As I sit down to recount our road trip through the captivating landscapes of Angola, I am compelled to reflect on recent global events. The world seems to be in a state of upheaval, with even the typically reserved English monarchy feeling obliged to comment on the situation in the Middle East.
Yet here I am writing about Angola, where life continues at its own pace, seemingly untouched by the chaos that surrounds it elsewhere. Our journey took us from the bustling city of Luanda, through the lush tropical rainforests of the north, to the more austere, drier, and weathered countryside of the Namib in the south.
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Outside, as I write, the icy weather intensifies with hurricane winds thumping manically at our sliding doors, shouting, “Let me in!” as the chill rounds the corner and the tail end crashes against a neighbour’s boundary wall. The only sensible thing to do is to go for a walk.
Amidst the deluge of bad news, commentaries, and opinions, we find solace in our journey in the Honey Badger, our rugged and reliable off-road vehicle that has been our faithful companion on this adventure.
The Honey Badger has been instrumental in navigating the diverse terrain of Angola, from smooth highways to rough, unpaved, potholed roads with overgrown borders redefining the already narrow lanes.
With the poorer agricultural landscape, villages become more remote and households are humbler.
Tall, dry, golden grasses line the road, an indication that this area’s arable land is more conducive to grain farming and animal husbandry.
Along river embankments, hardier, smaller trees congregate, their roots fighting for water, and in kitchen gardens, there are pawpaws, mangoes, bananas and citrus trees all planted in a bygone age, yet they still bear fabulously organic fruit. Sometimes the offerings don’t look so good, pockmarked, or discoloured, but oh so sweet and taste like the real thing, and are sold along the road—a welcome sight.
Regardless of the community’s economic status, the unwavering national pride of Angolans consistently surprises me. This pride is symbolised by the red and black flag emblazoned with a black star (or hammer and sickle), a salute to their identity and a testament to their resilience. Their ability to maintain this pride and resilience in the face of adversity is truly inspiring and will leave you in awe.
By 10:45, we are in the district of Pambangala, then straight onto Alto Uama, a mountainous region, the tarred road leads straight ahead.
Londuimbali district echoes with remoteness, and the desolate village of Candjimbe is quiet at this time of day, with the few dozen citizens gathered around their stalls along the road. Even the small Pharmacia is still closed for business.
On the outskirts of Ussoke, a Michael Jackson lookalike, decked out in gloves and a cape, celebrates creativity, hope, and fun, trying his luck at hitching a ride. He’ll make it into my photo album but not into the truck. I love his chutzpah and individuality in this, the remotest of places.
We fly through Balombo and past Chingongo, the only sign of anything happening is a veld fire raging along the side of the road. Could it be natural? I ask Butch. He thinks not. Natural bushfires are localised and shouldn’t spread as rapidly as this one, he says as he readjusts his GPS.
We fall for a bushel of pineapples, again. This time, we know exactly what we’re in for, and a few greener ones will suit our purposes.
The youngster pushing his foot scooter smiles, and he reminds me of 13-year-old Malawian William Kamkwamba, who built a windmill to save his village from famine, as depicted in the movie “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind.”
Einstein would be proud. “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks a real advance in science”. Albert Einstein, Leopold Infeld (1966). “Evolution of Physics”.
In a world where we are all connected by the internet and the concept of a “global village,” innovation is constantly being driven by creative imaginations.
Monte Belo is a long stretch of road with striking market stalls. The village itself is unimpressive, with only a few brown mud-brick cottages dotted around.
The photographs I share are a poignant reminder of the devastation a war creates, not only on the landscape but also on the people who experience the consequences daily.
While the wealthy become richer, the struggles of the poor are exacerbated by climate change, infrastructure destruction, and a lack of education, resources, and opportunities. Nowhere is this more evident than here, where we are travelling on a potholed, undermaintained road.
We could tick Bocoio, Passe, and Biopio off our list of places we’d pass through, and at 17:18, a golden sun hanging in a pool of liquid saffron welcomed us back to Lobito, where we’d be staying for a few days.
