In Bukavu, we were supposed to meet another person from the UN mission, who would have helped us with the basic safety issues.
We booked a trip with the ferry, which was supposed to leave Goma in the morning and reach Bukavu in the early afternoon, so we packed our luggage and reached the harbour.
As we arrived, we sensed that the day was not supposed to run as smooth as we were hoping. Somehow, we expected some delays or difficulties, but the place was almost deserted, and with that, I mean that there was no boat or ferry in sight. I thought it was quite strange for a harbour not to have any boat but, on the other hand, we were in Africa, but not in any part of Africa; we were in Congo, so expecting something working in the same way as it works in my country would have been pure insanity.
So, here we were, at the harbour with our luggage and no idea where to go or what to look for. We had our reservation for the ferry, but there was no ferry or any information point.
We asked one person who was there, maybe waiting for the same ferry. He didn't know, but he asked someone else about it.
At last, we were informed that the ferry was still in Bukavu waiting for the permission to come in Goma. It seemed that it had the authorization to leave but not the permission to arrive.
T.I.A: This Is Africa!
We waited for hours, at midday we started to be hungry, but we could not leave the harbour, because we had all our luggage with us, and we needed to understand what was going on and whether or when we could leave to Bukavu.
After a long wait, we were given two options; the first was that we would have taken the night ferry. The other was going back to our hotel, pay for another night and wait for the next morning, hoping to leave with the fast ferry.
We decided to leave with the night ferry, not knowing what to expect. I asked the man who came to give us the option whether there was the possibility to have a place to sleep, other than the floor.
He smiled and assured us that we could have the "captain suite."
I felt assured of the fact that there should be a sort of comfort in that "suite."
Finally, the ferry arrived. Ok, the word "ferry" was just a euphemism to describe something that was floating on the lake and had an engine.
The frame was mostly rusty and also had a few holes here and there, the original shine was gone a long time ago, and now it was a sort of relic. There was a small broken window in the upper part, which I suspected it was the "captain suite."
That didn't look good, but we could not go back.
A friendly looking young man came out from the boat and introduced himself as the captain of the ferry. He kindly welcomed us aboard and helped us with the luggage. I thanked him for his kindness and felt sorry for taking over his room, but I guess the extra money we paid for were enough to pay back for the disturbance.
We climbed the stairs to the upper deck, and he opened the door...
How could I describe the "captain suite" to you?
A stinky place with a filthy mattress on the floor, a small table with an unstable looking little chair.
I looked at the chair and the mattress.
My mind raced with the possibilities, and suddenly I said, "the chair is mine, nobody touches it."
They looked at me puzzled, and I smiled shyly "it is such a beautiful looking chair," I lied, trying to justify that odd statement.
The reality of the fact was that I wasn't sure I wanted to sleep on that mattress, and at the time the chair looked like a five-star accommodation.
Quite soon the ferry got crowded of every sort of thing, besides people, goats, chickens, bags of grain/rice/flour/seeds or whatever else.
When the ferry was full-packed, we left Goma.
Everything was going fine until we realised one thing; we were hungry! We went downstairs trying to check whether there was some sort of kitchen in the ferry or a sort of place where to buy food. There was a kitchen alright, but they were using the water of the lake to cook. Considering that the lake is not the cleanest one in the world because of the volcanic activity that releases on the bottom poisonous gases and the fact that the ferried and boats are discharging in the waters their wastes, it didn't invite me.
OK, no food; we are not going to starve for one day without food, the important is to have something to drink.
Hold on!!
"Where is the toilet?" I wondered, and as we were looking for it, we found out a
....
No, I do not have the words to describe that and believe me, it was something, which was able to stop all the physiological activities in my body.
We went back to our "suite" and started to talk about the following day, what was arranged and how it would have happened.
We took out our map, and our "lonely planet" guide, which was suggesting not to visit DRC for any reason in the world due to the high risk of being kidnapped by the rebels.
"How encouraging!"
Despite the fact that a human body can stand for even ten days without any food, our bellies started to complain noisily about having been empty for 24 hours.
"Wait here; I'm going to see whether I can find something that hasn't been cooked," said my husband.
After a few minutes, he appears with four one-litre bottles of beer, "Carbs," he said.
We laughed and opened the first one, considering that we didn't drink much anything, during the day, all the liquids we were drinking went straight to replenish the reserves of fluids, and we didn't need any toilet.
Someone knocked at the door; we looked at each other wondering who that might be (remembering that we were in hostile territories).
Luckily was just a guy who was wondering about the two white passengers in the boat. We talked a bit with him and seemed to be a nice guy; he said he was a student at the University, but he was back home for a holiday to see his family.
My husband had difficulties to fall asleep since he was born, and he wondered if, in the boat, they were selling something different than beer, for example, whisky or something stronger to relax.
The guy said that if we gave him some money he would have gone and get it for us. I would have said no, but on the other hand, he didn't have any place to hide. For this reason, my husband gave him some money, and he left.
After some time, as forecasted he didn't return not with our money and neither with some alcohol. We laughed, but my husband went to search for him.
"I'll be back in a couple of minutes," he promised.
Now, in other circumstances, I wouldn't have even looked at the clock, and neither I would have minded if he would have returned the morning after. The problem is that we still were in a dangerous place, and none of us had any idea of who was on that ferry with us.
Five minutes...
Ten minutes...
I was terrified.
Fifteen minutes...
I already figured him on the bottom of the lake dead and wondered when they would have come to get me.
Half an hour and a familiar knocking code at the door released my fears.
I went to open and wanted to kill him with my own hands.
"I got the money back. Unfortunately, no strong alcohol is sold here," he said.
Oh well, all's well that ends well.
After an almost sleepless night, we reached Bukavu, and there we had a taxi to reach the hotel where we would have to spend the next five days before returning by bus/taxi to Kigali.
As we reached the hotel, I was already dead tired, and it comforted me to have a real bed and toilet. The first thing was a long shower, and then... Food!
Something engaged my giggle when I looked around. There are hotels where you cannot smoke, others where you cannot bring animals, others where you cannot consume alcohol, and others, like the one we were, where you cannot bring machine guns; fair enough for me.
The following days we were driving around discovering in a safe way the beauties of the natural environment, the local people, and their lifestyle.
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