Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown S01E07 2013 1080p WEB DL H264 AAC DDHDTV

after 9 days of threats of imprisonment confiscation of footage and what was the most chaotic difficult yet amazing trip of my life the last thing that stands between us and our flight home is the reason we came the Congo River itself this F cannot move today because now the and it's have to tomorrow the UN truck just said he's been here since this morning I've had times where I've been held up for days what's up Freddy the engine they're starting the engine awesome I just broke down again yeah we now have 1 hour of daylight left the Eng okay great here comes yeah you learn quickly in Congo things change at a moment's notice Welcome to the Jungle I took a walk through this beautiful world felt theol Rain on My [Applause] Shoulder found something in this beautiful world I felt the rain getting [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] troller everyone gets everything he wants I wanted to see the Congo and for my sins they let [Music] me in Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad writes of his alter ego when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps at that time there were many blank spaces on Earth but there was one yet the biggest the most blank that I had a hankering after this then is the Congo the size of all Western Europe combined it should be Africa's wealthiest Nation but people forget or never even knew that the 20th Century's first Holocaust happened here when Belgium's King Leopold managed to bamboozle the world into giving him personal title to the [Music] Congo Leopold's agents of whom the mythical Curts was one raided slaughtered mutilated and pressed into Force labor much of the population in a bloodthirsty quest for first Ivory and then rubber when Independents finally came the belgians trashed what they could and left behind a completely unprepared Tri L divided and largely ungovernable landmass filled with stuff that everybody in the world wanted and things pretty much went downhill from there [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] but this Story begins with a truck stop in Rwanda stocking up in Rwanda cuz my expectations for food in the Congo are more measured if you're looking to get to the Eastern Congo and many would ask why you'd even want to do that the best way is to drive across from neighboring Rwanda this country of course not too long ago suffered its own appalling genocide behind the wheel Dan he's been living in the DRC for 2 years working on a documentary about some of the several dozen and rebel groups in the country riding Shotgun Dan's close friend and Associate herb a congales they're taking me across the border one side Randa hotels paved roads internet and paperwork to be filled [Music] out just a few feet of Barb Wire machine guns and cement walls away this welcome to GMA a city of 1 million a significant number of whom are idps internally displaced people sitting rather inconveniently at the base of Mount nongo a still smoldering volcano current street level is about 12 ft above where it was in January 2002 when it last erupted lava everywhere which explains the less than smooth ride one of the first things you notice out the car window the UN about 4 months ago the M23 one of the various Rebel groups H up in the jungle nearby invaded the city the NOS batten down the hatches the UN stood by hands tied everyone else had to fend for themselves until the rebels withdrew the Congo is a place I've dreamed of visiting since before I ever thought I'd get the chance to travel the world close your door actually being here I'm not so sure [Music] Dan herb and I head for a local restaurant good food is going to be a challenge soon so we take the opportunity to fill up on what we can grilled chicken ugali Peri Peri pepper a pretty nice meal GMA in the ' 50s you know tourists used to come from as far down as Road Egypt up here to Vacation amazing with life and also I remember my childhood seeing Lions just alongside of the road sometime G was a ttic place for a long time they're not coming anymore no no you're just saying no it's a Red Zone it's looking like there won't be house to house fighting or artillery or mortars dropping into G was today a good day well right now we have a rebel group just 10 km north of us right and then we have uh maybe seven other rebel groups that are all caught in the blender you know so things change quickly in Congo confused yet virtually all of the eastern part of the country is being contested by Reel groups some local and others allegedly acting on behalf of interests based in neighboring countries recently the largely Tootsie Rwandan back M23 has been active in the area around GMA but the mostly Hutu fdlr is also here the myi can refer to either somewhat generic local self-defense groups or specific entities like APS or chica some groups like The fpi are principally defending a stake in a resource like gold and others like the rehea Moki are mainly interested in fighting with a particular enemy in their case they have a beef with the fdlr and lots of other organizations controlling territory who haven't come up with a name or a cool acronym yet this is only a fraction of the Rebel groups in a single area of the Congo and be advised this map was hopelessly outdated before we even got here it's all these variables kind of knotted into one big mess and these are the reasons why media has a difficult time while the Western World doesn't hear much about Congo because how can you sum it up in a 3-minute report but for us GMA is just a stopover on the way to the Congo River so we need to keep moving and Roads forget it certainly nothing even remotely safe between GMA and where we're headed we're flying to kissani this is uh this is the preferred route so we've chartered a bush plane formerly Queen Elizabeth's flying Wardrobe when the queen traveled presumably in her younger years her clothes followed in this Beast or so we're told I have not seen this model of Plan before first for me