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Bewitching Lobito
We were in no hurry to get down to the seashore where we would take up our usual spot, but rather, we enjoyed the outskirts of town, called a barrio, which is a far cry from the bubble we would inhabit for the next few days.
The golden hour in the barrios is a frenzied time of day when working families return home via shops, markets, and stalls to do last-minute shopping or to catch up with friends.
A festive mood takes over once the shopping is complete. Everywhere, cooking fires are lit, and soon the air is filled with the aroma of food —glorious food roasting on small grills: kebabs, chicken pieces, fresh fish, and goat meat.
Saucepans are filled with aromatic spices and sauces that sizzle, splutter, and bubble with hot, spicy Portuguese-inspired traditional stews being prepared and later sold to hungry families.
- Calulu de peixe is a popular dish made with dried fish, okra, eggplant, and palm oil, and is often served with funge, a type of cassava puree. Calulu de peixe is a tasty and nutritious dish and reflects the rich culinary culture of Angola.
- Muamba de galinhais is a chicken stew made with palm oil, garlic, onion, and okra. This dish is rich in flavour and is often served with rice or funghi. Muamba de galinha is a comfort food that locals love.
- Peixe seco given its coastal location, Lobito is known for its fresh seafood. The seafood restaurants and stalls at the port offer a diverse selection of seafood products, including Octopus, crabs, crayfish, prawns and a variety of fish caught daily and served fresh, ensuring their quality and taste.
- Carne de cabra - Goat meat is also stewed in a flavourful gravy with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and okra.
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A few minutes before a blood red sun dips behind the horizon, we arrive at Alpha Bar, where we take up our usual spot on the beach.
The stringed lights have just been switched on at the restaurant where we’ll join new friends, three adventure bikepackers cycling the coast of Angola, for dinner.
Before the intrepid bikepackers head off, I am encouraged to go for a spin to get a feel of the bike loaded with all their earthly belongings. It takes a few minutes, and then I’m off boldly cycling up and down our street.
Imagine it’s just you and your partner, a few possessions, two surfboards, and the open road. These two have travelled the world on their bikes, having met a decade ago on the Galapagos Islands.
They call Switzerland home, but they stress vehemently that the call to cycle new roads, surf new waves and set up their tent on an undiscovered beach is overwhelming. Well we'll just go it alone once again. Just the two of us.
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José, the owner of Edificio Transiberia, has agreed to carry out a thorough inspection of our rims and tyres, ensuring that the slow-leaking valve is either sealed or replaced, so they are ready to go for another few thousand kilometres, or at least get us back to Johannesburg.
While my beloved is busy, I take to the streets on my bike; the lure of old architecture draws me.
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I am fascinated by Portuguese architecture, with its rich history and cultural legacy, and in Lobito, there is a treasure trove of architectural gems. From the iconic azulejos, which we saw in Luanda, to the grandiose Manueline style, Portuguese architecture is renowned for its beauty and uniqueness.
Azulejos: These are ceramic tiles that are a hallmark of Portuguese architecture. Originating from Arabic influence, azulejos are often painted in blue and white and used to decorate both the interiors and exteriors of buildings. They can depict various scenes, from historical events to religious motifs.
Rococó (Rococo): This style emerged in the early 18th century and is characterised by ornate detailing, lightness, and elegance. It often includes asymmetrical designs and pastel colours.
Arco (Arch): A curved structure that spans an opening and is typically used to support weight above it.
Abóbada (Vault): An arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof.
Pináculo (Pinnacle): A small, pointed turret-like structure on top of a building.
Cúpula (Dome): A rounded vault forming the roof of a building or structure, typically with a circular base.
Torre (Tower): A tall structure, either freestanding or part of a building, used for various purposes such as defence, habitation, or as a bell tower (torre sineira).
Fachada (Facade): The face of a building, especially the side that looks onto a street or open space.
Janela (Window): An opening in the wall or roof of a building that allows light and air to enter.
Estuque (Stucco): A material made of aggregates, a binder, and water, applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. Used for coating walls and ceilings.
