We've been talking about visiting Likasi for about as long as we have been in Lubumbashi. Besides the Zambian border, Likasi is the only town within a couple hours of Lubumbashi, and we finally made the trip on Thanksgiving weekend. Buses leave regularly from downtown L'shi (once they are full), and we got on a bus around 11:15 in the morning.
There were a number of vendors – "independent contractors" – on the bus selling soda, water, biscuits, and other snacks. As the bus filled up, the vendors were pushed off and had to settle for selling things through the windows. The bus had a bench for 2 on the starboard side, and a bench for 3 on the port side. I was surprised to see that after all the seats were full, plastic buckets and jerrycans were put in the aisle, and people were seated there as well – one extra person per row. The one-way cost from L'shi to Likasi was 4000 FC ($4.40) each, regardless of where you were seated. We shared a 3-person bench with a young Congolaise, who sat next to the aisle. On her other side was a nicely dressed man on a bucket.
As the bus got rolling, there were only 2 people standing: the conductor and another gentleman, both standing beside the bus's side door. We thought it was odd that people were seated in the aisle instead of standing, since the bus had handles hanging from the ceiling over the aisle, and sitting in the aisle looked more uncomfortable than standing. But maybe not for 2 hours.
Once the bus left downtown, it became clear that the guy standing beside the conductor was a minister (the entertainment?) – he started preaching loud enough to be heard throughout the bus. I could only catch a few words – Karen understood more of the local Swahili dialect – but neither of us remember much of his message besides the initial request to pray to Jesus for a safe trip. The passengers were quiet and many joined in two a cappella hymns that were very beautiful. He was hoarse when he exited after about 25 minutes, just before the toll booth. We didn't take the bus on the return trip – more on that later – so we can't say how common that experience is.
The highway to Likasi is paved the whole way (the road continues to be paved to Kolwezi), but only just wide enough for 2 cars. This makes for some excitement as buses and trucks and bicycles and pedestrians are all overtaking and passing each other. Most of the way I was struck by the emptiness – mostly scrub and woods in all directions. We did pass next to some villages and through a couple of busy trading areas where the bus would slow down or stop and vendors would sell produce through the windows. Instead of the soda and biscuits the vendors sold in Lubumbashi, at these stops we saw live animals, roasted corn, tomatoes, and okra for sale.
Likasi has a busy parking lot functioning as the bus station, but I'm not sure where the buses go besides L'shi and Kolwezi. We traveled light, but still wanted to get our bags into a hotel room, so we got a room at the Greek-owned hotel listed in our guide book as having the best non-Congolese restaurants in town, one Chinese and one Italian. Another place listed in our specially ordered French guide book was Guesthouse Okapi, which was said to have a car to rent. Our goal in Likasi was to visit the nearby lake and rent a pirogue to check out birds, so we walked to the Guesthouse Okapi to ask about their car.
The Okapi was tucked away behind the main streets. We were greeted by John, the son of "Papa Okapi", who was home on break from studying electrical engineering in South Africa. He was quiet and responsible. We talked for a little bit, but had to wait for Papa Okapi to discuss the details about the car. Papa Okapi was a character: talkative and animated. He was very interested to see the guidebook that listed the Okapi Guesthouse, and delighted to realize that the author must have stayed at his guesthouse since there was so much detail. He also wanted us to get him a copy of the book. I bought a copy today – now we'll have to figure out the hand-off.
Anyway, his driver Kit (pronounced "Keet") could take us to the lake in their 4x4, and John would come along too. But when we asked "combien ça coute?", he asked us to suggest a price. This put us in a awkward position – we don't have a good idea about what is reasonable. This standoff ended when Karen got a little annoyed and pointed out the setting the price is his job and we shouldn't be asked to do his job for him – doctors don't ask patients, "what do you think you have?" [Karen: well, sometimes doctors do ask patients what they think they have -- the example I actually used was an epidemiology example, as in, I wouldn't expect you to know the incidence of cholera -- that's my job to figure out ... ] Back at our hotel, we ate dinner in the Italian restaurant near a table full of expat miners speaking English in a variety accents. I coveted a Chinese broccoli dish that one guy brought in from next door.
