Angolan Sprint

I have been trying really hard to write this blog update for more than a week now.  For some strange reason sitting down and  writing this makes me feel like I’m closing another chapter of my trip.  My problem is that there aren’t that many chapters left over.  After Angola it’s only Namibia and sunny South Africa.  I’ve been having such a great time that I guess I’m trying to keep things going for as long as possible. 

It was some time before it really sunk in how lucky me and Dominik where with our Angolan visas.  With all the waiting for the embassies to open after the new year, we knew of a few groups of overlanders who gathered around us at various towns with Angolan embassies in Congo and the DRC.  In time they where all refused visas.  Morten who flew back to Europe, as we where told to do, had immense difficulties and after weeks they only offered him a 2 day transit visa.  Not nearly enough to transit across Angola.  In the end those who could went to Dolisie and where also successful, and those who couldn’t go there had to make other plans ranging from flying or shipping around Angola to taking a very notoriously difficult route through he hart of the DRC. Morten flew back from Europe and also went to Dolisie where they happily gave him a 5 day Transit Visa, and Luis who was refused entry to the Pointe Noir embassy was given his extension.  Strange how things work, and different embassies for the same country have different policies.  Only in Africa!!  But this time it was definitely to our advantage.

Our biggest problem was which route to take down to the Angolan border.  There where three main options.  The first and main road was through Brazzaville-Kingshasa, but our DRC visas where issued along the way and not in our home country.  The Kinshasa border was thus closed to us.  Yes, even with a visa we couldn’t enter at Kinshasa, they only accept visas issued form your home country.  The second was a small border crossing between Brazzaville and Dolisie..  Notoriously difficult small track that floods during the rainy season.  A group ahead of us spent nearly 5 days on that stretch and it isn’t even 200km long.  During our time in Dolisie it has been raining a lot, and the area around us was flooded, so definitely not our first option. The third was a relatively new road that went to Pointe Noir and then down through the Angolan enclave of Cabinda.  According to rumour it is all tarred until you reach the DRC border.  With all the rain around us tar sounded very good, but it would mean loosing one of our precious five days for Angola in Cabinda.  Leaving us only four days to cross mainland Angola.  Crossing Angola in 5 days is hard work, trying to do it in 4 would be quite a challenge. 

Crossing Africa has not been short of challenges, but this would be something quite unique.  We knew little about the road conditions, our maps and gps showed mostly tarmac, but have been wrong many times.  We knew even less about fuel availability, and Angola is notorious for its numerous corrupt road blocks and time consuming beaurocracy.  On a normal day we cover about 250 kilometres.  It gives you enough time to do all the necessary stops and a hour at the end of the day to find accommodation.  Most importantly it doesn’t drain your energy levels and is a distance that can easily be covered day after day.  350 Kilometres a day is quite hard work, and 500 km a day is extremely draining.  Not a distance you can do for days on end.  Crossing this fast country in a limited timespan would be a massive challenge.  Very different to our chilled out approach to the rest of Africa, but one I gladly accepted. 

To save our energy levels Dominik and I planned to have a few lazy days riding to Cabinda, and then one day to cross Cabinda. The road to Cabinda was a gorgeous new road snaking through thick forest, as we knew it was our last bit of rain forest we thoroughly enjoyed it.   I do love the rain forests. 
All would have gone to plan, but we forgot it was Sunday.  The Angolan border posts where open so we easily entered Cabinda and it was a nice lazy ride to the border to exit Cabinda for the DRC.  What we only found out at the border was the the DRC side was closed for the Sunday.  SHIT!  They wanted us to come back on the Monday, but we couldn’t.  It would result in us losing two precious days of our Angola visa.  Luckily Dominik was on good form, he managed to charm the pants off the border guard (Yes, she was female), and we came to a good agreement.  We where stamped out of Angola, but as we couldn’t enter DRC we camped the night on the border and finished the border formalities the next day. 

Again every one was super friendly and helpful at both border posts, and bribes where never mentioned.  No one even mentioned that our DRC visas where not issued form our home country.  So much different to what we expected.

We spent a couple days in DRC making our way to the Angolan border.  I must say it was easier than expected.  We did have a couple of bad stretches of road, but again we where lucky and it didn’t rain. The worst part was the first 40 km just after the border, with patches of very deep and very loose sand.  Bad enough that I fell a couple of times, but it was only minor put downs.  Rain would have made this so much more difficult.

