Scratching the Surface

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		a		Crossing from Namibia to Angola is a big thing in overlander terms. Despite still being officially Southern Africa, Angola has a wilder reputation, somehow enhanced by the fact it is next to safe, easy Namibia. It’s where the guidebooks run out, the hire vehicles can’t come and only those going all the way along the west coast venture. For us, the border crossing was the start of the second part of our trip – a part that we thought we might not get to have when we blew our engine up just a few weeks before. It was also a goodbye to English speaking countries for a while (Angola is Portuguese-speaking and most of the countries north are French-speaking). For me, it meant learning to overtake all over again – this time on the wrong side of the car… Angola is notoriously difficult to get a tourist visa for and so, determined to use ours to the full, I had scoured other overlander websites and called a couple of tour agencies based in Angola to try and find some sightseeing opportunities. Unfortunately Angola is inexplicably expensive, the accommodation and food prices perhaps inflated by the expats and nouveau riche of the oil-soaked capital, Luanda. And so our trip had to oscillate between staying in £20 a night campsites and eating expensive meals, and camping by the side of the road whilst using up our supply of tins bought in Namibia. Our first stop was in Lubango, the main city in the south, which proved to be full of domestic tourists and good cafes. We found out later it’s had a lot of work done in the last ten months or so and it shows: it was full of walkable pavements, attractive colonial buildings and a great white Christ statue on a hill to rival Rio (well, sort of). From Lubango we headed via a beautiful switchback mountain pass to the desert coastal region where we stayed at a lodge set up for fishermen. We were keen to do some proper sand driving so that we felt prepared for North Africa but also just to have some fun in Connie instead of constantly having to drive her carefully. We unloaded her boxes at the campsite and headed off behind the lodges’ Toyota into the desert. The first section was fairly bland but we were working hard to keep our revs up at the right level to avoid getting stuck. Soon we hit the beach and stopped at a couple of shipwrecks before dropping down to the shoreline and driving hell-for-leather along the waters edge. This pretty much terrified me as I couldn’t get pictures of Connie floating off into the sea because of my shoddy driving out of my head. Afterwards Kabous, our guide from the lodge, told us that there is a narrow stretch further south that they have to drive at 120km/hour, often in the dark and crushing thousands of crabs as they go, in order not to lose their vehicles to the incoming tide. Nice. Soon we were up in the dunes and, while the cook made us an amazing chicken casserole out of seemingly nothing, we went and had some fun. Driving dunes is easier on the car than soft sand but requires nerves of steels. To go up you have to go fast, stopping just on the top so you can assess what’s on the other side before you hit it/drop down it! And heading down a steep dune side feels like free falling in the car – start dropping any way but completely straight and you’re likely to roll. Chris loved it. Driving north from the desert everything became a bit fairy-tale. Despite the fact that most of the Angolan war happened in the east there is a continuing landmine problem all over the country and long stretches of unpopulated and uncultivated land are suddenly punctuated by miniature kingdoms of cleared land. At the end of our first day of coastal driving we took a wrong turn into a massive rocky crevasse, driving ten minutes through 20m high walls before emerging to find an industrious fishing town, Lucira, replete with football pitch, police station and road markers! Surprised, we u-turned back through the crevasse and had our first proper bush camp on the top of a hill, disturbed only by cow-herders as they sped their cattle past the strange car-with-house-on-top combo. The next day was like a free day out at a 4x4 course; I swear the boulders and loose rocks were placed there to make it more fun. It took us all day to cover 90km, with one of us getting out and walking the route ahead most of the way. How we managed to escape with just a small dent in the exhaust pipe I’ll never know. After another bush-camp near Dombe-Grande, another fairy-tale town resembling a biblical Nilotic valley scene, we headed back into modern-day civilisation with a vengeance. First stop was a beautiful but expensive beach resort lined with villas and cafes (Praia Azul). We took our soap and approximated a wash in the ocean before checking out breakfast options (£25 each for a buffet – don’t think so) and heading into the nearest town, Benguela, for a coffee and sandwich. Being a Sunday the youth were out in force and it felt like Brazil: music, football and tiny, tiny mini-skirts. The next town up, Lobito, seemed to be just an industrial port surrounded by slums until we took a wrong turn and found ourselves on a peninsular lined with grand houses and topped by a beach resort stuffed with party people. Presumably many of these were shipped in from the afore-mentioned slums but all looked as glamorous as film stars. We would have loved to stay but that next bush camp was calling (when will someone open some affordable accommodation in Angola??). Our final sightseeing mission was to detour off the main road to visit some waterfalls. The waterfalls were great but manned by a family who appeared to live in the car park, sleeping and eating on the dirt floor under the trees. They maintained the site in return for donations (in our case some biscuits and about £5) and, for us, seemed to sum up the surrealness of the rich/poor divide in Angola. Then finally to Luanda: a heaving mass of terrible, terrible traffic surrounded by terrible, terrible slums. Oh, and a lovely sandy peninsular stuffed with overpriced restaurants and cool bars. We stayed a couple of days to sort some stuff out – Connie even got a wash and grease – and bumped into two German overlanders also heading north. We had been apprehensive about tackling the bad roads of the DRC and the Congo on our own so were really pleased when they felt the same way and wanted to convoy. Tired of the city we headed north to spend Christmas in Nzeto, a small seaside town, and wait for them to join us. Christmas in Nzeto was quiet and uneventful but very interesting. We bush camped on the beach near a fishing family who eyed us warily until I made them pancakes and introduced ourselves. After a couple of days our fresh water was running low so we headed into town and stayed at the Catholic mission. The Nzeto parish is manned by two (very different) priests, Emile from Poland and Paulito from Congo, and they each take it in turns to stay in town or visit outlying villages. Despite being very busy they not only let us camp in their grounds but also invited us in for meals and videos! We couldn’t have asked for a better place to wait for our new German friends and spent the time reflecting on how, in just three weeks, we had moved from dunes, to dry river beds, to lush hills and waterfalls, to the slums of Luanda and, finally, to the edge of the Congo basin. Photos Lubango statue Flamingo dog Dunes driving Ship wreak Stuck! Big plant Lucira road Family living in road Lush! Luanda Beach Camp Wedding in Lobito Father Emil
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