Through the Congo in a Toyota Landcruiser

[snwtoy]

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/t ... o-Kinshasa

Apologies if this is a repost, but here's a truly EPIC story that you really need to read!!

[iOnic]

This is looking good. Thanks for posting - gonna be a good read

[xsspeed]

I've been putting off reading that until after next week, as judging from what I have heard it is crazily epic, and will use a day quite easily reading through

[fuel]

I speed-read through it in a couple hours, you could get quite tied up reading every single post though. The expedition finishes around page 57 from memory.

[iOnic]

I'm at page 38 at the moment. Still going.

[ch4ng]

An interesting read so far (page 3) This guy has bigger balls that most of us put together

[iOnic]

Just finished....jesus $&#$%! Only took 7 hours but so worth it...

[Leon]

only a couple pages in ... jeeze, talk about a scary place. Every man and his dog begging or bribing you every step of the way.

[DeeCee]

page 23, but it is a great adventure, so I'm going to savor it like a new book!

[eskimo]

Just finished it, bloody good read & well worth the time it takes!

[ch4ng]

WHY oh WHY would you go off road (through the Congo no less) without lockable diffs?

[fuel]

WHY oh WHY would you go off road (through the Congo no less) without lockable diffs?

and a winch..

but he did say he was faced with the choice of buying a winch (and presumably lockable diffs) or spend an extra few months travelling. He chose the extra time travelling.

[holden_fan2005]

A FANTASTIC read!! Thanks for the link

Only took around 4 hours.... Totally worth it though!.

[Leon]

I am at page 40 something.

Two comments

1) He must be a bit special if he had 4 ton worth of loaded Cruiser and have no winch.

2) That is the perfect story as to why the aid systems for that country is a BAD plan. They have whole villages of people who turn up with machetes and expect to be given money by any white person, and they try to utterly rip off anyone who crosses their borders. F**k that s**t.

[sergei]

I am at page 40 something.

Two comments

1) He must be a bit special if he had 4 ton worth of loaded Cruiser and have no winch.

2) That is the perfect story as to why the aid systems for that country is a BAD plan. They have whole villages of people who turn up with machetes and expect to be given money by any white person, and they try to utterly rip off anyone who crosses their borders. F**k that s**t.

I finished reading and he explains a bit more why he didn't had winch. They sold everything to fund this trip, they were on limited budget and limited weight. That explains lack of locking diffs, lack of winch and general state of the vehicle (it was basically stock landcrusier). He could have had a proper lift kit, wider track, larger tyres etc. but they calculated that they could either have winch or 1 month extra of the "holiday".

As for sending aid, yes, it does more harm than good. If you send food, no one will farm, if you send money no one will work. Then comes western influence, and people starting to want iPhones and other shit they don't need. I think best way to deal with countries like that is embargo/quarantine for all aid and missionaries (they don't do good either). Those African countries are very rich in resources and don't need our help.

[Lloyd]

He goes into why they don't give money if you read further into it

[Leon]

He goes into why they don't give money if you read further into it

It is stated repeatedly in the thread that he doesn't give them money because he doesn't want to encourage them bludging off white man, and funding corruption. So there's not a question there I'm trying to answer.... I was saying "this is why you don't just prop up a country with aid systematically"

For the lack of a winch at $x, he destroyed how many other $ worth of diffs, stoved in both sides of his cruiser etc etc etc etc ... I would say that his decision process was poorly considered. Very poorly considered. Much as if somebody decided not to put a sump guard on a rally car "to save weight". It just aint clever decision making.

[snwtoy]

He did have one of those manual winch/puller things, but for some reason he says he doesn't like pulling the vehicle out with it, which also seemed rather silly to me - those manual puller things have insane load capacity.

Also, with regard to the winch, he reckoned it would encourage them to take more risks as they would rely on it to pull the vehicle out of anything they got stuck in.

Also, he did at least half without working brakes... surely brakepads would be an expense you'd stump up for before the congo if you knew you were running low

[Sick Puppy]

only a couple pages in ... jeeze, talk about a scary place. Every man and his dog begging or bribing you every step of the way.

Yeah, it got me mad, so I had to stop reading. I will have another crack at it soon, sounds like it's worth the read!

[Bling]

tl;dr?