Quick questions after just finishing... â€� Tim Butcher Q&A

David Byrd asked Tim Butcher:

Quick questions after just finishing "Blood River": how did you leave Boma? Were you able to get air service out of there? Did you have your transport from there planned well in advance?

Tim Butcher I got back to Kinshasa by car and flew out from there. The airport in Kinshasa is the biggest in the country and back in 2004 South African Airways had scheduled flights out. Getting from Boma back to Kinshasa was easier said than done. I shared in the book my low opinion of the `guide' who escorted me to Boma, asking for money at every turn and generally playing up to the worst stereotype of African scam artist. The vehicle he had procured broke down in a number of ways on the route back. The brakes locked. Then they unlocked but did not work. The driver tried to cannibalise some meaningful brake disc material by pinching a disc from another car and then snapping off its edges until it `fit' onto our wheel. Then the battery went. We ended up having to overnight in a small hotel along with 4,000 of the noisiest, hungriest mosquitoes I have ever encountered. And all the time there were checkpoints where a foreigner was expected to produce an Ordre de Mission (purpose of visit) document signed by the internal security agency of DRC. It was not a journey I look back on with fondness.

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