of course you learn to take nothing for granted in the Congo uh-oh just as we're about to take off thunder lightning I don't see what the problem is mother looks fine to me let's get this thing airb wow nice best to wait this one out a little bit crashes are pretty Common Place not so long ago a plane with nearly 100 people on board went down on the same route we're taken today no most planes that crash in Congo crash because of the weather right yeah most of the time yeah but not us don't worry impossible man the weather clears up sort of so we decide to give it a go when the weather is very bad stay on the ground what about Rebels they shooting at the planes no normally no okay we'll see you after after your trip yeah yeah yeah okay have a good one [Music] lifting off from GMA we head out over the shores of Lake kevu before circling back North Northeast our destination what Conrad referred to in Heart of Darkness as the Inner Station here surrounded by dense jungle lies our rendevu with the Congo River a Waterway responsible for both building this country and helping to destroy it [Music] 2 hours out of GMA we land at kissani this was once Stanleyville and the country's second largest city before war and NE collect cut it off from the rest of the Congo and the world Stanleyville known in Heart of Darkness as the [Music] interstation the Congo River stretches across the country's middle Conrad describes it as a twisting snake with its head in the Atlantic Ocean and its tail buried deep in Africa's heart to Europeans it was a natural route to transport slaves Ivory rubber minerals the Commodities upon which modern-day Brussels and antp are built for the congales both before and after the belgians it provided more basic things water to wash to clean your clothes in to cook with to drink also fishing since long before the Expeditions of Dr Livingston and Henry Morton Stanley the wagia tribe has been fishing the river in unique fashion highly coordinated and acrobatic the wagia dive into the treacherous Rapids of what is still referred to as Stanley Falls navigate Downstream between baskets that need tender perched on a precarious network of wooden poles they hoist together the catch these days not much so this is the second biggest force in this cono River oh yeah yeah oi is a wagia fisherman and was a guide bringing tourists to his village since the last two Wars kingani tourism has been pretty much non-existent chief of the wiia Pierre mosala ABA it is said is a direct descendant of King nenda Aila who greeted Stanley in the 1870s please please thank him for the privilege of seeing his community it's a present from the chief this is a way to welcome the delegation of CNN the wagia tribe made what was in retrospect the mistake of allowing Stanley to pass the famous explorer of course pretty much shot and raided his way along his historic Route to the coast before effectively jumpstarting the colonial [Music] period using Stan his administrator King Leopold of Belgium claimed the Congo as his personal property under Leopold's Reign men women and children were tagged with numbers separated into groups given production quotas if they fell short they were whipped with the shot their hands cut off hanged an estimated 10 million congales were either starved worked to death executed or just killed where they stood all in just over 20 years by the end half the population of the country was gone have you ever thought about all those years ago if your people had just killed Stanley somebody else have to come somebody else would have come ordinarily a large tiger fish like this one it's going to the market considered way too valuable to eat but today guests it's a mean looking fish she used to sell fish in the market the congales standard Lim it can be pretty much anything wrapped in a banana leaf and [Music] steam typical tradition excellent meal [Music] a lot of work though it looks like they're not having an entirely miserable time but the water looks good on a good day how many like this on a good day uh 50 50 yeah 50 that time two assessors our didn't use to catches they just got the big one basket like this uh they used to catch about 10 big fish but situation changed the tourist used to come and see how the fish men are catching right hundreds of them used to come yes well things get a little better here maybe they come back I hope so I hope so [Music] too after leapold the Belgian government took over and pretty much continued as before and a partti like system of what's mine is mine and what's yours is Mine by the ' 50s there was a beautiful modern infrastructure built railroads hotels sports clubs schools the Envy of Africa Humphrey Bogart and Katherine heern were here while filming the African queen they stayed at the luxury hotel the pqa PA this is the pqa PA now like everything else of that time a hollow ruin inhabited by squatters or simply eaten by the jungle but none of this was ever for the congales they weren't allowed in many of these buildings except as help not even allowed to walk their own streets after [Music] dark not a lot of Dependable electric power left in the city but what lights do glow around town much of it comes from places like this small kiosks serving the congales version of barbecue and what passes for cold beer Christian is one of our fixers tasked with keeping us on track and out of trouble which believe me is a big job around here you know it's an amazing looking City if you just blur your vision a little bit you can see it the way it used to be beautiful I think it's it could be the the best place to live very kind people people like listening to music sitting taking their beers eating what's the congales word for barbecue uh [Laughter] barbecue Che cheers I like any meat on a grill it's looking good grilled goat with Cy a traditional goat stew on the side now we're talking they roast it and they put some sauce on it it's delicious as you can see people don't eat meat meat is quite expensive almost $2 is a lot that's more than most people make in a day or even two days