Lobito, Angola

2019-11-29: Lobito, The Restinga.

Friday, November 28

After two or three days in the mountains around Morro do Moco we are back on the Atlantic coast. We are approaching Lobito still about thirty kilometers away. The landscape has completely changed, we pass throug an arid and dusty region. The arrival on Lobite is hardly appealing, and even rather repulsive.

There is nothing attractive about the suburbs of Lobito, far from it!

 

We descend to the port to reach the center of Lobito. Our goal is the Restinga de Lobito. The Restingas are those sandy peninsulas that stretch parallel to the Angolan coast. The two best known are those of Luanda (Ilha) and that of Lobito. This is the same geological phenomenon as for the Dakhla and Nouadhibou lagoons in the northern hemisphere. In the north it is the cold sea current of the Canaries which descends towards the south which is at the origin of these geographical formations, here it is about the equally cold current of Benguela which goes up towards the north.

The Restinga of Lobito.

The city changes its face and becomes much more attractive… and richer. We go up the whole peninsula to the north along a large and wide boulevard lined with beautiful buildings and a multitude of restaurants. We stop at the end of the sand spit in a roadside parking lot, as recommended by David and Francine. They spent a night there without being disturbed.
We get there a little before 5:00 p.m. An Angolan is very surprised to see a German registration plate here. He is an expat who lives in Obersdorf in Bavaria, having also lived in Biberach (his Swabian accent betrayed him!). He is spending his vacation here and is soon coming back "home".
Christine sets off to reconnoitre the surroundings. The nearby bar is under construction, another is out of service, and a restaurant a little further down is preparing for a big reception tomorrow (maybe a wedding). We have the impression that this area at the end of the peninsula has just been serviced and that tourist establishments are just beginning to take possession of it.
We parked perpendicular to the waterfront and the little sea air struggled to find its way to our windows. It's hot in the cabin and we're running out of air.
The parking lot is relatively quiet. There are quite a few people but nothing unbearable. 

Saturday, November 29

There is no reason to hurry to get up this morning because it has been raining continuously since the middle of the night, a fine Breton rain! And the sky is uniformly gray and low. The day at the beach seems compromised, but the weather can still change. Let’s wait for the tide and the effect of the sun.
The rain stops around 8:00 a.m. and the sky gradually clears to give way to a big and beautiful sun from 9:30 a.m.
The clouds partly return when we go for a walk to the beaches a bit later. We circle the point by the large blocks of granite deposited there to protect it from marine erosion. We return by the beaches on the ocean side.
 

Walk on the dikes of the point.

 

Our place for the night.

It is hot and there is little wind. We wait for the sun to lose altitude and intensity before we finish the afternoon on the beach. We choose one of the beaches on the ocean side, we are there alone. On the lagoon side there are a few more people, it seems.

Afternoon on the beach.

This beach, or rather this succession of small beaches, could be idyllic, they are unfortunately relatively dirty and hardly maintained. But we feel that efforts are being made to remedy this condition and I bet the area will be a lot nicer in a few years.

Sunday, November 30

We will be leaving Lobito today and from now on we are going to swallow the miles. The "holidays" are over because we want to reach Johannesburg as quickly as possible (we have booked a flight back home on December 15). Which means in 7 or 8 days because we have about 3000 km of road to get there.
We pass the "Zaire - Congo" exposed in the center of a large roundabout a few hundred meters from our parking lot. It is the boat on which a group of young nationalists, including the future president Eduardo dos Santos, had embarked on November 7, 1961 to foment the revolution. We do not fail to take pictures of it. 

The "Zaire-Congo".

We take a short break at the charming little "Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Arrábida" (Church of Our Lady of Arrabida).

Our Lady of Arrabida.

There are still a few old buildings from the colonial era.

We soon leave the peninsula to cross the center of Lobito where many streets are transformed into rivers by the rains this morning.

Lobito flooded after the overnight rains.

 

Binga Waterfall, Angola

2019-11-27: Binga Waterfall. Worth the stop !

