We're running the Marathon des Sables: please sponsor us and give us a tune!

Dear everybody,

Firstly, please accept my apologies for the spam. My indiscriminate emailing will no doubt mean this reaches a lot of people to whom it is of no interest. Sorry!

In a little over a week, Will Day, Charlie Coupland, Charlie Carter and I* will be heading off into the Sahara desert to take on the "World's toughest footrace", the Marathon des Sables. Over the course of 6 days we will run 150 miles/240km (6 marathons) through alternating rocky barrenness and soul sapping sand dunes. The temperature will reach peaks of 50 degrees C and barring water and a tent, we will be carrying everything we need for the week on our backs.

Its going to be a toughy! So we'd like to ask two favours: 1) to sponsor us by donating some money to charity, and 2) to add a tune to our playlist to help us through the tough times in the desert.

1) Sponsor us:

Unless we really lose our marbles this will probably be the most physically challenging thing any of us ever do, so if you would ever sponsor us for anything, now's your moment! We're running on behalf of two great charities and we'd love it if you could spare a few pennies for whichever appeals to you most (or both!).

ACUMEN is a charitable fund which invests in companies, leaders, and ideas that are changing the way the world tackles poverty.

If a picture says a thousand words, a video says even more. This is the founder of Acumen describing their philosophy in a TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/jacqueline_novogratz_on_patient_capitalism?language=en

To donate to ACUMEN please click here

BLESMA (The British Limbless Ex-Serviceman's Association) helps all serving and ex-Servicemen and women who have lost limbs, or lost the use of limbs or eyes, to rebuild their lives by providing rehabilitation activities and welfare support. These programmes allow members and their families to face the challenges ahead with renewed confidence and self-belief.

To donate to BLESMA please click here

2) Give us a tune!

The first half hour of spectacular scenery, tropical temperatures and light exercise will no doubt be very pleasant. But beyond that we're expecting a lot of hurt and some serious low points to get through - where a bit of music will go a long way.

We've made a shared spotify playlist and we'd love it if you can add a tune to it for us to take with us. Maybe something that means something between you and  one of us or will bring back memories. Something to make us smile when the going gets tough or to inspire us out of the depths of self pity. Think of it as a way to come to the desert with us without leaving the comfort of your chair! 

To add a song, click here, follow the playlist then add music. For the oldies, its an internet thing - we're available for tutorials if help is needed ;)

Finally if you'd like to follow our progress, sign up to this facebook event. Rumour has it we can send messages out from the camps so we'll try and put updates on there. We'll also add some photos afterwards.

Thank you so much, your donations and music will help other people who need it most and help us get through this silly ordeal we peer pressured each other into!

See you on the other side!

Tom and "the Honeybadgers"

* a special mention goes to the 5th musketeer, Jimmy Carroll, who having done months of training has sadly had to pull out at the last minute due to an injury. He'll be the one laughing come day 2!

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In case the links in the email didn't work.....

To donate to ACUMEN: https://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/tom-putnamMDS/1

To donate to BLESMA: https://www.justgiving.com/MDS1/

The spotify playlist (sandman): https://play.spotify.com/user/tomputnam/playlist/6hzyEq8vKBKdu7XcSMH55G

The facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/events/406557646191834/412859665561632/

Lies, laziness, incompetence, thievery and corruption

As I write this, I’m camping under the stars near the skeleton coast, drinking a beer with good friends around a fire. Life couldn’t be much better. And yet, when I hark back to the day we got Chopper out of Libreville port I can’t stop the wave of anger that washes over me.

Lets rewind a couple of weeks and start at the beginning. Due to the RAC's ineptitude I hadn’t been able to bring the carnet (car document) out with me so was prepared to accept we might have to wait for Daisy to arrive to get the chopper out of the port. Combined with Gabon’s four day independence holiday, it was definitely Monday earliest. That would make it a mere 4 days behind schedule. As you can imagine, we were not happy when we got to the Getma office (shipping agency) on Monday to be very matter of factly told that the boat hadn’t yet arrived. This of course was not Getma or Grimaldi’s (shipping line) fault, but was a blameless result of the 4 day holiday. Completely understandable of course that they hadn’t seen that coming....Gabon has after all only been celebrating independence like clockwork for the last 53 years.

