5 hours, 30 minutes, 450 kilometers (280 miles)

“Soyo” want to get your motorcycle on the ferry?

We’ll definitely get to that later.

25% of the Trip – Done!

Yeah, that’s right. Out of the 22,000kms, Luanda was the 5,500th, making it not only 25% of the way through the whole trip, but 33% of the way through the African continent, and 50% of the way through Sub-Saharan Africa, the hardest part of the trip. All in 19 days.

Daily Diary

This one I had to take from the road because my morning was rather hectic. I went to bed rather early and I was checking the travel times throughout the day. At 6PM the travel time was 7.5 hours, but at 10PM it was 5.5. I had to be in Soyo to catch the 2PM ferry so I figured I would set my phone alarm for 5:30AM.

At around 10PM, right after I checked the travel times, AT&T decided my phone needed an update. Now, I don’t know about you, but there have been times when I have been doing stuff on my phone and the notification for an update comes up, and I accidentally click on it… which means for 10-15 minutes the phone is unusable. Now, at home or in the office, this may not seem like a big deal, but trying to dodge trucks, taxis, buses, cars, people, goats, dogs, cows, sheep, hyenas, and potholes, while navigating at the same time, doesn’t afford you 10-15 minutes of dead air. I opted to do the updated. It completed fine after 10 minutes, so I checked the charge (I had my battery pack plugged in and it needed about 4 more hours to fully charge) and it was about 60%, so I placed my phone on the pillow next to me and laid down to sleep.

I woke up because of some noise, checked my watch and it said 2:24. Great, 3 more hours to rest! I laid my head back down and slumbered off. At some point I felt my body slipping off into REM sleep because I could feel my limbs getting really, really heavy. For some reason, I fought it and woke up. It was 5:27. Ugh, I hate that feeling. Now, I’m more tired than when I went to bed. Whatever, I have to get on the road, maybe a rusty water shower will wake me up. I rolled over to turn off my alarm and my phone was DEAD. Had I let my body slip off into REM world, I probably would have slept for another hour and missed my travel window (<7 hours) and arrived too late to catch the ferry.

Leaving Luanda

I don’t know why I always stay somewhere downtown – except in Benguela. Maybe it’s the fact that I know I can find a hotel easier, with secure parking, and closer to food, fuel, and water sources. The only problem with this choice is that getting in and out of the central city zone is that it can take an hour or more. Well, not at 6AM apparently!

Wait, why is it so quiet? Do people really not get going this early in this country?

The roads were ok leaving Luanda. Traffic was still quiet and the highways were pretty clear.

I started counting potholes that required me to shift down to 1st gear to get through. After 62, I stopped counting because I hit a really bad patch about 20km outside the city that made me nervous about the travel time. Luckily, it cleared up and although the roads weren’t great for about 100km, they weren’t a total mess.

I hit some road construction with people all around and deep, deep sand. Luckily, there weren’t many cars on the road, so I made it through and decided to stop after and get something to eat and drink. I ate my hard boiled egg and banana and checked the front fork. I was leaking at a rate of one drop every minute. Darn. Given that I rode from Fairbanks to Deadhorse, and then all the way on busted forks on my last trip, I figured I would keep on trucking. I haven’t noticed any change in handling, and the fluid was not running on to the brake disc, so why not. Besides, what real choice do I have? (For some fun, try googling “is it a problem if your motorcycle front fork is leaking”) I mean, I’m going to be in the middle of nowhere for a least another week, and there’s no BMW service center until I hit Spain. Even if I found one, I’d probably be waiting for a part anyway.

Welcome to Soyo

One of the most frustrating parts of this whole process is the lack of information on where the terminal was! I kid you not, there’s literally zero information on where you’re supposed to catch the ferry. Looking on the Secil website, it appears that they operate out of the Kwanda island, which has about a dozen ports. I spent probably tow hours looking through blogs, videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrHDZvIiRmU&t=91s), and other references before I just decided to google the name of the place I visited in Luanda, but used Soyo as the starting point – “Terminal Fluvial de Passageiros do Soyo” came up. Fine, that’s my destination. At least it matches the building in the video, and in the background I can see the Secil ferries.

