thought we would get up early to do some visa shopping at the Gabonese embassy and the DRC embassy. Unfortunately it was Assumption that day and everything was closed, so we spent the weekend with Anne and Reinier and went to the restaurants in town to eat pizza’s, pasta, Indian, Chinese... yumm!

At this point Anne and Reinier had decided to fly back to The Netherlands to let the leg heal and continue with the trip once it was all ok again. A bit sad to leave Africa like this but happy to definitely come back on better terms, they decided to leave their bikes in storage for the coming months and pick them up a few months later.

Come Monday and we decided to attempt another shopping excursion at the embassies. ‘No problem no problem, pay a little extra and it will be done express for you’ – great lets do that so we can hit the road again! For DRC it was easy but the Gabonese were at this moment of our trip the rudest and most useless we had ever encountered, little did we know it could get worse! We wanted to pick up our passports in the afternoon but unfortunately the lady who stamps the visas was not there, she would be back later. When later? Just later, you just have to wait like everyone else. We waited for 3 hours out on the street with everyone else until we got fed up and decided to come back the next day. We came back the next morning only to be told the same thing again. We waited for a few hours again, got fed up so went to have some lunch and do some emailing while we were waiting. By the time we got back to the embassy our fellow visa appliers where not on the street anymore so we thought something must have happened. We walked in and were given our passports back by the gardener. Very happy but oh so fed up with their politics we went back to the mission and decided to leave Yaounde the next morning.

Embassies and Borders

Current location:Matadi, DRC



This is only a quick note to update everyone on what is going on. We will provide full diary and photo updates once we get to Namibia in a week or so.



We've been here in Matadi for the last couple of days waiting for an Angolan transit visa, seems that the saga for overlanders getting an Angolan visa continues, we have hopefully been rescued by the hotel director where we are staying, he happens to know the Angolan Consul here. So later today we may get our visas. For all other travellers coming through here they will issue it but it may take some time. Abuja seems to be the only place issuing tourist visas, we will only get a transit visa for 5 days. Since we left Yaoundé, after having discussions with embassies there, we had a quick no stop dash straight to Brazzaville. We attempted the Angolan embassy in Brazza, but gave up when the owner of Hippocampe told us they have only issued 2 visas in 4 years. The ferry/border crossing between Brazzaville and Kinshasa was the most nerve racking experience we have had so far, we managed to get through after 8 hours of discussions and negotiations, with the aid of fixers and other travellers that we met in Brazza.



After spending most of Monday discussing at the Consulate, we were exhausted and annoyed at their rudeness and inefficiency, its incredible here, we decided to stay at a nice hotel for the night to calm our nerves. We went back yesterday as instructed hopeing to get the visas, only to be told to come back tomorrow, without any reason. They refused to give us our passports back so we were also unable to leave Matadi. This morning, before going back to the Consulate, we spoke with the hotel director who was nice to call his friend and we will go back this afternoon again and should hopefully get the visas. He said that since this is not our fault we can stay at the hotel one more night for free, including lunch/dinner/drinks. What a sweety! He had done his hotel school apprenticeship in Zurich at the Carlton and the Old Inn -

Wish us luck and hopefully we can get back on the road again tomorrow morning!