Turning west, we headed to the coast to Bengo where 153 wrecks of Portuguese ship lie rusting away on the beach. Its an incredible sight and a grim reminder of the absolute panic in 1975 when the Portugese fled Angola. In testimony to the Angolan people though, the wrecks remained largly untouched for thirty years and only recently have the locals started dismantling the hulking heaps of metal as the Chinese have created a market for scrap metal. Luckily we had all had our tetanus shots as the kids were clambering all over the ships. After Bengo we headed into Luanda where Martin was amazing at keeping the whole convoy intact through the bedlam traffic of a major African city. The people are very friendly and there was no aggression on the roads whatsoever making it much easier to stay together. Of course the BRA fastened high on a roofrack acted as a beacon for those following and was really helpful in keeping the convoy together. After a stint at the shops where some of us looked like we were stocking up for the entire trip, we made our way to Trentyre, a tyre business operated by a South African and a real help, as accomodation in Luanda is difficult to find and expensive to book. We were welcomed with open arms by Paul from Trentyre and invited to make use of his bathroom and braai facilities. The ladies and many of the gents certainly enjoyed a decent shower that evening. I spoke too soon about the mechanicals, right outside the gates of Trentyre, one of the trailers lost a wheel, the wheel bearing cap had got lost and the bearings had collapsed. Luckily Heinie had a spare wheel bearing kit with him and we were able to repair it with a temporary cap made out of a tomato paste tin until a spare cap could be flown in from Windhoek.
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The next morning, with all vehicles back in good shape,we left Luanda and headed north towards Soyo and the Congo river. This stretch of road was the worst we encountered, it was more a collection of massive potholes strung together with bits of tar and when you see a string of Russian Kamaz trucks heading toward you weaving through the potholes like a crew of druken sailors, you know that these are not potholes you just drive through. Some were deep enough to come up to the bottom of the G’s door and most were big enough to take an entire G. Needless to say we proceeded with extreme caution and progress was slow. Soyo was reminicent of Camps Bay with the beach and palm trees and beautiful houses, only it was all but deserted, a strange experience indeed. With an important naval base right there at the mouth of the Congo River we didnt spend too much time sight seeing. The Congo was impressive. I read later that its mouth is 2km wide and the basin is second only to the Amazon. We dipped our feet into the water, but with the heavy oil industry right there, they were quickly blackened by the oil particles in the water and on the beach.
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The spare parts had arrived for the trailer, so we headed back to Trentyre to collect them and sleep there again. Some of us went out to a local restaurant where we enjoyed food that we didnt prepare ourselves. The kids climbed into a massive family-sized pizza with all the gusto of refugees being presented with proper food for the first time in a long time. On the 28th we drove through some of Luanda and visited the war museum in the old fort overlooking the harbour. I was struck by how orderly the traffic moved and how little gridlock there was despite it being peak morning traffic for the 2.5 million inhabitants.
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Leaving Luanda and now heading South along the coast, we saw some incredible landscapes at Quicama, where the wind and rain have carved amazing channels in the soft sand constitutes solid gorund around there. After a relatively short drive, we arrived at the Kwanza River Lodge for refreshments. It wasnt long before Martin proposed that we sleep there and there was an almost unanimous vote for the luxury of a bed over the tent mattress. With lodgings settled, we relaxed and set sail on the Cuanza river for a sunset cruise. The river is impressive, wide, fast flowin gand deep. The lodge itself is well known for fishing and the boys managed to persuade one of the locals to take them on the river in his boat to try their hand at catching something. Dinner was a catered affair made all the more tasty because we werent preparing it ourselves.
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Well rested, well fed and with clean linen and clothing, yes, the lodge had kindly washed whatever dirty clothing and bedding we gave them the day before, we continued south through Cuanza Sul and had lunch at the Cachoeira Waterfall, its incredible for a South African, coming from such a dry country as ours to see the sheer volume of water flowing through Angola, and this was during the dry season! That evening we camped on the beach. A wonderfully peaceful place, once we had all got through the sand seeing as none of us thought it appropriate to deflate our tyres, we’d been driving on tar for so long that it completely slipped our minds, instead we struggled along and dug and pulled the vehicles into position. Shortly after that the boys, some younger, and some much older took their rods for a spot of sunset fishing in the Atlantic. Interestingly, we were so far north and away from the Benguela current that the Atlantic was much warmer that we are used to on the beaches around Cape Town.
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On the 30th we left Cuanza Sul and entered Benguela Province, stopping at the scenic town of Lobito. Here we visited an open air cinema, a relic from the Portuguese time. It felt like a hybrid between an old drive-in theatre and a cinema. What continued to amaze me is how, even though the complex was clearly deserted, it was relatively untouched. That night we slept in a dry river bed at a place known as “Camp Skaapkop” the photo explains it all. By now we had left the tar behind us eventually and got ready for more dirt road travelling. A peculiar feature of the area are the bridges, designed to cross the mulitude of rivers and river beds. Clearly built by different contractors to those who built the roads, most are not at the same level as the road, with some differing by three or more metres! The bridges are also massively overbuilt for the size of river bed they cross. Another example of where petro-dollars have been wasted on infrastrucutre that is clearly not fit for purpose.
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Finally we reached Namibe, the province named after the desert that extends all the way up into Angola and the start of the trip through the Parque Nacional do Iona. Here we camped on the beach again and the boys were able to go fishing. Here we bumped into a South African tour group that came up specifically to fish. Apparently the fishing is excellent. These guys even had drones that they used to take their lines out to the right place. Needless to say, the boys were suitably impressed. So ended our second week in Angola. We were settled into the travelling and enjoying it immensely. The country is on eof contrasts and contradictions, a few days ago we were deep into tropical jungle and here we had arrived in a land of only sand. Talk turned to the infamous “DoodsAkker” 70 km of beach driving that would mean the end of your vehicle if you misread the tides or had car trouble. At high tide, the sea washes up against the steepest of dunes and there really is nowhere to hide, but that would be something to deal with tomorrow
