The Strangest Nighclub Ever
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It was looking to be possibly the worst birthday of my life.

A few weeks previously, a random conversation with a Frenchman in Cameroon had led to a long excursion across areas that the map showed as completely blank, leading to a ferry crossing that shouldn't have existed, which took us to the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere, and with no way back as we had had a little bit of unpleasantness with the local chief of Secret Police…

We were stuck in the North East corner of Congo Brazzaville on one of the tributaries of the Congo. To the West there was an actual Ebola outbreak, so no chance of following a 'maybe' track there. The tarmac road heading south was a complete fucking figment of the imagination on the part of the Michelin cartographers, and the river was too low for boats as the rains were late. After a couple of weeks of waiting my two mates went ahead on a small pirogue leaving me to wait for the waters to rise further so that I could load my Land Rover on to a larger boat. So it was that a week or so later I found myself more or less on the equator on a barge packed with 200 Africans with not a friend for hundreds of miles.

It's a funny part of the world; there is no law and order to speak of, and local warlords terrorise the local population. The skippers (for there were four) did their best to avoid any signs of civilisation, usually mooring in the middle of the stream overnight. On the morning of my birthday I had wandered over to a market stall (the boat was a sort of floating market) to buy what I knew to be the last plastic sachet very bad ‘whisky’ only to find that somebody had beaten me to it. Things were looking pretty miserable. Then at dusk something strange happened. We moved away from the main navigation and nosed our way in between a group of small islands. Hidden there, well away from any chance of interference, was a small mud hut village where we disembarked. Until that point I hadn't realised that there was such a thing as a paraffin fridge, but here were loads of them and they were filled with beer. There was something hugely surreal about sitting down with an icy cold bottle of beer, and one that cost about 60p a pint to boot, when you're halfway down the Congo. It's also surprising how many good friends you can make when you’re crowded together in a small space, sharing the same food, all a long way from home. The lightshow wasn’t up to much but this club had the best music, and as clubs go – it’s one I’ll remember even if I don’t know its name... Hell - I'm not even sure what country it was in.
(strongp, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 16:00, 2 replies)

Blimey, you sound quite the adventurer!
That's a good read and sounds like a great experience. Glad your birthday worked out for the best after all too; saved from cheap whisky is a bonus!
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 16:18, closed)

What an experience!
*click* :)
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Tue 14 Apr 2009, 2:47, closed)