This episode brings us back to Africa where we wait in Bangui to be picked up. We meet two gold miners and went upriver in a canoe to a pygmy village and watch some drumming and dances. Back in the town, the owner of overland truck company had arrived with two trucks, a semi-articulated and a short-based truck. We loaded ourselves into these trucks and crossed into Zaire posing as missionaries. This started the unforgettable journey on the main road to Lisala, which actually was a mud highway covered in wheel ruts and soft edges with makeshift bridges of logs, dirt and tin over fast streams. Often we were digging the bogged trucks out of the thick mud or helping reinforce the log crossings to manage the truck weight. We finally made it to Lisala to see a beautiful Congo River before a manicured lawn. Perfect photo opportunity.......Next minute I was being marched up to police headquarters with an AK-47 behind my back........ The life lessons were again just go with the flow. I realised I was not interested in seeing tourist performances but was more interested in seeing the real deal of life in villages and their associated ceremonies. The pygmy performance made me see how we were viewing Africa and I wanted to be immersed rather than watch as a spectator from the side-line. This became my motto for life. I was also overawed in the feats achieved in maintaining a road through the tropical depths of the African jungle. Finally, my more intense brush with the law made me much more cautious in what I photographed or filmed in politically-unstable countries.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/justine-murray0/message