 

After leaving Cabo Ledo we drive south along the main coastal road. 55 kilometers after Porto Amboim we take the road on the left towards Gabela and one of our objectives on the way, the Binga falls. 

Road to Binga along the Keve.

The road runs along the Keve River which winds its way through its wide and green valley. We arrive at the falls in the early afternoon and stop at the kind of parking lot on the left just before the bridge. We start by having a bite to eat before venturing onto the old stone bridge that spans the falls. This bridge was destroyed during the war in 1988 and a new bridge was built a few tens of meters upstream.

Binga Falls.

Christine on the old bridge over the falls.

 

 

 

Cabo Ledo, Angola

2019-11-24/26: Miradouro da Lua and Cabo Ledo. Surfer Beach and Carpe Diem.

 

Saturday, November 23 2019

 

We leave Luanda at 10:10 am. Our goal: Cabo Ledo
Despite the traffic we leave Luanda quite quickly to head south along the coastal road that we are starting to get to know well.
Our first objective is Miradouro da Lua, about sixty kilometers away, with a fantastic viewpoint over cliffs ravaged by rain erosion. By flowing from the high cliffs in loose earth, the rainwater dug deep ravines there, presenting us with a phantasmagorical decoration of lace in a learned gradient of colors ranging from ocher to white passing through all the shades of Grey. 

Miradouro da Lua.

 

 

The spectacle is so overwhelming that I cannot resist the temptation to fly our drone there.

 

A few kilometers after the village of Cabo Ledo we take the track which in two kilometers will lead us to the famous surfers beach (Praia dos Surfistas). We get there at 4:00 p.m.

Descent to the "Praia dos Surfistas"

I go on foot to reconnoitre the bar. I come across Paolo who welcomes me. Paolo is the owner of the tourist resort "Carpe Diem". The main facilities are across the bay about two kilometers as the crow flies. Paolo is building a new complex at this beach, an ecolodge with ten terraced bungalows over the bay. He saw us coming down the trail to the beach.
I find Christine at the camper van to leave without waiting with her towards the point and the beach
We will then take a long walk along the beach to the east. It is a beach where sea turtles come to nest. We can distinguish several nests protected by a small fence. At two of them, the traces left by the turtles crawling in the sand are still very visible. It reminds us of Ras al Juneiz in Oman. 

Walks towards the rocks.

… then on the beach.

 

Turtle traces on the beach.

Sunday, November 24 2019

The program for the day is quite simple: beach! We go there a little after 10:00 a.m. Kinds of small huts have been installed on the beach to provide a little shade for swimmers. We take our places under one of them. We haven't finished spreading our blanket when a woman comes to offer us fish and lobsters. We choose two beautiful soles for 5,000 Kwanzas (€ 11.11). At 2,500 Kwanzas per kilo. They are, it seems, a kilo each. In hindsight, I feel like I've been a little screwed up. A young man offers to prepare them and grilled them for 2,000 Kwanzas (€ 4.44). Okay, but maybe we should have negotiated a bit, because it seems to us (a posteriori) a bit expensive for the country too!
We spend the day sunbathing. I put my T-Shirt back on after two hours, hoping it's not too late for the sunburns! 

Praia dos Surfistas in Cabo Ledo.

It doesn't look like it this season, but this beach is a global surfing hotspot. During the southern winter the waves, not very high, can reach up to a kilometer in length, giving surfers some of the longest rides across the bay in the world.
Around 4:00 p.m. a young man appears who is gossiping something to us in Portuguese. As we don't understand a thing, he disappears only to return a quarter of an hour later with another man who speaks no more foreign languages ​​than he does. A bather passing by will serve as an interpreter. In fact the huts are chargeable and we are asked for 2,000 Kwanzas for the day. Our interpreter happens to speak German very well. He studied law in Germany and practiced there for 30 years as a lawyer. He takes our side when we protest the procedure. There is no indication that the service is chargeable and it is not correct to wait until the end of the day to notify us. The lawyer, Victor, confirms to us that he does not like these two very much who are not very honest. Others are much nicer and more correct. We have nothing against paying for the service, it's the method that annoys us. So we negotiate the price downwards, to 1000 Kwanzas.
 