Calçada Portuguesa (Portuguese Pavement): A traditional style of pavement used for many pedestrian areas in Portugal, characterised by its black and white patterns.
The process of repairing or renovating a building to preserve its historical and architectural integrity has begun in Lobito, with a few administrative and commercial buildings currently being renovated. I also discovered many modern homes in our neighbourhood. A pleasant sight.
Some of the interesting buildings include the
Universal Building (1957-1961) and Francisco Castro.
Art Deco cinema Teatro Emperium – Eric Lafforgue
Pink Colonial building
Correios Building – Art Deco
The Church of São Pedro was built in 1956.
Lobito Lighthouse
Tamariz Restaurant and Pastelaria
California building
Lobito Ethnography Museum
I returned to many of my favourite buildings on numerous occasions—every one a restorer’s dream.
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During one of my bike rides, I lost my footing. I was attempting to stop, put my leg out, but my foot slipped, and in slow motion, I tumbled off my bike onto the pavement. This one is not beautifully tiled, but rather an uneven, filthy bitumen sidewalk. Lying on the pavement, my face is within spitting distance of something indistinguishable and foul-smelling.
A group of children on the beach had witnessed the shenanigans and found the whole escapade hilarious, as one does. I rolled over like a large, beached elephant seal, surveyed the damage, which was not too bad, just a bad scrape.
I hauled myself up as the little pack, now sympathetic to the old Mzungu, surrounded me to gawk at my oozing leg and then, their squeals of mirth subdued, offered to assist me to my feet.
Mustering all my pride, I straightened my front wheel, alighted my bike and pedalled off nonchalantly as a searing pain set in. A reminder of those agonising scrapes we endured as children. “Keep your eye on the ball” kept flashing through my thoughts.
“Nothing a salt bath, healing powders, two Myprodol and Elastoplast won’t fix.” Butch reminded me when I came limping over while he lazed in a deck chair. Indeed.
My pride has healed, but the two scars on my knee are still a vivid purple reminder of my unbecoming fall. The delicious prawn cocktails chef conjured up that evening did the trick. My Granddaughter assured me a plaster would do the trick. I listened and plastered up.
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Who can resist a Museum? Not I, especially when it’s located on my route and a stone’s throw from our campsite.
In 1966, a group of Portuguese enthusiasts for Angolan arts and culture, as well as members of the Municipality of Lobito, unanimously decided to purchase a building belonging to the Bank of Angola for the establishment of the Lobito Ethnographic Museum.
The building, located in Restinga, would become the Municipal Tourism Commission’s baby.
The commission was chaired by Engineer António Vieira da Silva and Mr. Osvaldo Leal, and supported by Architect Francisco Castro Rodrigues.
Unfortunately, the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon (whereby members of the public placed red carnation flowers in the barrels of soldiers’ guns) took place on April 25, 1974.
The coup d'état in Portugal led to significant transformations in the former African colonies, and the subsequent exodus of the Portuguese to Europe following the coup resulted in the closure of the museum from 1974 to 1976.
Fortunately, the objet d’art had been transferred and kept under the custody of the architect Francisco Castro Rodrigues, thus safeguarding the country’s cultural heritage.
On 11 November 1978, the museum reopened to the public with the return of all the artefacts. The museum has continued its activities, receiving ethnological pieces from various donors throughout the country.
Unfortunately, due to a lack of technical and financial resources, no research, improvements, or restoration work is currently being conducted. The curator on duty told me—Such a pity.
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We can always find a reason to celebrate, and on one of our date nights, we celebrated a daughter’s birthday, our good fortune, health, and the fine weather. We’d done a recce beforehand and decided we were in the mood for an authentic Portuguese dining experience.
We were able to peruse our options on display and settled for a fish Espetada, a selection of fish, prawns, and crab with vegetable chunks on a skewer. For me, it was a delectable, rich, and creamy seafood soup accompanied by crusty bread. This was a meal to be shared.
