Angola
– December 2007
Unfortunately
Angola often has to be rushed through by people who only have a 5-day
transit visa but if you manage to get a 30-day tourist visa it’s well
worth using the time on it to explore. The Angolan landscapes are varied
and beautiful and the towns are surprisingly sophisticated (Sunday seems
to be party day!). Accommodation is expensive but bush camping, albeit
by the side of the road, is easy as the countryside is sparsely populated.
Our
route
As we were going to be travelling at the start of the rainy season we
decided to take the coastal roads to take advantage of the dry coastal
belt that runs from Namibia to Luanda. We had also heard (rightly) that
the coast was very beautiful with 4x4 roads rather than the boring pot-holed
tar of the main, central road. [We’ve since spoken to people who say that
road from Benguela to Cucula is a good, graded-dirt alternative to the
most difficult bit of the coastal stretch.]
We
drove up from the Santa Clara/Oshikango border to Lubango and from there
down the perfect switchback road to Namibe. After a quick southerly diversion
to Flamingo Lodge and Parque do Iona we headed north on the notorious
(and great fun) road to Benguela and Lobito and from there to Luanda.
From the capital, we drove north to N’Zeto and the border into the DRC
at Noqui/Matadi.
Bearing
in mind we didn’t hit any rain/mud, the driving time alone (for those
with that dreaded 5-day transit visa) was seven days: two days from the
border to Namibe, two days from Namibe to Lobito, one day from Lobito
to Luanda, one day from Luanda to Nzeto, and one day from Nzeto to the
Noqui/Matadi. But you'd be going some to do this consecutively.
Border
formalities
At Santa Clara, all you need is your pre-arranged and purchased visa,
there are no other costs for you or your vehicle (we never got asked to
produce any insurance). However, we had to explain very clearly that we
were tourists to avoid getting all our money out of our safe in front
of a crowd of locals after the particular guy we were dealing with produced
a document stating that we each needed US$200 a day for travel in Angola.
Luckily for us, and our poorly spoken Portuguese, a more senior officer
arrived and hurried us through. The Santa Clara office is open from 8am
and the Oshikango office on the Namibian side also opens from 8am. Cleverly,
due to the time difference these are an hour apart. Coming north we just
had to wait but if you’re coming south I guess you might get stuck in
no-mans-land!
And
don’t forget that right-hand side/left-hand side of the road thing – there
are a lot of coppers on the Angolan side, whom are friendly and reasonable
when you explain you are a tourist (we were subject to a cursory vehicle
inspection until they got bored after just two bags of clothes) but don’t
take too kindly to you driving on the other side of the road.
The
visa
Having been worried about this one for quite some time, we tried the embassy
in Lusaka whilst there. The very flamboyantly dressed young man greeted
us positively then proceeded to explain that it would be VERY difficult
to get a visa here as everyone in Luanda ignored him. After about an hour
of to-ing and fro’ing (well, what can you do to help? what can we do to
help? etc) we decided to try in Namibia like everyone else. (We subsequently
met a German couple that spent 40 days pleading with this guy until they
finally, somehow, got their visas.) We were greeted far more abruptly
in Oshakati, Northern Namibia. We had read that this was THE place to
get the visa but things had obviously changed. “You’ll be better off trying
in Windhoek,” she said to me eventually, with a meaningful look.
By
the time we got to Windhoek we had everything in place. By now we had
decided that the best way to get a letter of introduction was to legitimately
book something and we had been in touch with Angola Adventure Safaris
(www.aasafaris.com) who manage Flamingo Lodge in the south of the country
and Kwanza Lodge in the north. Although we don’t normally pre-book stuff
we were keen to do some touristy stuff in Angola rather than just fly
though, and if they could give us a letter of introduction so much the
better. The incredibly helpful Liesl in the Cape Town office advised that
either Windhoek or Rundu was our best chance, promptly wrote us a letter
in Portuguese and faxed it to Windhoek. When we went in we were told that
the ambassador wasn’t around that week and nothing could be processed
until the following week. Fine, we said, could we fill in the forms and
then leave it with you to manage?
