Some of you know that going from one country to another is always an adventure. It doesn't matter if you are traveling in Asia, Mexico to the US by car, traveling outside the Eurozone, South America, and Africa. Traveling to a border country by boat or automobile is always a trying experience. In this instance the two capitals are only 6 miles apart so going by boat was supposed to be easier than flying. Since we were in my home country I felt confident that we can handle the border crossing between Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville. In fact, I was sure that it would be a super simple transaction.

There is a saying (I'm terrible at getting sayings correct) along the lines of “Best laid plans....”. Well, this was a hot mess! The original plan was to have everyone meet me at the hotel at 7 am. They would bring their travel documents and a yellow fever vaccination card. One person would go to the beach ahead of time to get the Laissez Passé (pass so you can cross over), make a reservation for a private boat to leave Kinshasa side at 10 am and we would all meet up at the beach at 9 am for any last-minute issues. We had a contact at the beach that we contacted a week before our trip and the day before. He was supposed to help us with the process so we can get everything done quickly.

So now that you know the plan. As you might have guessed nothing went right - NOTHING! We had nine people with different types of identification trying to cross over to Brazzaville. Our Photographer and his assistant forget their yellow fever cards. They had to go back to get their documents. In the meantime, we waited for the private boat to become available. While waiting I met so many friendly people who worked at the beach. Normally I'm all for friendliness but this ended up putting us behind schedule. Everyone was curious about my team, our business, and asked us a lot of fashion and business questions. We had people pitch me different business ideas and asked me to fund it. In all honesty, some of the business ideas were quite fantastic. Once we had the vaccination cards I couldn't just get on the boat. I had a bunch of other people to visit, I had to go over the same information over and over again, and lastly, the boat that we reserved three days ahead and confirmed hours earlier was no longer available. Instead of a private boat for 12 people, we had to take a boat for six people to Brazzaville, send it back to Kinshasa, and bring the second group to Brazzaville. We didn't leave the beach until 1:45 pm.

Once we arrived at the beach in Brazzaville they took our temperature and asked for our yellow fever card. Just to make things worst, someone in the second group had all the yellow fever cards and the laissez passe. Fortunately, the people in Brazzaville felt bad for us and let us wait in an air-conditioned room (it was 96 degrees that day) while we waited for the second group with the documents. The second group finally arrived at the beach in Brazzaville at around 3 pm. The last boat back to Kinshasa was 4:30 pm so we decided that it was best to send some people back while the rest of us spent a few days in Brazzaville. We wasted the entire day and I was beyond frustrated.

We had a wonderful time in Brazzaville and we will be posting some videos and photos. After our fun trip, we had to cross the river back to Kinshasa. We had a contact at the beach that was able to facilitate our crossing the Congo River. We handed our documents, sat in an air-conditioned room while going through photos from our photoshoot. We even made great contacts with people in the waiting area. The process of going back to Kinshasa was a lot more comfortable and less frustrating. It took us just over an hour to get everything done and get on our boat. We were 6 on the way back and only needed one boat back. We got to Kinshasa with our items in good spirits. Once we landed at the beach we handed over our documents and another headache ensued. It was such a terrible experience that I will try to ignore it altogether.

The biggest lesson we can all take from this is that crossing frontiers in any country is a process. It's always best to bring your patience, charm, and did I mention patience. We were lucky to make it back and forth in one piece. We also have great stories to share about the experience.

In these times I would trade so much to be able to travel and have frustrating experience at the frontier. Hopefully we will be able to travel soon. I hope everyone is staying safe.

With Love,

Adolophine

The Wild Wild Frontier