Day 156 - Fri 5th March - 14167km Brazzaville, Congo

Obtaining my DRC visa is proving to be an incredibly long and frustrating process thanks to recent rule changes that mean I have to obtain an 'officially approved' letter of invitation. Needless to say this takes time and further money to process both of which I give very reluctantly!! Fortunately Hubert is happy for me to stay with him for as long as required although being located in the suburbs with no running water, erratic power supplies and trying not to spend money in this surprisingly expensive city I'm becoming more than a little bored and restless! There is only so often I can wander or run aimlessly around the suburbs followed by laughter and calls of “Jesus” and even swimming the Congo is starting to look like a tempting solution. The good news is that the immigration chief has finally warmed to my cause having checked out the site and even expressed an interest in distributing bikes. Bertha (my bike) has also benefited from all my free time receiving a complete makeover and I have been able to go through all my paper work, something I’m glad I didn’t have time to do sooner after discovering a country fact sheet on the Congo given to me by one of the children at the British School of Cordoba that says, "if you go with people to deserted places they will take your money, passport, rape and kill you"!!

With less than 100 days till the World Cup, I am still ahead of schedule although if, as anticipated, my Angola visa is also a problem, I may have a pre-comrades race on my hands. Another milestone has been reached in the last week with the site now receiving over 20,000 hits which must mean that apart from my folks at least another 50 people have logged on! Great work Joe.