While my leg healed, I took to the streets on foot to loosen my stiff joints. This enabled me to stroll and see different sights I might not have noticed while cycling. The beach gym was an interesting find, but one I would skip.
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On a Saturday evening, while the world partied and the music thumped doof-doof-doof on the dance floor, I inserted my EarPods to quieten the pounding bass drum. Butch and I retired to read and watch a movie, when the unthinkable happened.
I was alerted to something suspicious when I heard a deliberately slow, measured, and muffled grating sound nearby.
Butch dosed off but my senses were piqued and on high alert. I realised the sound was velcro being painstakingly separated. The mosquito net covering our large window was Velcroed, and in the darkness, I knew someone was fiddling with it, attempting to open the gauze.
In a near-leopard crawl, I stealthily made my way to the spot and found, not surprisingly, a protruding hand and extended arm sweeping the table in an attempt to find something to pilfer.
I grabbed the net and ripped it open in one foul swoop. The perpetrator stared at me uncomprehendingly with glazed, bloodshot eyes. Oh no, I said I’ll have none of this and smacked the offensive, wandering hand.
Once the penny dropped, he reluctantly realised he’d been busted, removed his long arm and loped off, leaving only his footprints in the sand.
It was only in the light of day that I realised my laptop, mouse, mouse pad and a few items of laundry, strung out on a line between two trees, had been nicked.
This opened a new can of worms. To submit an insurance claim, I had to file a report with the local police. Fortunately, Alfredo, our host and owner of the Alpha Beach Bar, took over the proceedings, called the police and accompanied me to the police station, where I had to make a statement through my interpreter, the manager.
The officious police soon had the perpetrator in cuffs; he was a reoffender who was quite willing to throw his five-year-old brother and sidekick under the bus, blaming him, but was well known to the cops.
With me in attendance, the interrogations took place. Eventually, under duress and after liberal intimidation, he 'fessed up, and my laptop was retrieved (we found my mouse pad near the truck). I was so traumatised by the chicaneries in the charge office that I didn’t pursue the rest of the missing items.
Six hours later, with a scribbled note written on a torn bit of lined scrap paper, I was free to go! You might think, "case closed!" The thief was held in custody and would appear in court the following Tuesday, I was assured. I was informed that there was no way I could drop the charges.
I hot-footed it out of the charge office, into the car and sighed with relief. We often wish for retribution, but when it’s served cold in one’s presence, it’s not at all what it’s made out to be.
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Our sandy campsite was filling up with Overlanders, cyclists, and a rowdy squadron of guys on motorbikes who only stayed one night before continuing their journey, followed by a boisterous contingent of South Africans and their guide, also overlanding the west coast of Angola.
This would be the last time we spent with Dorothee and her family before they set off to meet their girls somewhere in South Africa. I must confess that a sudden sadness did overcome us.
That’s the reality of a nomadic life; one seldom experiences permanence, as people, places, time, and space ebb and flow continuously, and people we enjoy and care for are carried away by the currents we’ve created.
One morning, we woke up to find the beach deserted. The Australians had left, the quiet Dutch chap in the rooftop tent recovering from his traumatic experiences, and the laid-back German on his bike, who was cycling to Dar es Salaam to meet his Mum and girlfriend, had all vanished in the early hours. The restaurant was quiet, the beach deserted, and the only sound was the intermittent breaker rolling onto the beach. That was our cue to up sticks and move on, we decided.
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A cake box of Pasteis da Nata, two crusty loaves and coffee would see us through to Lubango Butch assured me.
The statue of the horse and flying rider symbolises freedom, emancipation, strength and resilience.
We crossed the Catumbela Bridge, a modern suspension Bridge crossing the Catumbela River, linking the cities of Benguela and Lobito.
Once a horse has turned its head, it’s nearly impossible to rein it in, and today the Honey Badger was on a gallop to Lubango. We passed through Benguela, only yielding at the road signs before we hit the road south again.
Baobabs lined the road and were dotted throughout the landscape.