Anyway, not ones to cry over spilt milk we decided that we’d head south to Loango national park for the week. Despite Getma’s ETA of Thursday/Friday, and Grimaldi’s London office ETA of Saturday we thought we’d give them some wiggle room and turned up on Monday. Was our car available? Of course it bloody wasn’t. And who can blame them? Why should a shipping agency have any idea when the boats they unload will arrive? And if you were in the business of driving boats around the world, why on earth would you keep tabs on them and know when they might be docking. They’re all absolute morons. We had begun to suspect this fact a little while previously, but now it was confirmed. Not to worry though, Getma assured us that our boat was now waiting entry to the port as it had arrived, but was in a queue. It would be docking either that night (Monday) or early on Tuesday. (Note the small hole in their previous excuse of the port being backed up...Grimaldi hadn’t even managed to get the boat to Gabon at that time...probably bad traffic or something...on the open seas)

This was decision time. Jez was coming in hot to DRC on Tuesday night, and probably wouldn’t appreciate a solo 10 day break in the most lawless country in the world, so we had to make a plan. 4 options we reckoned. 1: all wait and hope the Chopper comes in that night/early tomorrow. Relies on Getma and Grimaldi having had a sharp HR turnaround to dismiss the swathes of morons running the show. Unlikely. 2: All head in one car and leave the Chopper for dead. Resulting in an exceptionally uncomfortable couple of weeks' driving, and leaving the majority of my net worth tied up several thousand miles from me guarded only by thieves and cretins. 3: we split and leave one person here to catch up with the Chopper. All very well if it comes in tomorrow, not so good if it doesn’t come in for a week leaving one man flying solo for a 3000 mile game of catch up. Again relies on the integrity and intelligence of people involved in the shipping business. 4: we split, sending one man ahead and 2 to catch up. Means sending someone scouting ahead through the DRC alone, but does at least mean that worst case we end up in 2 pairs. Sold. Alfie stepped up and set off in Rodders after rolling the dice with the shits at a burger bar, leaving the old wrecking crew of Daisy and me to wait on Chop Chop.

"The regular please" at the Owendo Port's trucker cafe

And so the daily routine began. Down to the port in the morning. Discover they have again lied to us. Have a coffee. Wait for the daily ‘conference’ at which we expect the harbour master auctions docking space to fuel his Mercedes habit. Get told our boat will probably dock tomorrow. Return to the town in mildly high spirits. Drink a few beers at the ‘chef’s’ bar. Repeat.

On Thursday the emotional roller coaster really took off as we had a call telling us the boat was docking. We rushed down there to discover that this of course was not true. We did however take the opportunity to have some strong words with anyone who would do more than smile and nod in our faces, which was, of course, only the boss man and woman of the entire operation. At least we were on the map. Having rubbed a couple of braincells together, they assured us that Saturday night would be the big moment, and for the first time in nearly 2 weeks of talking to these monkeys, we got a rational argument as to why that may be. It of course did not excuse the 3 week tardiness, but did at least make sense. To placate us, they agreed to help us out with the paper work on Friday so we could leave the port stat on Sunday.

The paperwork. One of our many institution escapee friends (Corinne in this case) had assured us that once the boat had arrived the paperwork was a five minute affair and we’d be out in jiffy, if smarting a little from the £200 fee they were to charge for driving our car the 50m from deck to terra firma. This of course was not even close to true (but again, why would a shipping agency employee know a thing like that?) Even with the boss lady putting a rush on things, we finished up 10 minutes before everything closed up for the week, now with a £500 fee for the privilege. A big fu*k you very much to Grimaldi at this point who when grilled on potential hidden fees 3 months previously, e.g. port clearing fees, had assured me that there might be a £10 admin fee, but nothing over £50. So no mention of that £500 port clearing fee then fellas?

The boat arrives.....not even a full 3 weeks late!

So Sunday rolled around. Of course for the boat to have actually docked on Saturday would have been too much to ask, but 10.30am on Sunday wasn’t too bad. With all our paperwork ready to go, we sat and watched all day as the boat came in and unloaded. Of course, of the 460 cars to get off, ours was to be 455th and require a crane. Still, how long can that take? When one man manually writes down the registration of each car as it drives off, a long time. Just spitballing here, but maybe use some sort of bar code system, or employ a rank of 5 people to record 5 plates in parallel. We do realise that we’re pretty smart blokes, but even mere port administration executives might be able to stretch their imaginations when they’re running a 2 week backlog!