The next morning, John and Kit showed up, and we drove to Lake Tshangelele. We turned off the paved road onto a rutted and narrow dirt road that passed through a fairly busy village where we turned off onto a narrower track bordered by deep gullies caused by the heavy rains. At the edge of the lake, there were a dozen people and about twice that many dugout boats pulled onto the shore. John negotiated with a couple guys in a larger pirogue made of planks – the 5 of us wouldn't have fit in a dugout. The two young fishermen sat in back and paddled. John and I sat across from each other in the middle, and Karen sat up front.
This artificial lake was formed by damming a small river, but as the water rose, it eventually opened a channel and started draining out the north end. This second channel was dammed later, but the entire lake is silting up and is pretty shallow. Much of it is covered with tall grasses, and it wasn't long before we were gliding through a well-defined passage in the vegetation. The passage was wide enough that canoes coming the other way could slip past, but we couldn't see very far in any direction as we snaked through the grass. It was a while before we reached a wide-open area full of water lilies where we turned around. They might have been joking, but fishermen said there were hippos in the lake, hidden during the middle of the day. For me, the coolest sight was the "fisherman's restaurant", a floating raft in a wide spot that reminded me of scenes from the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" – a raft with a tarp roof, hemmed in by canoes, with people lying on the raft and a charcoal stove cooking food.
We made our way back to town, with a brief pitstop at a Catholic boarding school for boys. We got back earlier than we would have liked, so we went to the site of what was once the Belgian country club-like sports complex but is now nearly abandoned: there was a soccer game and the remnants of a restaurant where we got beer and chicken and fries, but one could imagine the earlier glory of the large swimming pool with 3 diving boards and the wading pool, both now empty with weeds growing between the tiles and the playground equipment likewise weed-choked.
That night we stayed at the Okapi Guesthouse and had a great room and personal attention by John; we were the only guests. Sunday morning we got up early and walked through town to the surrounding fields. We saw okra growing, but most of the other plants were small, since growing season is just starting. We were looking for birds, and sights, and the opportunity to walk rather than riding in a car. We walked for quite a while and got a little mixed up coming back, but the temperature was comfortable and we made it back to the Guesthouse in time to shower and get breakfast before we left for the bus stop. We walked past full churches and heard a powerful male choir from one. At the bus stop, the bus was pretty full and we decided to wait rather than sit in the aisle. However, we were quickly approached by someone telling us about a shared van for the same price. We decided to do that and joined 6 other passengers sitting 4-to-a-row in addition to the driver and a front-seat passenger who talked nonstop about cannibalism and fetishes and black magic by various bandit groups in the north. Just outside Lubumbashi we were delayed by the site of a pretty spectacular car accident, and our driver stopped the van and everyone got out to look except me and Karen. Disturbing and morbid, but at least it wasn't a fatal crash.
After two months of staying in Lubumbashi, we finally got it together to make a quick trip out of town. It was easy and interesting and maybe a little more expensive than we expected, which was great practice, since a few days later we took off suddenly to Kinshasa, where we spent a week. More on that later...
There were a number of vendors – "independent contractors" – on the bus selling soda, water, biscuits, and other snacks. As the bus filled up, the vendors were pushed off and had to settle for selling things through the windows. The bus had a bench for 2 on the starboard side, and a bench for 3 on the port side. I was surprised to see that after all the seats were full, plastic buckets and jerrycans were put in the aisle, and people were seated there as well – one extra person per row. The one-way cost from L'shi to Likasi was 4000 FC ($4.40) each, regardless of where you were seated. We shared a 3-person bench with a young Congolaise, who sat next to the aisle. On her other side was a nicely dressed man on a bucket.
As the bus got rolling, there were only 2 people standing: the conductor and another gentleman, both standing beside the bus's side door. We thought it was odd that people were seated in the aisle instead of standing, since the bus had handles hanging from the ceiling over the aisle, and sitting in the aisle looked more uncomfortable than standing. But maybe not for 2 hours.
Once the bus left downtown, it became clear that the guy standing beside the conductor was a minister (the entertainment?) – he started preaching loud enough to be heard throughout the bus. I could only catch a few words – Karen understood more of the local Swahili dialect – but neither of us remember much of his message besides the initial request to pray to Jesus for a safe trip. The passengers were quiet and many joined in two a cappella hymns that were very beautiful. He was hoarse when he exited after about 25 minutes, just before the toll booth. We didn't take the bus on the return trip – more on that later – so we can't say how common that experience is.
