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eventually summoned the courage to ask him directly if I could
borrow a motorbike and a guide from his Care International staff.
The fact that he did not turn me down flat meant I was in with a
chance. He promised to mention my idea to his staff around
Kindu and urge them to see if they could coincide one of their
reconnaissance trips with part of my itinerary.
    These half-chances suggested by Michel and Brian had been the
grounds for my decision to fly to Kalemie but they were not
enough to convince Jean-Claude ('Call me J-C') - a thirdgeneration Belgian colonialist who worked for Clive's mine
operations. He seemed to take a mawkish pleasure in telling me
my trip was doomed.
    When I told him that all I had with me was my 'To Whom It
May Concern' letter introducing me as a writer following
Stanley's route, he snorted dismissively. 'That won't be enough.
You will need written authorisation from the local intelligence
service. They are very strict here and without their permission
you won't get anywhere,' he said. And when I told him I had
a satellite telephone, he snorted even more loudly. 'You won't
get far with that unless you get permission from the military
police. They will take it away from you the moment they find it.

    It will cost you a lot of money if you try to get it back.'
    I was beginning to take against J-C.
    'I've got a map here. Come and show me where you want to go,'
J-C said on my first day in Lubumbashi, unfolding an out-of-date
map of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
    I stood over it and pointed to Kalemie, the port on Lake
Tanganyika. Technically it is in the same province as
Lubumbashi, Katanga, but it lies 1,000 kilometres to the north. As
I described the major sections of the trip, overland from the lake
to the headwaters of the Congo River, J-C rather irritatingly
sucked in his breath and shook his head, uttering something like
,not possible' or 'cannot be done'.
    After I finished he launched into a hugely pessimistic
declamation.
    'I know all this area really well from when I was younger. This
area is not a cobalt area like down here in the south of Katanga,
but a gold area. Not big-scale stuff, but artisanal, small-scale gold
mines. So with the presence of these mines, you are going to get
people with guns wanting the gold action. And I am sure you
know what happened up here recently.' He was pointing at
Bukavu, the scene of the attack by pro-Rwandan rebels just a few
months earlier.
    'Well, all the government troops have now gone into the town
to punish the rebels. And so those rebels have fled into the bush
about here.' He was now pointing to an area close to Kalemie.
    'And that means the militia who were already living in the
bush have been pushed further south, to where you want to go.'
    He shook his head and, with a final flourish, pronounced his
judgement. 'You don't stand a chance.'
    I had had enough of J-C and took solace in the house's South
African satellite television. I turned on the news and could not
believe what I heard. The anchorman told me that 156 ethnic
Tutsis from the Congo had just been murdered at a refugee camp
across the border in Burundi where they had sought sanctuary from the turmoil caused by June's events in Bukavu. I tried to
follow what the anchor was saying about who might be
responsible. His version was muddled and confusing, but one
thing was perfectly clear to me. My journey had just got a whole
lot more complicated.

     
4.
The Pearl of Tanganyika

    Laissez-passer issued to the author, August 2004, by Congolese
authorities in the province of Katanga

    The Belgians called the port of Kalemie the 'Pearl of Tanganyika'
and I was hoping it would gleam for me as I approached on the
UN flight from Lubumbashi. The light aircraft bucked and yawed
as the pilots slalomed between skyscraper storm clouds, but my
face stayed firmly glued to the tiny porthole, anxious for my first
glimpse.
    Lake Tanganyika is a scientific