So we waited. And watched cars being scooped up by forklift, or driven off with locked wheels and bumpers hanging off. Not impressive from Grimaldi and Getma. In our infinite intelligence we queried if we might fire up the crane in parallel to the driving of the cars. Not possible of course, but we did manage to get an estimate to within a six hour window of when it might start. 2 hours later, I asked a French bloke supervising things. “it will start at 7pm which is when the crane operator is due to arrive”. How bloody difficult was that to spit out? And might someone not have mentioned it 9 hours earlier!

Fill your boots fellas. Didn't really want that stuff anyway.

Getting quite frustrated by the time the crane fired its engines (early, incredibly) so requested I be allowed to go and help chopsy get to the front of the queue. Permission to come aboard granted. And then I saw the state of the car. It had been securely locked...until some arsehole took a crowbar to the padlock on the back and helped themselves. Half the tools had gone, the radio, sleeping gear, food...even the Allbran was not spared! And this was hardly a case of someone shoving a quick fiver down their pants when no one was looking. They must have been in there for a good 20 minutes, and had made off with a wheelbarrow of stuff including a 20 litre jerry can. I imagine of course neither Getma nor Grimaldi will take responsibility, as how can you possibly catch employees doing shuttle runs with your customers’ belongings?

So finally, after some borderline special school attempts at lifting the chopper with slings, what was left of him struck land. In the process I witnessed Getma using minibuses to shunt other minibuses around the deck, a broken wind screen, cars being driving with handbrakes on, and a brand new Toyota being used to tow seized cars around deck, no doubt at the cost of a set of tyres and a clutch. All of course belonging to customers paying £500 each for this unloading service.

So we’re almost there. Just to leave the port. But of course that would be too easy, and we’d only been at the port for 13 hours that day. Now the customs fiasco. Despite having had everything stamped and approved by the customs boss man on Friday, we needed to see a customs man. Just as people came around to what we’d been telling them for an hour and got out the release papers, the big man turned up. This see-you-next-Tuesday clearly had an enormous slab of meat between his legs, and liked to demonstrate it through his important slow walk and calling everyone his “petit frère”. Apparently he had nothing better to do than come and tell us that the port was now closed and unless we had perishable goods, the Gabonese army, or something ordered by the President in the car, we were not allowed out. I wanted to punch him in the face. At first we thought maybe he was just a self righteous jobsworth, but then, true to form, he said “lets arrange something”. We laughed in his face. Of course he wanted a bribe....had we forgotten where we were? We pretended to go and discuss what we could afford and I tried to set up my camera to record the corrupt jack ass but sadly failed. Despite him pulling out thick wads of cash from his pocket to again demonstrate how big a deal he was, and how enormous a bribe he would need, we refused and he eventually got bored. We finally left with a squeal of tyres and wishing death on them all (except Patrick who was the one reasonable bloke in the whole mess), as one had a last crack at demanding phone credit for the call he’d had to make to try and remedy one of his series of fuck ups.

Fuming we got back to the hotel in time for a 4 hour sleep before we hit the road. Futile however as sleeping when that angry is no mean feat. At least we had the car. Finally.

I have some strongly worded letters to write when I get back home!

If anything this is probably good for cars...

Clients' minibuses used as shunts and one of Santander's nice new Toyotas used as a tow truck

Run Rodders, run Rodders, run run run....here comes a Chopper...

After our time relaxing at the port we were understandably eager to hit the road and catch up with Rodders before Simmons left (I’m not sure why). We left at 4am partly to try and get within striking distance of the border with Congo-Brazzaville but also because we wanted to get out of the city before the Police awoke from their drunken slumbers and clocked on that we were rolling without insurance (no time to purchase). We powered across the equator for (we hoped) the final time and on to Lambarene, again. The Gabonese roads were smooth and so was Chopper – we were purring along at 65mph, unattainable speeds in Rodders.  Gabon is a beautiful and lush country with incredible forest running right up to white sandy beaches, although judging by the number of tree trunks we saw on lorries soon there won’t be much left of ‘Africa’s last Eden’. After a good day’s driving mostly on good roads we managed to cross the border into Congo-Brazzaville about 10 minutes before the border closed – progress at last. We hadn’t lost our touch with border officials and were pleased to hear that another ‘blanc’ had passed through a week previously in an equally impressive looking vehicle – surely Rodders with Alf at the helm. We drove on looking for a suitable spot to camp as darkness was falling rapidly. No such spot turned up so we found a flat-ish spot at the side of the ‘road’, which since being in the Congo had deteriorated drastically, and did what we always did, relaxed with a warm and highly shaken beer – glorious. We then followed protocol and ate some foul food from an enormous bowl, chucked up our mozzie nets and fell asleep.