The
following Tuesday we went in to check progress and nothing had moved because
we hadn’t left our fee. So we paid and went back on Wednesday. Sorry,
the ambassador is out at meetings, please come back this afternoon. We
finally got our visas on Thursday - ten days after first going into the
Windhoek embassy. Not bad considering some of the stories I’ve heard…[As
an update to this: we have met many overlanders coming south who have
not managed to get an Angolan visa in any country in the north. Most are
opting to miss out Cabinda as it’s impossible to get a transit visa for
here on the Congo border, and get a transit visa for ‘mainland’ Angola
at Matadi. Apparently there’s a small fine for each day you overstay your
five days (not the huge fine mentioned in the Lonely Planet).]
In
summary: in Namibia try Windhoek or Rundu (at the moment
but things may change quite quickly!). The Windhoek embassy is in Aussanplatz
and the visa section is open 9-12am. Cost: N$1,000 each (!!). Take letter
of intro, passports, copies of passports (ID and Namibia visa pages),
2x photos and lots of patience.
General
driving conditions and accommodation
It’s true that quite a few of the roads are in poor condition but some
are good fun as long as you resign yourself to the fact that it will take
four times as long to get somewhere and treat it like a grand day out.
Also, Chinese road builders are working rapidly through the routes - some
are already completed and are very good – and it’s likely that the situation
will have already improved by the time we get this on the website!
All
hotels, guesthouses and camping in Angola are expensive. A number of municipal
works vehicles have rooftop tents so bush camping seems fairly common.
As regards the land mines, the west is much clearer than the east and
you can easily bush camp on recently used vehicle tracks or service roads
running alongside the road-building programme. The British consul in Luanda
did tell us the mines moved after heavy rain and also to avoid driving
into the gap left by broken bridges (of which there are quite a few).
Specific
conditions
The timings are from our GPS and are ‘time moving’ – they don’t allow
for time spent getting out of the car and pre-walking the route! Here
are the road conditions, towns and accommodation options for each section
of our journey:
The
border to Lubango (10 hours driving)
Roads. Very good tar south of Ondjiva. Road
building from there to Chibia with a variety of bad dirt, graded dirt
ready for works and old, potholed tar. North of Chibia there is a quicker
stretch of narrow and strangely bumpy tar.
Towns and accommodation. As you move north from
the border the undergrowth quickly gets thicker. As there are also plenty
of service roads running along this road building stretch it should be
pretty easy to bush camp.
Only Ondjiva, Xongango and Chibia are towns of any stature and each has
a pensao or two. Ondjiva is in the process of being built and is starting
to look like a Namibian town (there is a useful bureau de change here)
and Chibia is a pretty place with lots of old buildings. Outside of these
towns there are a couple more pensaos dotted along the main road - we
camped in the car park at the friendly pensao in Chibemba and they also
had OK rooms for 2000kw.
Lubango has apparently had loads of work done on it recently and it shows.
It has attractive colonial buildings, a couple of great cafés, that imposing
Christ statue and a relaxed feel. We camped for 3000kw a night at Casper’s
Lodge, situated with all the other tourist places up Ave Neto, past the
Grand Hotel and on the left. A cheaper option would be to camp out of
town at the abandoned site near the Tunduvala volcanic fissure (S14050.698
E13024.201). It was deserted when we went but, judging by the wine-box-rubbish,
it looks like it might get lots of day-visitors at the weekend.
Tunduvala
detour (add a couple of hours)
Tunduvala is volcanic fissure and a beautiful spot - worth a visit even
if you don’t camp there. Go up Ave.Neto and turn right along the road
past the N’Gola and Coca Cola factories (turning: S14055.712 E13028.243).
Tunduvala is 16.4km (about half an hour) along this road.
Lubango to Namibe (3 hours driving)
Roads. This must-do road (EN280) has perfect
tar and is a tourist attraction in itself. You can visit the Lubango Christ
statue and the mirador overlooking the Leba mountain pass before descending
the steep switchback road to the desert. There is a toll at the top of
150Kw. Along the road are boys selling eggs. Buy some as these lads have
the only chickens in the country (almost).
Towns and accommodation. There is nowhere to
bush camp along this road (unless you’re happy parked on tar with trucks
trundling past all night). Namibe is a sleepy port town with some interesting
colonial buildings but it’s not had the renovation of Lubango as of yet
and feels run down. There are some shops and places to eat but you’ll
have to search around; we had breakfast in the Girasol café, which had
good Delta coffee and cakes and an expensive mini-mart. The accommodation
is expensive in Namibe but we stayed at Pensao Coragem (S15011.811 E12008.732)
- one block behind the Maritime hotel - for 4800kw for an OK ensuite double.
