Haven't seen much of Kinshasa, yet. Arrived at night, and it's not a well-lit town.
A few random notes. If you've ever traveled in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union, you'll know that when a plane lands there, people -- the passengers on board -- clap. The first time this happened, it struck me as a little worrisome.
Well, when you land in Kinshasa, people don't clap. They break into full and loud applause, complete with cheers and whistles.
The baggage claim was crowded, hot, and very slow. The expediter was there, though, so I was "handled" and put in the car. The road from the airport is better than you might think, though there was one stretch that was basically a single huge flooded pothole. Apparently the Chinese are about to sink a lot of money into fixing roads around here.
The Grand Hotel is about what you'd expect: fading carpets, loud air conditioning, faint smell of mold in the room. The internet connection is very intermittent. I went down to the front desk to discuss this and everyone immediately lost all their English. Well, it will probably be good for me to have limited online time. Really. I'm sure it will.
Okay, bed time here. More in a bit --
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