We woke early and cracked on immediately. The first ten minutes behind the wheel were always pretty unpleasant - the smell of unwashed bodies, clothes that have done nothing but soak up sweat for a week, damp tents/sleeping bags and diesel was pretty unique. We drove through what can only be described as Tellytubby land with strange hillocks dotted about an otherwise flat landscape – very different to the thick forest of Gabon. We were on decent dirt roads that didn’t look like they saw that much traffic and there wasn’t a human in sight, perhaps because this area is known for a rather unfriendly gang known as the ‘Ninja Rebels’. Unfortunately, we never met any of the Ninja Rebels, which was a shame because we were all out of ice and they sound like the sort of upstanding characters who would have sold us some to chill our beers. Following our change in direction to head east inland to find a suitable point to cross the Congo River, the going became painfully slow due to the state of the road. Fortunately we had intelligence from our advance party on a road under construction known to all as the ‘Chinois’. Driving on this road was strictly ‘interdit’ but anything would be better than a day of diversions. Road blocks on the Chinois were every few kilometres and so began a game of blagging our way onto the Chinois by telling a pack of lies such as “we have permission from the Chief” or faking illness/car problems or a similar emergency, followed by being kicked off the road or almost driving over an unfinished bridge and sliding along a few kilometres of diversion before finally finding a way back onto the road again. The diversions were extremely wet, muddy and slippery and a rudder would have been more useful than a steering wheel. We also only had one operational windscreen wiper, which when the waves of thick muddy water covered Chopper rendered the windscreen useless and we were temporarily flying blind. All good fun. The going had been extremely slow and we’d not made much ground. We called it a night and looked for a relatively quiet spot by the side of the road to go through our usual evening routine.

After another early start we came to a village where we were stopped by some soldiers and we batted away the usual negotiations for a ‘fee’ for looking at our passports. They then informed us that we needed an official escort to protect us from the Ninja rebels who plied their trade along the route so we waited for our convoy to leave supremely confident in our new passenger’s ability to wield his AK47 with devastating effect should we come under attack. In the meantime we introduced our military friend to the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Phil Collins. Communication was difficult due to the language barrier but I think he enjoyed it. He did not, however, enjoy me asking if he could fire his gun. We thought with our new official escort we would be immune to the Chinois check points but unfortunately this faith turned out to be misplaced – there is always a bigger Big Man. The Big Man was already turning over a local Congolese when he pulled us over and we quickly realised that he had been on the booze and if I had to guess his tipple, I would say that he had been mixing his spirits with dog shit due to the smell of his breath. The local took the easy way out by paying him off and advised us to do the same but that is not our way, even when in the wrong, as was the case in this instance. Our papers were checked and after an unusually lengthy period of aggressive threats and thinly veiled demands for a bribe they decided to drive off with our passports. This was not ideal, and our fearless warrior escort had turned into a jibbering wreck. We followed the Big Man until they finally stopped and got out. After further arguing and threats to call our embassy and speak to the Chief if they don’t give our passports back they finally gave in. He was a complete bastard but we were pleased that we hadn’t given him a penny. The road became better as we neared Kinkala and turned south again towards Boko, and the border with the DRC, having made the wise decision to not cross at the main Brazzaville-Kinshasa border crossing, which by all accounts is like a warzone. We reached the border at mid afternoon and spent an hour trying to find someone who could stamp our papers. When we finally found someone we had to do some of our most charming border patter as Will’s visa had expired the day before. Eventually we talked our way out of it and they let us on our way. We crossed into the DRC with another astonishingly smooth, if rather slow, border process and the road instantly disappeared. We didn’t see another car until we reached Luozi the following morning and breaking down was not an option as it was a long walk (~100km) to the nearest likely mechanic. However, we were both excited to be in the country that we had heard so many bad things about both in imperial and recent history. In the late afternoon we hit a bit of a stumbling block, though this was not the usual one of corrupt officials: it was bamboo. There was loads of the stuff and Putters was getting visibly sexually aroused by the straight erect limbs surrounding us. After working himself into a frenzy, I pulled over and allowed him to touch some. He claims he wanted to make a cup out of it but I saw through this and realised it was just an excuse to put it in his mouth. The sun was going down so I tore him away from his new passion to find somewhere to sleep for the night. We were passing through some beautiful country and we found the most perfect camping spot yet. The king of camping spots. Not a single sign of man. The warm sun was dropping down across the valleys with ourselves on a hilltop with an unforgettable view. We had one of our best beers that evening, and after strapping half the bamboo forest to the roof of Chopper (a compromise to get Puts to leave) Put Put had something to amuse himself with as well. He worked up quite a sweat working that bamboo that evening, I can tell you. 

