The Congo/Gabon Border

The Congo/Gabon Border After a very long day of bumpy, truck eating roads we made it to the border but only just.  Lucky for us though, the border was still open and loved football (soccer for the Americans). At the first river, we stopped for some shower water.  We hang the bag up, plug in the shower pump and our nightly sun-warmed shower is ready. The next important commodity we needed was beer.  Here are Rasa and Peta trying to find out what beer bottles Gabon uses.  Remember, here in Africa they still have to return the bottles for deposit and are never thrown away. From Brazzaville to Obouya, the roads were freshly paved asphalt compliments of the Chinese and their quest for oil.  They have installed the needed infrastructure from scratch to extract their oil; from ports to river ways to roads.  Even the Chinese Restaurants are authentic! At the customs station, we came across a group of children practicing their army marching and rhymes. You would think crossing a border is straightforward.  Well, not if Africa.  The immigration, police and gendarmerie were all about 30km past customs on a basic National Highway.  There is no oil in this part of the country. Unfortunately for this truck, he did not have such good luck making it through the sand.  We tried twice to pull him out but could not budge him.  He had been stuck there a week when we passed him. It was dark when we made it to immigration but after talking about the South African World Cup, the guard was happy to stamp our passports.  After he wrote our details down in four separate books, we camped right there in his yard. The next morning we will enter Gabon and make our way to Franceville.  For now, we made it out of Congo without further incident and everyone has been wonderful. Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com Water Resource Policy Adviser www.robrasa.com Voice Mail: +1 (631) 458-1119 Skype ID: rob-rasa LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo Contact  |  Support Us  |  Home  |  Books all content ©2006-2008 click to REMOVE your email Robert & Rasa's rubbernecking