what are the first things you buy uh if you're very very very poor very poor soap soap yeah cuz at least you have to look a bit clean so soap first soap soap but in between as conges you got to think of dressing looking smart clothes all these conges you can see here if you give them $10 they'll think of at least buying some of food and keep maybe $1 to buy a shirt so that's called Pride yeah and there's hope you can plan for tomorrow for tomorrow [Music] [Music] [Music] in Heart of Darkness Conrad writes about the greed of the Belgian colonizers they grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got it was just robbery with violence aggravated murder on a great [Music] scale and after 75 years the congales had had enough but Independence came quickly and when the new country managed to inaugurate their first democratically elected leader Patrice lumba the CIA and the British working through the belgians had him killed we helped to install this miserable bastard in his place Joseph mabutu he stole billions of dollars from his people and pretty much became the template for despotism in Africa needless to say this situation deteriorated over the next 30 odd years and by the time mabutu was done the Congo was mired in a series of Civil Wars the government was no longer paying its bills and the trains basically stopped running this is kissing gani [Music] station there's one short run left service once a week when operational which isn't often I'm guessing abandoned by the belgians shot up and Stripped by rebels in the 90s the station the engines the ancient Passenger cars and the tracks themselves have slowly receded into the [Music] jungle and yet all these years later with hardly any resources missure Alo Emil the railway administrator and a staff of Clerks conductors mechanics and Engineers show up at work and do what they can in an attempt to keep things in working [Music] order how do you do you said that you're welcome to see this place how many employees still work here so at one time you could dispatch a freight South Africa so a hypothetical question if the government said okay we're ready we have the money we would like to as quickly as possible get operational does he have the workers ready to go and this is one of the few things here that's working today a feature of great pride to the staff the railway employees I'm told do not get paid yet they continue to show up at [Music] work it is said of the building of the country's once vast rail network one congales died for every single [Music] time like many congales we meet they are all these years later and in spite of everything that's happened ready and waiting for the situation to improve [Music] you lost your way on that River as you would in a desert till you thought yourself Bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once so Conrad described the Congo after piloting steam ships in the early days of Belgian colonialism I've had something of a multi- deade obsession with the Congo it's been kind of a a personal dream if you will to travel the Congo River and now for better or worse I get that chance we've rented a trusty vessel and I shall dub the the captain Willard all right did you maggots load the chickens finding food along the way it's anticipated will be a challenge Refrigeration of any kind is impossible okay well I'm sight my dream has finally come true blocked by officials this could be months okay let the probing begin we need this now how do we do this let's get underway before they figure a new tax to levy on us bye [Music] bye our trip down river will take us some 120 km even deeper into the jungle but instead of CTS and his Ivory horde a crumbling Belgian Research Center with a shadowy pth awaits us at our destination this is a turn of the century map so as kissani was then called Stanleyville leopoldville that would be here like 3,000 km or something like that a long way to go if we were taking the full ride that's what we're doing right all the way to the Atlantic you didn't tell them yet I don't think we have enough spam gentlemen [Music] [Music] a half day Journey Down River there's a local dignitary we've promised to visit yeah there's the chief who's coming down we arrive late but the king is still waiting for us traditional headgear not so traditional suit the medals given by The belgians Proving his Royal lineage [Music] [Music] now this is Place belongs to the bambole ethnic group and he's the king my father ruled from 1928 and I came after him in 1963 it's a lot of history incredible we give him a goat as a way of saying I'm sorry for being so late and sorry we can't stay longer and he gives me a simple yet Hefty looking bracelet which only later do I come to appreciate for what it [Music] [Music] is hor told me this goes back to Arab Portuguese times it was the Arabs who taught them how to do this and they wear them on their wrists or their ankles this is older than our story probably the chief said uh his father gave it to him in 1935 so who knows man wow so where'd you get the bracelet oh an African king gave it to me Congo River where'd you get yours [Music] we've come a long way down river but with many kilometers still to go attention is turned towards the evening meal I figure I'll make coova which is a pretty simple way of dealing with a bunch of tough old stringy birds in one pot getting close to killy time the Moment of Truth It's Quickly getting dark and I'm very aware of a number of things how do they usually kill chickens small knife small knife cut the head off our chickens are thin scraggly and tough a he's biting me in order to make anything any kind of edible I'm probably going to have to Stew the crap out of them but first we got to kill these things and collect their blood which if you know anything about chickens and most of my crew don't takes time I'll hold a bucket you kill the chicken you want to eat you got to kill your own chicken and pluck it too time to get Killy Killy but Every Man Has a Breaking Point and in retrospect perhaps this was our saw harder harder