We woke up early (again) and pressed on to reach the first ferry of the day at Labe. We met some extremely friendly Congolese officials who not only cheerfully stamped our carnet for us, but also showed us where we could change our money and buy some things. Aren’t all these people supposed to be bloodthirsty thieves and vagrants? Strictly no photographs allowed in the DRC which is a shame because we were crossing the mighty Congo River on an extremely efficient (the ferry had an engine and everything), if rather crowded ferry service with a policeman sitting on Chopper’s roof. The thing I remember most about this milestone moment was not the majesty of this river or the history that goes with it, but the lady next to us who had woven a basket around a live chicken which functioned both as a cage and as a handbag - extremely innovative. We pressed on south, hoping to reach a town where we could restock our beer supply with some of the (no doubt) fine local ales. However, no matter how fine they would have been, they cannot possibly be worth what they were asking for them – daylight robbery. Things were getting desperate; soon we would be drinking the coolant, and Chopper needed that more than we did due to a presumed, but unidentified, leak. We hit tarmac and followed it for an hour or two until we reached the Angolan border and another smooth border crossing.

We were in Angola and this brought with it our first police chase, although at the time we didn't know we were being chased. We reached a police checkpoint and were pulled over by a police woman who didn't speak a word of English (our Portuguese was a little rusty so communication was clearly going to be a barrier) and via the medium of flailing arms and raised voices she communicated that the police had been chasing us for an hour or so since we passed the last town (I think). God knows why they didn't catch us; we weren't exactly in a Ferrari. After a few more minutes a Toyota pulled up and 6 heavily armed guys jumped out and demanded to see our papers. They told us to report to the police station of every town we go through. We said we will. This was a lie – don't they know we were in a damned hurry! We headed west, towards the coast before heading south towards the capital, Luanda. The sun dropped below the horizon and we decided to look for a spot to sleep on the beach. This turned out to be a disaster, as trying to find somewhere to sleep in the dark often is. The place stank of a combination of dog shit and rotting fish and we couldn’t find any wood to start a fire.  A dreadful campsite.  

The next day we reached Luanda at mid morning. We looked for a land rover garage as we wanted to get a few things ironed out with Chopper: the main one being the hole in the exhaust which was making a dreadful noise and had also been pumping exhaust fumes directly into the cab for the past day or two resulting in a few light headed moments. Here we met one of the world's good guys who really did us a huge favour. We pulled into the official Land Rover garage, which hadn't historically been a happy hunting ground for us (in Morocco they took one look at Rodders, or maybe it was us, and told us to get lost). We asked to see the boss and a huge man with a smile to match came over. He got his man to check over our car and listed a few thousand dollars worth of work that needed to be done – tell us something we don't know. We reply by saying that we can't afford to pay for a thing beyond a few beers for the man that helps us. He chuckled and says he will do it for free – TOP MAN! Out came the soldering iron and our exhaust was as good as new(ish). We also get a few other bits done, like finding out where our coolant was disappearing to (we needed a new radiator). The only bad point was that it took the best part of the day and we were on a tight deadline.  The Chief invited us to lunch with the 200 or so mechanics that worked there, giving rise to 2 mysteries: i) what did we eat? And ii) how did we not get the shits? Truly miraculous. We left late in the afternoon and carried on along the coast until it got dark. Having had lunch we decided we didn't need dinner and drove until midnight before pulling off the road to sleep. No time for beer – the regime was becoming outrageously lean. We decided tomorrow is going to be THE day and set our alarms accordingly. After a couple of hours we woke up feeling like we had barely slept and hit the road. The Tarmac roads were flawless and the diesel was so cheap that we take Chopper to time-bending speeds. We drove and drove and drove. Angola is a big old country with good infrastructure and we saw the scenery at quite a lick. We reached the Namibian border at 5pm having already put in a decent 13 hour shift behind the wheel. However we were feeling good vibes: we were in Namibia and could smell the finish line. However, there was another scent in our nostrils – KF-bloody-C. That's right - the first thing we saw in the Promised Land was the Colonel and we wanted a taste of his secret blend of herbs and spices to fuel us for the home straight towards Windhoek. We put away as much of our 9 pieces of finger lickin’ chicken as we could and I felt like vomiting almost immediately – it’s probably more calories in 10 minutes than we have had in the previous 2 days.  Within 30 mins of entering Namibia it was pitch black so despite driving half the length of the country we didn't see any of it. At about midnight, after another 7 hours of driving since crossing the border and 20 hours straight behind the wheel that day with minimal sleep for the previous 5 days I was flagging and actually started to reason with myself that it would be good for all involved if I had a few seconds of shut-eye. Unfortunately, I was behind the wheel at the time but in the end I only nodded off on a few occasions with no major ramifications. We were guided into Windhoek by the long lost Alfie. We had made it and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. We roused Simmons for a celebratory beer at 0200 and he was wearing some of the strangest underpants I have ever seen – I think they had a picture of Danger Mouse on them. 

