Bangui - the Beginning
of the Jungle

The first Europeans that traveled in Sub-Saharan Africa called it the “Dark Continent".

Maybe they thought of it as dark because the jungle was unexplored and mysterious, or maybe because it always seemed to be twilight on the forest floor where only slivers of light seeped through the leafy canopy.

After the tense situation at the border on the shore of lake Chad, we were relieved to be on the road again. Our destination was Bangui in The Central African Republic, a thousand-kilometer trip south over narrow tracks of packed and rutted earth through a landscape that slowly changed from the scrubbed greys and browns of the Chadian desert to the verdant foliage of the equatorial rain forest.

Our Africa map had a large green space in the middle unencumbered by the lines and symbols that you would find on other maps.  It turned out to be a jungle wilderness that the mapmakers seemed to have forgotten. The Central African Republic was in a part of the world that was relatively untouched by the influences of Western culture and unknown to everyone except anthropologists and missionaries. The long trip south via Kano and Fort Lamy took us into the vast tropical forests of the Congo Basin, where the mythical and shy Pygmy folk lived, and where it was said that there were indigenous tribes that still practiced cannibalism.  We were cut off from any form of contact with civilization in the isolation of that deep forest, where the main transport routes were the lattice work of tributaries that fed the Congo River. I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy to think that we were putting up our tent in an area where there were people who were reputed to cook and eat other people.

From Bangui we were planning to continue south to Kinshasa near the mouth of the Congo River, and from there book passage on a ship to the Americas. When we visited the American embassy to leave a description of our travel plans and route, the consul gave us a succinct and unambiguous warning. He said, “There is a general advisory against travel in the Congo. If you go missing, or become ill or are injured, you are on our own. The embassy probably won’t be able to help you.” Sensible advice, but if I had listened to all the warnings that I had gotten before I left for India as a Peace Corps volunteer, and considered all the challenges of a long and arduous motorcycle trip through Africa, I would have stayed home.

The Ubangi River stood between us and our journey through the Congo. We traveled from day to day and from village to village and were accustomed to take the hinders as they came. A certain amount of planning was essential, but we didn’t have a timeline and for the most part, were flexible and willing to improvise whenever it was necessary. However, after almost two weeks of waiting for a ferry, we were growing increasingly impatient. As the days passed without any word of its arrival, we realized that we needed to find another way to get across the river.   

Eventually we hired a fisherman who had a dugout canoe propelled by an outboard motor rigged to the stern.  I looked at the narrow boat that we were about to entrust our lives and gear to and saw that it was just wide enough for us to squeeze into. When I asked how the bike was going to fit, the fisherman thinking about his easy money, assured us that it wasn’t a problem. At the same time, even if I was hesitant, I realized that if we wanted to continue south, that this hollowed-out log was the only alternative.  He was willing to take us and his price was half of what the ordinary ferry would cost. He could take us immediately, so we agreed without any further discussion. When you were traveling as we were, after a week or two in the same place, forward momentum dictated that it was time to move on. The road was calling. We were eager to leave Bangui and never considered the possibility that the trip was dangerous, or that crossing the border like this could be illegal and that there was a chance that if it was, we might end up rotting in some jungle prison.

I wheeled the bike up to the river’s edge where a gang of bearers helped load it into the canoe. They stood opposite each other knee deep in the water shoulder to shoulder and took hold of the bike, a pair in the front, and a pair in the back. To coordinate their lifting, they chanted a melody in a harmony where each of the men knew their part. Their song had a robust, throaty beauty that didn’t seem to fit their thin, sinewy bodies, and in unison they hoisted the two hundred kilo motorcycle into the dugout.  The gunwales settled down to within a few centimeters of the rushing water with the BMW’s lateral cylinders resting precariously on either side of the narrow hull.

As if our motorcycle and packing weren’t already enough of a load, the bearers jumped in, squatting behind us and in front of us. They came along perhaps just as much to break the monotony of their day, as to lift the bike off when we arrived at the opposite shore. The boatsman coiled a frayed rope around the starter wheel on top of the ancient outboard motor, pulled hard, and after a few sputtering tries and a puff of oily smoke coaxed it to life. I was beginning to regret my decision. We were overloaded and top heavy, and as if it would help, I grabbed the bike to steady it when the driver gunned the motor and we shot out into the current. We were in mid-stream and moving too fast when we suddenly veered ninety degrees to avoid a sandbar. 

Reflexively I shifted my weight like a sailor leaning over a heeling sailboat to keep it from capsizing. I felt an adrenaline rush and my muscles tensed. Kersti grabbed the slippery sides of the dugout and like me, in an instinctive effort to balance it, leaned out over the water.  All I could say was “Oh shit!” and had a split-second nightmare in which we were tossed out into the fast-moving current while I was watching the bike and our packing sink slowly to the bottom of the Ubangi River.

When we landed unscathed on the other shore and the chanting men lifted off the motorcycle as easily as they had lifted it on, our brush with disaster quickly became just another episode on our long list of African adventures.  I always try to remember some good advice that applies to lots of things we do in life, “Weigh the risks, but don’t let the fear that something might happen, let nothing happen.”