They also have a secure car-park they might let you camp in (?!). One
block along from this was Lady D’s Pensao, which was very nice but priced
at 7900kw for a double.
Flamingo
Lodge (S15o34.213 E12001.189)
South of Namibe is Flamingo Lodge, ostensibly a fishing place but we used
it to explore Parque do Iona. We took our car and Kabous of Flamingo came
in their Toyota so we could play in the dunes and get a tow out! Great
fun. Cost: $200 for the hire of the Toyota. If you had two cars and just
wanted a guide I imagine it would be cheaper.
The campsite has good facilities (hot shower, gas-stove and generator!)
and the bar has cool beer. Camping $20pp – worth it for the letter of
introduction for the visa application alone!
To get there, take the signposted turning from the Namibe to Tombua road
(S15035.801 E12012.271), let down your tyres and allow about an hour.
You’ll need to prebook with Rico +244 923 494 992.
Namibe
to Lobito (14 hours driving)
Roads. Good tar with some potholes 40kms after
the turning north from the EN280. Tar ends after 80kms and the road slowly
deteriorates until disappearing at the Rio Chicondua just south of Lucira,
where broken bridges and riverbed driving amuse the many locals. There
is a fork in the road as you approach Lucira - complete with a ‘Bem Vindos
a Lucira ‘ sign - choose left for the town and right to continue north
on the EN100. Here the road dissipates into many tracks diverging and
converging as they move straight up the mountain. Lucira to Dombe Grande
is a notorious road but is also great fun. With one of us walking ahead
for most of the day, we managed these unmade mountain passes of diff bashing
rocks in one day. After Dombe Grande, there is good compacted dirt until
the junction with Baja Farta, 15kms south of Benguela, where good tar
starts again. The Benguela to Lobito road is just being finished and will
be a dual carriageway very soon.
Towns and accommodation. Lucira is a busy little
fishing town that we accidentally visited. The police on the sea front
are very helpful and in hindsight it could have been a good place to bushcamp
on the beach (we bushcamped on the road at the top of the next hill).
There are too many people to bushcamp near Bentiaba or just south of Lucira
(on the Rio Chicondua riverbed) but the rest of the road is quite deserted.
It’s fairly open and exposed south of Lucira, although between Bentiaba
and Rio Chicondua there are some tracks leading to the coast which look
like they have bush camping potential. North of Lucira you’ll be camped
right next to the mountain road but are unlikely to be bothered - the
only people we saw all day were some cow-herders.
For our second night, we bushcamped in an old quarry just south of Dombe
Grande (S13o05.500 E13 o02.280) which we christened Nappy Quarry after
the disposable nappy that kept us company. At Baja Farta, just south of
Benguela, Praia Azul is posh but good for a swim and a rest after bush
camping - try the beaches further along this road for bush camping opportunities.
Benguela also had lots of pensaos.
Benguela is the smaller, older of the two towns and scrappy in places.
There is a very civilised café (Porto Avioes) on the seafront and, being
a Sunday, the entire town was walking around or sitting in their cars
or playing football on the beach. Lobito is bigger and busier, with a
port and industrial area in the southern part of town. If you want to
see a completely different side of town, veer left at Shoprite (instead
of right for the road north) go over the railway and head out onto the
peninsular. Grand houses, beach restaurants and hundreds of drunk people
having a party (on a Sunday at least).
Lobito to Luanda (7 hours driving plus stationary traffic
jam time)
Roads. Turn right before Shoprite and head up
onto the cliffs and the Huambo road. The badly potholed tar gradually
improved until we reached Porto Amboim, thereafter it was good until Luanda.
Luanda is pretty crazy, especially the traffic which the worst I have
found in Southern Africa at least. Coming from the south, it took us two
hours (midday on a Tuesday) to drive the last 10kms. There are roadworks
on the outskirts and very few roadsigns so we got lost and joined a traffic
jam through the sewage and rivers of Barrio Golfe near the airport. Leaving
the city on a Saturday morning at 10am, it took one hour to Cacuaco, where
things became a little more normal.
Towns and Accommodation. There are many service
roads running along this nearly completed stretch of road; we camped well
away from the trunk road and were undisturbed. In Porto Amboim, we camped
on the beach in front of one of the restaurants, which was very expensive
to eat in but they provided fresh water, toilets and a security guard
(which I am sure we didn’t need). There are villages just before and after
Quicama national park, so try to bush camp well before if you need to.
