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| Kinshasa, DRC |
The way back, we took it easy and went by plane. The flight was an
air-screw machine with 25 seats and we needed just 75 minutes to reach
Kinshasa. We did not plan to spend the night in Kinshasa, but leave
after another visit of the arts market immediately by boat to
Brazzaville. Well, this was the plan. But things can change very fast,
especially in Africa… It took about 2 hours to go through the paper work
at the border and till we had the tickets for the boat. So, finally, we
crossed the river Congo to Brazzaville. On the other side, a local
agent was supposed to help with the paper work there. However, that is,
where the problem started. For some reason the immigration officer at
the beach in Brazzaville had a problem with our agent, there was a big
palaver, shouting and there we already knew, there is something going
totally wrong…. The result was immediately delivered: we were escorted
by uniformed like dangerous criminals to the boat and were deported to
Kinshasa! Just imagine – pushed away by the relatively sure and somehow
friendly RC back to DRC. And logically without valid visas for DRC, as
they were stamped with the crossing the border of course…. This put the
authorities on the other side into big problems, at last they gave to us
new visas for only 60. – US per person.
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| Kinshasa, DRC |
Just before it was getting dark, we found ourselves with full luggage
on the unsafe streets of Kinshasa. At this time it is anything but easy
to find a hotel room. The next day we tried our luck once again. At
7.00 am, we went to the border office at the boat in Kinshasa to meet
the chief officer there. He called several times the chief at the other
side, until he gave his okay that we could travel. At 10 am, we left
again by boat to Brazzaville.. However, this would have been too easy:
the officer on the other side again did not want us to enter. Though
this time we had pre-booked a hotel in Brazzaville by phone, but the
officer did not want to accept that. He wanted to see a reservation on
paper. So, we had to call the owner of our hotel to come and fetch us at
the beach! We were really happy when he finally arrived. It did not
take long and, finally, the paper war was over.