A tribute to Angolan hospitality

They didn't have any Land Rover brake pads in Matadi, DRC. In fact they didn't seem to have any garages or mechanics over the age of 16 either. What they did have were some old Mercedes brake pads, a saw and some chicken wire. After lots of waiting around and some instruction from us (never a good sign) these were finally fitted and we headed South.

The officials at the Angolan border couldn't have been friendlier. They proudly told us that their motto was 'safely first'. It seemed that weren't joking either when they insisted on providing a police escort to the nearest town. The word 'Bandito' now accounted for one third of our combined Portuguese vocabulary. 

In Mbanza-Congo later that night the police insisted on finding us a hotel, negotiating the price and checking us in. When three policemen then showed us to our room and went as far as to test the taps we wondered quite what we had done to deserve such a service. It's possible that northern Angola is a treacherous den of criminality that we were being protected from but it felt more like some very proud local policemen keen to impress rare tourists. They parted with an offhand comment about us maybe wanting to use the shower (deserved) and a promise to be back in the morning to escort us out of town.

Luanda is famous for being the world's most expensive city so we were grateful to be put up by the generous and rather brave AW. The next morning, while the washing machine was doing battle (and losing) we went for run along the sea front. Luanda has all the trappings of an oleaginous kleptocracy's show capital but the sea view was spectacular and the exercise refreshing.

The scenery south of Luanda made us glad to have chosen the coastal road and we even found a deserted beach to camp on. The plan was then to cover the distance to Namibia as quickly as possible but, as tends to happen, Ramrod had other ideas. The rear left wheel had been periodically rattling ever since Libreville but, as we approached Lubango, this developed into an ungodly racket. We ended up camping in one of Angola's ridiculously smart new petrol stations. Lying in between the 24 hour shop and the children's playground it felt more like the Algarve than Africa. After a moment's hesitation we shared our lasts beers with the slightly inebriated, machine gun wielding security guard on the basis that we were better off with him asleep than thirsty.

As we crawled the few miles into Lubango next morning we were greeted by an unexpected but incredibly welcome sign advertising a legitimate Land Rover garage, the first in several thousand miles. Inside, Marco, one of world's true nice guys, made the financially painful experience of replacing the rear axle, bearings, brake disks and pads much more palatable. He even apologised for not having showers on the premises that we could use. As a perennial optimist I decided to be grateful that the Land Rover had waited until the least bad moment before finally becoming undrivable.

The more observant of you may have noticed that unprompted offers of showers were becoming something of a pattern. Sure enough, next morning, a helpful petrol station attendant took one look at our bedraggled state before pointing to the shower block. The cleaner (understandably) didn't seem too keen on the idea until the manager came out in person to demand we be given access. We were therefore able to cross into Namibia in a slightly cleaner, but still far from respectable state.


