Democratic Republic of Congo

Friends in KinshasaWe crossed into the DRC at Matadi. It was Sunday and a sunny day with vendors selling their wares.  We were directed by the police to park and I went with the officials to have our passports stamped while Tom went back to the car to search for our Yellow Fever vaccination certificates, the first time ever we had been asked to show them.  Forms were completed, the carnet stamped and then our wait began. The chief official was in the village below attending church.  We joined the locals at the vendors drinking pop to pass the hours and keep cool.  Finally, the chief arrived, called coming especially from church to stamp the passports of the “Canadians.”  We had received a warm welcome to the DRC, but by now it was too late to drive through to Kinshasa. We camped at a mission just outside of Matadi.

Matadi Border The road from Matadi to Kinshasa was truly amazing!!! It was tarred and with virtually no potholes we were actually speeding along, with the windows wide open and the wind our hair flying in the breeze.

We arrived in Kinshasa and drove to a mission that allows overlanders to camp in their parking lot. Kinshasa seemed “empty” after the chaos and traffic in Luanda. We met several local Congolese people and they were friendly and wanted to have their photos taken with us.

We spent sometime in Kinshasa and then decided that we would rather put our cruiser in storage and return to Canada and complete the journey up West Africa at a later date. It was a tough decision, but we needed to return to Canada to attend to some family matters.
Hopefully it will not be too long before we are back on the road.

GPS coordinates