As soon as one arrives in the Congo, its impossible to ignore the size of the trucks. Immediately after crossing the border from Uganda, I saw the tallest truck I have ever seen. It was piled maybe 25 feet high with clear plastic bags of clear plastic bottles. My boss explained that the bottles are being brought to a local beverage factory. EEK - whose gonna recycle all thos bottles???
Also, there are huge, huge petroleum trucks which ply the routes far into interior Congo. It would be interesting to know how far petrol actually travels in from the east Africa coast (Mombasa, Kenya is the deep water port). Surely to Kisangani, but maybe further down the Congo River? It is far - which is a bit of ironic, because the mouth of the Congo River is on Africa's west coast which is extremely rich in oil resources (Angola, Republic of Congo, Gabon).
The funniest truck I saw, was this huge truck stuck in the middle of the road - with a huge mudflaps that read "OH!!! GOD". Its not really funny when I think too hard about the broken down truck...it really sucks. But maybe I think broken down trucks are kinda funny like some Africans think people getting injured is kinda funny - looking at the other point of view is probably quite appalling in either case. A goofy mudflap message, thats what made me laugh. Though some of the old trucks still plying routes here ought to have been retired decades ago.
Last year, an overloaded truck carrying illegal timber collapsed the bridge in Epulu village - cutting a National Road for a few days (until a crossing-method was devised), causing many delays and added costs for a whole month, which impacted the entire regional economy. It was a lot shorter than the bridge-downing that lasted for almost 2 years and had been resurrected a mere month before Epulu's bridge-downing. With a little luck, 2010 has seen no bridges falling down! But the trucks are stiill huge!