A small toll is payable at the north side of the bridge over the Kwanza
River.
Kalandula
Falls detour (add a couple of hours)
A good detour from the road just north of Sumbe is to the impressive Kalandula
Falls. Take the road towards Gabela – the turn-off is not signed from
the south but is a well-used fork with advertising billboards (S11007.946,
E13056.175) – and follow it for about 26km until you see the falls on
your left. Just after you’ve seen them there is a signed car-park manned
by a family who look after the site in return for donation.
Mirador
do Lua (S10059.281 E14005.745) is 55kms south of Luanda, signposted
just off the road. Strange rock formations overhanging the ocean and a
prostitute with client in a car!
Luanda.
We stayed at the Yacht Club (S05033.740, E12010.680) out on the Ilha,
which is very popular with overlanders. The staff and bosses ask for no
money but have very little patience with poor Portuguese when they are
busy. Try and use the showers in the swimming pool as the staff ones are
grotty.
There is a good internet place on Ave Missau, and café’s, bars, restaurants,
bakeries and supermarkets are littered around the city. There are hundreds
of banks and the fuels stations are going up two a week but the lack of
refineries in the country does nothing to help the massive queues at the
pumps.
Luanda
to N’Zeto (7 hours – on a weekend and on a dry road)
Roads. Good tar to Caxito. From here the road
north (turning in the town – not before as our map says) is annoying disintegrated
tar all the way to N’Zeto. Instead, take the road via Barra do Dande,
which is brand new until Caranca.
Towns and Accommodation. Caxito is a busy crossroads
with a good supermarket and places to stay. No other towns worth mentioning
until N’Zeto. N’Zeto is bombed out and neglected, apart from the Catholic
Mission and the sparkling new MPLA office. There is a fuel station and
a few small shops. We beach camped 15kms south of N’Zeto (turning at S07013.984
E12052.528), which is beautiful and peaceful with a nice fishing family
that live in a tent on the cliff. In N’Zeto we stayed over Christmas at
the Catholic Mission where the priests, Emile and Paul, were more than
hospitable.
N’Zeto
to the border (7 hours)
Roads. The road to Tomboco is good graded dirt.
This was done quite recently so the horror stories from older blogs no
longer apply to this stretch. From Tomboco to the border the road becomes
quite steep and rough – 4x4 necessary! In the mud this would be very slow
and slippery. There is an airstrip and then 6km of tar just before you
reach the border at Noqui.
Bushcamping. There are plenty of friendly (if
begging) villages along the way and we camped on the side of the road
quite easily. There are public water taps in Tomboco.
Food,
water and beer
Food is expensive in Angola, supermarkets in particular. There is less
agriculture and so fewer people selling fresh produce in the street, the
situation worsens the further north you travel. Bizarrely, there is a
real shortage of eggs and they were near impossible to find north of Luanda.
Portuguese rolls are easier to find.We found roadside stalls selling veg
in Giraul on the road from Lubango to Namibe, just west of the turn-off
north to Benguela.Fresh water is available in municipal areas but not
so fresh from boreholes in smaller places. Bottled water is available
but most of it is imported from Portugal. Cuca in the north and N’Gola
in the south are good beers but the Portuguese imports are priced similarly.
We paid 60kw in local places and up to 150kw in tourist/expat places!
Money and fuel
You cannot buy Angolan Kwanzas outside of the country but in Angola the
Casa do Cambios and banks require no paperwork or ask any questions at
all – quite a change after Namibia. The Casa do Cambios offer better rates
than the bank. We found them in Lubango (high street), Namibe (centre)
and Luanda (behind the big pink National Bank building on the front).
USD got the best rate and you can also get a good rate for Namibian dollars
in the south of the country. Many fancy places in Luanda take USD. The
ATMs in Angola do not take foreign cards as yet.
Fuel
is cheap at 29kw (20p) a litre at the stations, but the poor refinery
facilities in the country mean that there are many stations that are dry
and two-hour queues at stations that have fuel. Many Luandans get up at
4am to fill up before work but weekends seemed to be quieter. All stations
are owned by the national company – Sonagol – and they are building stations
everywhere, some with nice cafes. Apparently they have goal to have stations
every 150km.
Fuel
stations we saw: Lubango, Namibe, Tombua, Benguela, Lobito, Sumbe, 52km
north of Sumbe (pump in a container!), Porto Amboim, between Cacuaco and
Caxito, Caxito, Nzeto, Tomboco.
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