There where no signs of any unrest or problems on the route we took, but it was very obvious people where poor and desperate.  The requests for food, money, booze, cigarettes etc. reached an all time high.  In some places it was so bad that we even cut our rest brakes short.  At least you have some peace while on the road.  It is unbelievable how thoroughly the local people are brainwashed that the white man is the cause and solution to all their problems.  What a load of bullshit!!  If only these people knew the fast amounts of money their politicians, their own people are stealing from them!!  I really wish there was a way to get the message across, but with little education, illiteracy and no reliable mass communication the masses are doomed to believe the nonsense their politicians tell them.

Dominik and I  reached the Sonoglolo-Luvo border crossing well rested and ready for our 4 day Angolan challenge.  We had to average 500km a day, and I was very curios to see how thing would go.

Day 1 :

We made sure we where at the border 7:30 am sharp.  Right when they opened.  We wanted to get the formalities done as quickly as possible, but African time was against us.  The chief on the DRC side didn't arrive at work until 09:30, and then they where difficult because our DRC visa’s where issued from Yaounde and not our home country.  We tried very hard to explain that we are leaving the country, if there where problems with our visa they shouldn’t have let us enter, but they cannot stop us form leaving.  Can they? 
An hour later we where finally stamped out.  The Angolan side wasn’t much better, no problems but just unbelievably slow.  It was mid day when we finally finished our border formalities. No way we would make our 500 km for the day, but we had to try and do as much distance as possible.  Things could have been worse though, in the last year there where a couple of groups who spend days at the same border crossing.  The longest I know of was 11 days at the beginning of 2011.

After the border we headed for the coast, a combination of good gravel and brand new tarmac.  The scenery was stunning, the police at the road blocks where friendly (slow but friendly) and we where enjoying ourselves immensely.  We made up for some lost time, and thought we might end up doing some good miles.

But at Nzeto the road deteriorated significantly, the strech between Nzeto and Caxito was known to be bad, but it was much worse than expected.  Our average speed came down to a crawl.  We also started to run out of daylight, and with no chance of reaching the next town we decided on a bush camp. All  travellers are aware of Angola's land mine problem, so we where very careful about our bush camping spot.  But we saw no signs of anything in the area and found a nice spot with some car tracks around it.  My thinking being that if someone else drove around it should be safe.  And we where fine.  Our first sunset in Angola was magical, huge red sun with stunning blue skies.
Distance for day 1 – only about 350 km.

Day 2

We where up bright and early, and ready to tackle the bad road to Caxito.  I had a great morning on the bike, one of those days where everything just works and gels.  I had a fantastic time playing on the better stretches, but the bad stretches where hard work and very tiring.  Most of the road ran through bushveld and boab forests, so the scenery was great and made up for most of the bad stretches.  I did get a huge fright though.  About half an hour form where we camped I saw some guys cutting the grass along the side of the road.  Strange that they wore army uniforms and where cutting the grass in the middle of nowhere?  When I came closer I noticed one of the guys wearing what looked like a huge big blue apron, that’s when it hit me…  It was a mine clearing operation.  The weed eaters where actually metal detectors and the blue apron was a blast suite.  Another 30 kilometres further we dove past a big mine clearing camp.  The area actually still had mines.  Way to close to our camping spot for comfort.

From Caxito we where promised good tarmac for the rest of the day.  Hoping to make up some lost time we had a quick lunch at a roadside stall and headed off for Luanda.

The traffic through Luanda is supposed to be very busy and agonisingly slow, with an average time of about 3 hours to cross Luanda.  We didn’t have that much time to waste and decided to try a short cut… and yes you guessed it…  We got hopelessly lost (thanks to listening to the locals and not our GPS’s) and lost all the time we would have gained.

At sunset that evening we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere again, and so not keen to camp again we decided to continue for the nearest big town.  It would mean breaking our rule of driving in the dark, but the town was only about an hour away and we didn’t really have much choice.  About half way to the town with Dominik driving in front we suddenly ran into a herd of cows in the middle of the road.  They just appeared out of nowhere and it looked like Dominik hit one.  I nearly had an heart attack, a big accident was the last thing we needed.  But we where so lucky.  Dominik missed the cow with millimetres and hit it with the side of the bike’s pannier, leaving a big dent in it.  Dominik, the cow and his bike where OK, but it was much to close.  What’s the use of safety rules if we don’t follow them?  Driving in the dark is definitely out now.  Again.

That night we slept in a cosy hotel in Porto Ambion.
Distance for day 2 – about 450km.