The highway to Likasi is paved the whole way (the road continues to be paved to Kolwezi), but only just wide enough for 2 cars. This makes for some excitement as buses and trucks and bicycles and pedestrians are all overtaking and passing each other. Most of the way I was struck by the emptiness – mostly scrub and woods in all directions. We did pass next to some villages and through a couple of busy trading areas where the bus would slow down or stop and vendors would sell produce through the windows. Instead of the soda and biscuits the vendors sold in Lubumbashi, at these stops we saw live animals, roasted corn, tomatoes, and okra for sale.
Likasi has a busy parking lot functioning as the bus station, but I'm not sure where the buses go besides L'shi and Kolwezi. We traveled light, but still wanted to get our bags into a hotel room, so we got a room at the Greek-owned hotel listed in our guide book as having the best non-Congolese restaurants in town, one Chinese and one Italian. Another place listed in our specially ordered French guide book was Guesthouse Okapi, which was said to have a car to rent. Our goal in Likasi was to visit the nearby lake and rent a pirogue to check out birds, so we walked to the Guesthouse Okapi to ask about their car.
 |
| The okapi - a giraffe relative |
Anyway, his driver Kit (pronounced "Keet") could take us to the lake in their 4x4, and John would come along too. But when we asked "combien ça coute?", he asked us to suggest a price. This put us in a awkward position – we don't have a good idea about what is reasonable. This standoff ended when Karen got a little annoyed and pointed out the setting the price is his job and we shouldn't be asked to do his job for him – doctors don't ask patients, "what do you think you have?" [Karen: well, sometimes doctors do ask patients what they think they have -- the example I actually used was an epidemiology example, as in, I wouldn't expect you to know the incidence of cholera -- that's my job to figure out ... ] Back at our hotel, we ate dinner in the Italian restaurant near a table full of expat miners speaking English in a variety accents. I coveted a Chinese broccoli dish that one guy brought in from next door.
The next morning, John and Kit showed up, and we drove to Lake Tshangelele. We turned off the paved road onto a rutted and narrow dirt road that passed through a fairly busy village where we turned off onto a narrower track bordered by deep gullies caused by the heavy rains. At the edge of the lake, there were a dozen people and about twice that many dugout boats pulled onto the shore. John negotiated with a couple guys in a larger pirogue made of planks – the 5 of us wouldn't have fit in a dugout. The two young fishermen sat in back and paddled. John and I sat across from each other in the middle, and Karen sat up front.
This artificial lake was formed by damming a small river, but as the water rose, it eventually opened a channel and started draining out the north end. This second channel was dammed later, but the entire lake is silting up and is pretty shallow. Much of it is covered with tall grasses, and it wasn't long before we were gliding through a well-defined passage in the vegetation. The passage was wide enough that canoes coming the other way could slip past, but we couldn't see very far in any direction as we snaked through the grass. It was a while before we reached a wide-open area full of water lilies where we turned around. They might have been joking, but fishermen said there were hippos in the lake, hidden during the middle of the day. For me, the coolest sight was the "fisherman's restaurant", a floating raft in a wide spot that reminded me of scenes from the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" – a raft with a tarp roof, hemmed in by canoes, with people lying on the raft and a charcoal stove cooking food.
 |
| Raft from the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" |
That night we stayed at the Okapi Guesthouse and had a great room and personal attention by John; we were the only guests. Sunday morning we got up early and walked through town to the surrounding fields. We saw okra growing, but most of the other plants were small, since growing season is just starting. We were looking for birds, and sights, and the opportunity to walk rather than riding in a car. We walked for quite a while and got a little mixed up coming back, but the temperature was comfortable and we made it back to the Guesthouse in time to shower and get breakfast before we left for the bus stop. We walked past full churches and heard a powerful male choir from one. At the bus stop, the bus was pretty full and we decided to wait rather than sit in the aisle. However, we were quickly approached by someone telling us about a shared van for the same price. We decided to do that and joined 6 other passengers sitting 4-to-a-row in addition to the driver and a front-seat passenger who talked nonstop about cannibalism and fetishes and black magic by various bandit groups in the north. Just outside Lubumbashi we were delayed by the site of a pretty spectacular car accident, and our driver stopped the van and everyone got out to look except me and Karen. Disturbing and morbid, but at least it wasn't a fatal crash.
After two months of staying in Lubumbashi, we finally got it together to make a quick trip out of town. It was easy and interesting and maybe a little more expensive than we expected, which was great practice, since a few days later we took off suddenly to Kinshasa, where we spent a week. More on that later...
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