It is encouraging to see that the grasses, which are prolific growers, are being used in the weaving of basketry, hats, ornaments, utensils, and mats, and sold to motorists and tourists. I will have to admire my photographs as a reminder of these beautiful artworks.
Without pausing, we rushed through the Katengue, Chongoroi, Kilengue, and Cacula villages and districts; I find it hard to pronounce the lyrical local names, which makes me all tongue-tied.
We crossed rivers, the lifeblood of these territories, where water is a very precious commodity and often has to be lugged great distances to villages and homes. The river and the embankment are still used as a gathering place where ladies socialise while doing their laundry, bathing and watching their children frolicking in the shallows to cool down in the heat of the day while their colourful strips of cloth and clothing dry to a crisp in the hot sun.
The men gather earlier at daybreak or later in the afternoon after work, where they enjoy the calm waters to rinse off their arduous labours.
Hoque is the start of the desert landscape. Plants are hardier; the succulent Candelabra tree grows here, and acacias are slower-growing, having to survive with their leaves and branches caked in a thick layer of dust.
We pulled into a Total Energies fuel station and truck stop where we nestled alongside massive trucks for the night. In our kitchen, supper is a simple affair of pasta and a sauce before we roll into bed, take up our books and drift off to sleep with the soothing sound of foreign tongues all around us.
Earlier that afternoon, I’d gone to the convenience store for a few ingredients, where I met a few of the drivers who were enjoying their dinner, accompanied by steaming mugs of strong tea, with their colleagues seated around small, round bar tables. The atmosphere was very convivial as the men discussed the conditions of the roads, border crossings, their families and their onward journeys.
The next morning when the first powerful diesel engines fired up Butch and I climbed into our truck and set off following in a long train. At the T-junction, some of us turned left towards Lubango, while many turned right to continue their journey to Luanda or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
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Butch was concerned about a slow leak in one of our rear tyres. Fortunately, there is an excellent and well-known Trentyre Goodyear shop in Lubango. The business is owned and managed by expats from Namibia, and soon Afrikaans was flowing off our tongues as we chatted in our old familiar language.
The Bica coffee shop was where I set myself up for the morning while Butch sorted out our tyres.
Lunch, we decided, would be a royal spoil as we both settled for the recommended hamburger with all the frills. I certainly knew then that I would miss the crispy, freshly made, delicious potato chips, a staple all over Angola. I tucked in with gusto.
That night, we stayed over in the picturesque village of Chibia at a very smart new lodge. The Obama Lodge did not have a campsite, but would accommodate overlanders or campers in their parking area. We were too late, as three couples (South Africans and Australians) had beaten us to it. We spent a comfortable night outside the property with a night guard overseeing us.
We were all en route to various locations. Butch set his sights on the Namakunde border post for a hassle-free reentry into Namibia.
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We’ve come full circle as we pass the rusty, monstrous relics of the bitter, fruitless South African War. This time though we are more informed, better equipped with the history, and we have met and love the kind, friendly, unassuming, industrious, desperately poor rural people of Angola who not only battled their civil war courageously, but had to suffer the onslaught of a foreign army far more capable, driven and destructive than their own. While all the foreigners pulled out their tanks, guns, missiles and helicopters, Angolans were left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.
(It is important to note that the survivors were primarily women and children - there are very few men of my generation or older, they perished in the war. The men were the soldiers, cannon fodder and the collateral damage. They always are in a war.)
“We are a feelingless people. If we could really feel the pain, it would be so great that we would stop all the suffering. If we could feel that one person every six seconds dies of starvation ... we would stop it ... If we could really feel it in the bowels, the groin, in the throat, in the breast, we would go into the streets and stop the war, stop slavery, stop the prisons, stop the killing, stop destruction.” — Julian Beck.
“To engage human energy, human skill, and human talent in the service of peace, for the alternative is unthinkable - war, destruction, and desolation; and to build a world community which will stand as a lasting monument to the millions of men and women, to such devoted and distinguished world citizens and fighters for peace as the late Dag Hammarskjold, who have given their lives that we may live in happiness and peace” — Albert Lutuli.
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