Aerial view of the beach looking north.

Aerial view of the beach looking south.

 

 

Gandalf in the parking lot.

We intend to spend the evening and night at the "Carpe Diem" lodge to take advantage of the showers and facilities.
The guard directs us to the parking lot at the entrance to the complex. There are only two or three cars left but it was obviously a lot of people here today, we passed half a dozen SUVs hitting the track when we got there.
The reception is empty but we find, without looking for them, the toilets and the showers and this is where we start, first we have to get rid of the salt and the sweat.
In the evening Christine goes for a walk on the beach with the flashlight and inspects the site. On her return we decide to go have a beer at the restaurant bar.
We find Paolo there who welcomes us with open arms. He introduces us to Daniel, his project manager, a Portuguese man who should be in his fifties.
Paolo tells us that it is in the tradition of the house to offer soup and beer to overlanders. We are on one of those somewhat mythical sites which are almost obligatory drop points for overlanders and where the welcome is more than warm.

At the Carpe Diem bar: Daniel, Thierry, Christine and Paolo.

 

Paolo takes leave, we stay with Daniel and a new arrival, Dio. Dio is a Portuguese-Angolan who has lived for many years in Windhoek, Namibia. He is a jovial and very likeable character.

Dio and Christine.

 

Monday, November 25, 2019

 

Gandalf in the Carpe Diem parking lot in Cabo Ledo.

Thierry at Carpe Diem.

Daniel had asked us to come at 9:00 am for breakfast before going to visit the ecolodge. He doesn't appear until 11:00 a.m. We join the ecolodge aboard his Mitsubishi 4x4. Dio accompanies us. We go up first to the crest of the point that separates the two bays. From up there the panorama is breathtaking on both sides. There is at the end of the second bay a very pretty little beach where turtles come, it seems, regularly to nest. We can indeed distinguish one or two swimming offshore in the bay.

From the ridge between the two bays.

A small, idyllic beach.

 We go back down to the restaurant under construction and the bungalows which are ready. The lodge will open as soon as the restaurant is finished in a few months.

The boat on display at the site has a story, it is the boat that John F. Kennedy used to go fishing during his visits to the country. 

Thierry and J.F. Kennedy's boat.

The bungalows are superbly located on the terrace above the Surfers Beach and in a particularly majestic green setting in this season when the flamboyant trees are in bloom. 

The bungalows of the ecolodge

 

 We return to Carpe Diem around 1:00 p.m. We say goodbye to our friends, because we plan to hit the road again this afternoon. At least that's Christine's wish. For my part I would prefer to stay one more night because I do not feel in very good shape, headache, need for sleep, sore throat and stomach a little smeared. I suspect sunstroke! Christine lets herself be convinced, so we will stay and take a nap in the motorhome to regain our strength.
We will then take a seat at the restaurant where we will order a beautiful platter of fish and seafood (lobsters, shrimp, squid) for two accompanied by a Cuca (a light local beer). It’s excellent and filling.
 

 

We then join Dio and Daniel on the terrace at the bar. We are barely installed that two beers arrive, offered by Daniel once again.
We are going to get to know our two friends a little better. Dio does not have a biological child but several children of two successive companions whom they consider to be his own. It is a bird that loves its freedom. This is the reason why his hostel in Windhoek remains modest in size. He just wants to have enough to live on and has no ambition to expand. He organizes one or two safaris per month at the most. He wants to do them himself to be with his clients. That is more than enough for him. Dio is clearly a bon vivant.
Daniel is a "Projects Manager" That is to say that he earns his living by leading projects, mainly in Angola but also in Portugal in the past. Its current project is the “Carpe Diem” and its Ecolodge. He explains to us that he has also managed several career projects in the south of the country as well as that of a famous restaurant in Ilha de Luanda among others.

Daniel visits our motorhome.