harder you're almost thr no I'm not killing him tomu clean kill clean kill now you can join our Treehouse by the time our birds are cleaned and plucked the sun is down and dinner is still a long way offat up the CH it's time to Chick [Music] somewhere down the Congo River and I'm continuing to deal with a few pressing [Music] concerns the one knife on board is as sharp whe as a soup spoon and soon I'm frantically trying to rip out the backbone and guts in one go with my bare hands because the knife ain't [ __ ] and it's getting darker and darker and the damn generator keeps kicking out and I really need the light so I can see what I'm cutting can't if I I can't cut what I can't see light on right now there's only 240 WTS there's no way it's it's the dra you're not going to eat at all I'll never I'm never going to get through with this nice love machete no maybe we should figure out how to cook dinner unless you don't want to eat any dinner because we are really not going to eat any dinner tday okay I've had a peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I would like to eat especially as we've gone through all of this misery with these chickens all right uh where's machete it would be aopo to point out that we do not want to be moving at night we would not like to run ground in the middle of the freaking Congo he's going to swim in now he's worried about Crocs see the currents unpredictable visibility nil time to tie up for the night generator issues more or less fixed but now another just a serious problem presents itself with the lights burning it becomes insanely buggy crush the wrong one of these Moss while swatting your face and you will blow up like a balloon seriously okay take the other two bottles of wine you pour all three bottles of wine into the into the [Music] onions all right let's uh put the top on bring it up to a boil 3 hours later and it looks like the jungle style stew might actually work out after [Music] all okay someone wants to bring this over carefully to the table all right let's eat at what I [Music] in the end my coov Val was a bit scraggly but passible check it is written that I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice I think I Now understand what that means [Music] next morning on the river and of course we're not alone fishermen from all the surrounding Villages have heard of us and have long before we're even awake come by to check us out hey uh you ever find a couple of onions for me don't go crazy if we don't have we don't have I will not go crazy all right I will get on the spam and egg p TR they may have invented the stealth bomber really this will be our crowning accomplishment as a culture in there [Music] boys once we finally get there we still have to get all the way back coming back was never part of the plan man we're not coming back yeah they'll find US 10 years later naked in the bush with like a necklace of spam cans that was glorious time to get back out on the river we have places to go 2 days down the Congo we're finally nearing our [Music] destination it's an abandoned Belgian research station and it's still functioning at some capacity but uh the Ambi itself goes about 30 km in there's over 250 buildings they're doing it all here much myth and Legend surrounds this place ah there we go yeah it has been inferred by some that the belgians conducted uranium enrichment and a host of bizarre experiments here however the facts would suggest the scariest thing to ever happen here some genetically modified banana varietals you made a young [Music] Gumby deep in the jungle and miles from anywhere this was once the institute for agricultural studies of cono construction began in the 1930s the complex was once staffed by hundreds of Belgian researchers doctors and Engineers until they left hly in 1960 with Independence began a rapid decline the eventual cessation of funding of the hundreds of structures built here what used to be housing Laboratories hospitals and research facilities the vast complex's library is clearly the most important to those who remain though crumbling like everything else the grass is cut and grounds maintained it's swept and kept clean and yet most incredibly this man kasongo beran still fights a daily battle to Stave off further Decay to the thousands of volumes of books and research materials contained on these shelves so what happened here did the place stay open did people continue to do research there some new stuff they don't get anything but for those who have been there for long they get an allowance from the government Independence comes what happens here so unless I'm mistaken the gentleman just said that Cutting Edge research moved to Burundi and elsewhere the conole who who remained their mission all these years later has been to preserve the patrimony that existed all this was state-of-the-art back in the ' 50s when the library was built but for 20 years there hasn't been electricity to run the dehumidifiers to keep out the damp through so many wars through all of these difficulties he has maintained this facility to an extraordinary degree uh why staff still show up to work and organize catalog and write requests for funding perhaps to kinasa or a central office where someone may or may not ever respond he was here pre- Independence yes does he remember the Belgian rule no yeah he remember he remembers the that period of colon colon that that was the good the best time that they were living what do you say to someone who suggests that Belgian colonialism might have been the good [Music] times the road home such as it is rotting Bridges makeshift faeries it's an adventure fortunately ours was a good Adventure the Congo is a place that's always fascinated me this is a trip I've been wanting to take since I've been writing stories or making television but what I found was something unexpected I met a lot of people who for a long time have been waiting hoping for things to get better a lot more hope here than there's any right to expect when all is said and done I wanted to go to the Congo and I did