Day 3 :

Again another day up with sunrise.  On the road bright and early.  Our plan was to keep along the coast until we reach Benguela, and then head inland towards Lubango.  We where quite a bit behind on mileage and hoped to put in a big day.  Again nothing was easy, the morning we where plagued by some rain.  Not hard enough to force us to stop, but enough to be cold and miserable, and enough to bring our average speed right down to a crawl.
Strange how we drove through the tropics in the middle of the rainy season and it never rained while on the road, and now that we are pushed for time it’s raining.  Just our luck.
After Benguela the rain stopped and we started to make our way into the Angolan highlands.  And I loved it.  We where on a brand new piece of tarmac with unbelievably green bushveld as far as the eye could see.  My favourite was the never ending clear blue skies.  I have been waiting for this for months.  After the claustrophobic low dark clouds of the tropics and the non descript grey skies of London, these fast expanses of blue gave me goose bumps. Again and again.
That night we camped again, in the middle of nowhere with another stunning African sunset.  This time in a safe spot, but the rain caught up with us and it poured down. 

Distance for day 3  - about 450km

Day 4
We where up at sunrise again, cold and wet, but ready for another big days driving.  We didn’t have time to dry our stuff so everything was packed as is.  The morning drive in the highlands was unbelievably cold. It felt like we where back in the Pyrenees, but as soon as the mist cleared we where greeted with more stunning scenery.  The cold quickly forgotten.

We had one excursion planned for Angola.  The Leba pass.  We saw pictures of this pass in some of the Angolan embassies we visited, a pass with dozens of very tight hairpins stacked one on top of the other.  It looked like a joy to drive.  We where behind schedule, but decided to do the 100km detour anyway.  What a blast that was.  Reaching the top of the pass the view was breath taking, and going down the hairpins was so much fun.  I couldn’t help but whoop with joy!  Definitely a big highlight and worth the time lost.

After Leba pass we made a big blast for the border, but by the end of the day we where about 150 km short of the border.  We nearly made it, but a couple of stretches of very bad road just took to much time.  The Angolan government is busy with a very big regeneration attempt, and most of the main roads are brilliant new tarmac, but every now and then there are stretches where they are still building the road.  These where quite bad and took up a lot of our time.  In the end of the day I really didn’t mind. I have been enjoying Angola so much, the people are so friendly, the scenery so beautiful and the corrupt police officials were nowhere to be seen.  Another day in Angola was a bonus,  I just hoped we didn’t get into to much trouble for overstaying our visas by a day.  Fingers crossed.

That night we stayed in a town called Xhangongo and at sunset we where treated to an amazing lightning storm.  Far of in the distance but right where we would have camped if we pushed harder for the border.  So glad we didn’t.

Day 5:
The last 150 kilometres to the border would have been uneventful, but I had to embarrass myself.  We where driving in a town, and I just didn’t concentrate for a second.  My front wheel slipped on some mud and I put my bike down.  Not hard, but right in front of a taxi rank packed with people.  Unbelievably embarrassing, but very funny. 

Our Angolan border crossing nearly went without a hitch.  We managed to get stamped out without anyone noticing we overstayed by a day.  We where both careful to hide our entry and exit stamps for the day in Cabinda as much as possible, and amazingly it worked.  Everyone thought we where there on our fifth and last day.  Whoop whoop.

Leaving Angola we where entering a main tourist destination again… Namibia.  With this naturally comes the touts.  There where a few at the border who tried to ‘help’ us but we quickly told them we where ok.  After all this is not our first African Border crossing, and we didn't need the help.  Most left us alone but there was one guy who just wouldn’t stop.  In the end I had to be quite firm with him and politely  told him to ‘piss of’ before he left us alone.  He wasn’t happy but at least we had some peace.

Coming back to our bikes I had a flat tyre. My first one through all of Africa. It all seemed a bit strange… and Dominik also didn’t feel right about the flat. Instead of immediately fixing the flat I only inflated it and checked the pressures regularly.  More than a week later my tyre is still ok.  It does look like someone wasn’t happy and tried to sabotage my tyre…  I wonder who it was?

Leaving Angola for the Namibian side was a bit strange.  I knew the hard part of Africa was over.  No more language barrier, no more visa issues and hopefully no more corrupt police.  I couldn’t wait to get to Namibia, but part of me was sad to say goodbye to ‘dark Africa.’  I enjoyed it immensely and just didn’t want things to end.
Amazingly I made it this far with my stack of US$1 bills unused.  WHOOP WHOOP!!