Jez at the wheel

Point 2 suggest DRC's diversity policy has some way to go

The ubiquitous Angolan flag

Lunar landscape

A good spot for a coffee break

A team effort to take apart the axle



 Up at dawn

Divide and Conquer (sort of)

With Tom’s Land Rover still stuck at sea and Jez due in Kinshasa imminently we decided that we would have to split up. The prospect of several days of solo driving wasn’t particularly attractive but having misguidedly put our faith in an Italian shipping company and an African port we had no other options. The DRC has enough problems without having to put up with a bored Jez. And so, on Monday evening we divided our kit and I headed south while the others continued the painful waiting game in Librevelle.

Within the first hour the mechanical problems began. This time it was the clutch that decided to start playing hard to get. I debated turning back but couldn’t face the prospect of such and early defeat. Three hours and no more than about four gear changes later I finally arrived in Lambarene and headed for the now familiar Pere Paul. The Catholic church of Gabon deserves a special mention here. Between us we've spent at least seven nights camping at various monasteries and missions. On every occasion we were welcomed and then left alone and for that we are very grateful.

The next morning the local mechanic took one look at the clutch and said that I would be lucky to find any spare parts in Gabon. All that could be done would be to top up the fluid regularly and hope for the best. At least with four different fluids now leaking it shouldn't be difficult for the others to follow my tracks.

A long day of driving then took me over the border to Congo Brazzaville. Rather disconcertingly all the officials on the Gabonese side warned that to cross Congo alone would be 'très dangereux'. First impressions suggested otherwise. After a comparatively simple entry process I was invited to camp in between the customs hut and the immigration hut. However, the roads were as bad as the hospitality was good and it took the best part of another day to cover the 150 miles to Dolisie.


There are few things more frustrating that driving at 20mph along an awful road within sight of the shiny smooth and yet to be completed highway. This was the prospect that faced me for the 200 miles from Dolisie to Kinkala. Well, it was until I made the fortuitous choice to pick up a road labourer hitchhiking to work. The new road, known simply as the 'Chinois' was, it seems, not entirely closed. Three more hitchhikers took me 80 miles further on this empty, smooth haven. After that it was simply a case of trying to bluff access including, on one occasion, claiming to be Chinese. This worked until I actually bumped into the 'Chef, whose military escort quickly ejected me from the road.


After three days on my own I was happy to offer a friendly man called Jean a lift at the DRC border. I was even happier when I discovered he was a friend of the immigration officer and all my paperwork was completed in 10 minutes. He seemed to question his own decision when, an hour later, the rear left brake pads literally fell off. Being two hours from the nearest town neither of us had much choice but to proceed cautiously.

By this point both me and the Land Rover were falling apart. The only thing that was unclear was who would brake first. In an attempt to make myself feel better I decided to list all the parts of Ramrod that weren't broken. This proved to be a rather short game and, such was my state of heightened paranoia, that it made me worry even more.


Approaching Luozi I was pulled over at one of the ubiquitous police check points. I immediately went into the familiar routine of firm handshakes, lots of eye contact and am attempt to bombard them with questions and documents. This worked for me but I noticed that Jean had paid up. Afterwards I asked what this was for and was told that they had asked and his life would be made difficult if he didn't comply. It was a good illustration that, although we complain about corruption and attempts to extort money, in reality we are in an extremely privileged position. We can, and have, simply refused to pay any bribes to the police. For most people that is not an option.


When I left Jean in Luozi he asked for me mobile number because he wanted to come to the UK. I reached the final digit and then hesitated. Eventually I entered it correctly, although probably only did so because I knew that it wouldn't come to anything.


After disconnecting the offending brake my final task in Luozi was to have my carnet stamped before I could catch the boat across the Congo river. Fortunately I found another well connected hitch hiker which ensured that the customs officer was up at 7am with stamp in hand.


At Kimpese I finally hit the tarmac. However, on the first hill I noticed the engine was losing power and the exhaust had ceased the puff out reassuring black smoke. With a receding clutch and defective brakes it seems that the accelerator had decided to go down in sympathy.


Matadi doesn't have much to commend me but when I eventually rolled in and was greeted by Jez and a beer it seemed like the promised land. It had taken nearly 45 hours of driving to cover 1000 miles over 5 days. On truly awful roads in remote areas of the Congo with a disintegrating Land Rover it hadn't been the ideal stretch to do solo. Thankfully I received nothing but assistance from people I met along the way and Ramrod lived up to its reputation of 'always sick, never dead'.

A lonely road

 The new and the old

 I've been cleaner

 A relic from the past

 The first view of the river Congo (and Jean's first experience with a camera)