I arrived at 12:00 and drove around looking for a way into the terminal. I could actually see the terminal, but there was a huge security gate with a gatehouse, but no one was in there. Luckily, a truck driver was parked on the other side of the age, and as he was walking out, I saw him just slide the gate open and walk through. Looks good to me! I slid the gate open and rode through the parking lot. I saw some numbered spaces with some cars in them, so I thought that was a good sign since they typically require cars to line up before loading on to a ferry. I parked my bike and wandered over to the window that said “Tickets”. There were about 5 young guys in front of me, and more just kept shoving their way in front of me. I tried standing to the left, to the right, and in the middle, but no matter where I stood, people just kept cutting in line – just like their driving!

Podes ajudar-me a levar a minha moto para Cabinda?

I saw a man behind the glass and he made eye contact with me so I waved him down. He pointed to a window for me to come over and I passed him my phone through the tiny slit with a message that said “podes ajudar-me a levar a minha moto para Cabinda?” Yeah, just help me get my motorcycle to Cabinda. He waved me in and we went over to the check-in desk where he proceeded to write something down on a piece of paper.

Now, I had worked with my oldest (Sydney) on this exact scenario. In fact, this was the main reason I went to the terminal in Luanda. What exactly was this going to cost? Sydney and I worked out two possible outcomes. 1 – they treat my bike as luggage and they charge me by weight (~300kg at a rate of 250kwz/kg), or 2 – they treat my bike as cargo and charge me according to a chart that has bikes up to 450cc (nothing over), with a rate of about 350,000kwz. Well, the piece of paper he handed me was the latter. By now, it’s 1PM and I needed to figure out how to get the money since I only brought 150,000 with me.

The main issue is that most ATMs only allow you to take out 60,000kwz a day! I pleaded with the guy to put my bike on the lowest tier (<250cc), but he declined. Whatever, I got on my bike, googled “ATM” and left the parking lot towards the gate. This time, as soon as I opened the gate, some asshole from outside came running up wagging his finger at me telling me I needed to go around to the other side. I just said “por favor” and waved him out of the way as I slowly inched my bike forward. He was not moving. Ok, so I just wrote in google translate “the people from the terminal told me to use this gate to get to the ATM”. He relented in disgust. I made it out and off to the first ATM. “Account Balance Only”, great. Next one… got my 60,000kwzs. From then on, it was six more before I could get the full amount. Back to the terminal. It was 1:50 now.

Luckily, this country doesn’t seem to care about punctuality. I immediately asked if I was going to be able to make it and the guy – who’s name is Antonio btw – said “no problem”. He handed me off to another guy who generated the invoice and ran off to get it stamped, signed, and blessed apparently because he was gone for 30 minutes At this point I knew the ferry wasn’t leaving anytime soon, so I canceled my hotel in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo. I knew that there was no way I would be riding at 7PM up to the border. Luckily, I cancelled it just in time with no fee!

Bitten by a National Holiday – again.

When Alex and I rode into Santiago, Chile, we also noticed how quiet the roads were and how little traffic there was. Dummy.

I got the invoice, paid the fee, and paid for my ticket as well. I overheard Antonio speaking with another member of the staff about “Cabinda” and “no one to operate the crane”. He came sulking over to me and said “Today is a national holiday and there is no one working in Cabinda to take your bike off the ferry”. WHAAAAAA? Now you tell me? Whatever, I just laughed and said “So, when is the next ferry that I can take where my bike will be able to be taken off?” He told me “tomorrow”, but that he thought it would be better if I just went to Cabinda and stayed overnight and then picked my bike up when the port opened at 8AM. Great. Let me start looking for hotels and stuff around the port, because if Cabinda is anything like Soyo, this is not going to be fun. Wait, where does the ferry even get in to Cabinda!

I agreed it was probably best to just keep moving so I moved my bike over by the ferry and noticed that it was a catamaran, which meant they would be loading my bike via a front loader. I then walked back inside and waited for boarding and started my research.

Boarding and Riding the Ferry

You can barely see my bike. I missed it as I was standing in line inside.

Boarding was rather uneventful. I made sure my bike was lashed down ok, because I didn’t know if the ride would be rough. It was fine.

The ride was smooth and I could see the DRC going by slowly. I had thought about trying to get through, but the numerous warnings and lack of overall security made me change my mind. Also, it was $800 just for a one-day visa. No wonder Secil was charging ridiculous rates.

I napped for a minute and read some more of my book, which was getting really interesting at this point. I was thankful my youngest (Shel) gave it to me for the trip. It’s nice to let your mind wander off….

I grabbed a screenshot of everyone in the family in one screen. Small world, right?