Muito obrigado, Angola

[Das Alpha Tier]

:laughing4:

 

[Noneking]

Ek lees saam!

 

[Lou1]

:ricky: :thumleft:

 

[OOOOMS]

Sub.

Wanneer het julle die trip gedoen?

 

[Das Alpha Tier]

Last week

 

[Damaraland]

Day 1

Here's the tracks for Day 1

We finished our packing and headed off to the Namibian border post at Ruacana.  They demanded Heiko unpack all his luggage, which was fun in the midday sun.  I don't know what they were expecting to find, but they didn't find it and so we could pass over to the Angolan side.  Must say the staff were a lot friendlier that side, despite the language barrier.  When the formalities were done we tried to exchange some money, but they wouldn't so we hit the road to Chitado.

Now this was my first time that I was riding with mousses, and that combined with the weight of the fuel and water made it feel that I was riding on jelly, even on the relatively OK route.  I also did another stupid thing and that is overload my backpack.  For reference, you don't really want more than 3 or 4KG's in there.  Here you can see how bulky it was - needless to say we optimised our packing a lot over the next couple of days:

We made pretty good time and rocked into Chitado at about 13:30.  We headed for the first N'Gola sign we could find and had our first beer of the trip.  Was a really neat little bar / restaurant so we opened some of our biltong and had lunch also.  The lady running the place is actually from Rehoboth in Namibia.  Next time we do this route we'll actually push to sleep in Chitado the first night (as opposed to Ruacana).  Here's our first sip of the heavenly nectar that is N'Gola:

The "main" road from Chitado exits North, and this is one most often followed by travellers / tourists.  We instead wanted to head south to the Kunene and see how far we could follow it west.  Big reason for that is that we didn't see any roads on Tracks4Africa, but we did see what looked like nice tweespoor and animal tracks that we wanted to try and follow.  Initially this was right what we expected:

We headed South following the Collongawa river and ended up at the Kunene's edge roughly parallel to Swartbooisdrift.

From here we turned west and tracked the Kunene for about 10km, really lekker riding under the Makalani palms.  We rocked up to a old farmouse and asked for directions best we could, specifically if we could reach Monte Negro from there.  They indicated the main tourist route to us but we tried to explain to them that we wanted to stick to the river (No strada, no strada, Rio, Rio) in our pidgin Portuguese.  They explained a route to us, which turned out to be a very rocky one with very steep climbs and drops.  Here's me almost flipping the bike due to the weight on the back:

Another screengrab of the track:

We obviously didn't understand the direction properly because we ended up at a minefield, with a locked gate.  Either that or we didn't make a good first impression.

We had a quick discussion and decided that whilst it's probably safe to drive through, there's no need to take silly risks on the first day.  So we turned around and followed the same route back to the farmhouse.  When we got back the man of the house also came out and we tried to explain to them the mines.  They indicated that no we mustn't go through (boom with hands thrown in the air) and they also got it accross that it is impossible to reach Monte Negro by driving along the river.  Instead he explained another route.  When we tried to clarify by drawing in the sand he went and got pen and paper and drew this for us - who needs Tracks4Africa anyways.

This route was basically 12 kilometers out and 30 km down a river and then 12km down again, which basically takes you around the minefield and down to the river.  From there he reckoned one could follow the river to Monte Negro.  One of his workers were to guide us out of the farm the first 12km.  Before we left they gave us two ice-cold beers to take with for the road.  This would be our first encounter with the amazing Angolan generosity.  Anyways, this old gentleman did a fantastic job of getting us out of the farm:

Me looking very tired from chasing an old guy on a 150cc down the Angolan bush:

We shared our two beers with him and carried on down the river.  Riding was also becoming somewhat tricky because you couldnt really see the holes in the ground due to the shadows.  It was getting late and I was getting poked so we didn't take any pictures but I've got some shitty screengrabs from my GoPro:

So instead of chasing some random point on a GPS we decided to camp in the first riverbed we could find.  We found one in short order and built camp.  Dinner was a tin of Bully Beef, tin of spaghetti and a tin of beans.  Desert was a nice warm glass of whiskey.  We built a fire but neither of us lasted long that night, I think we were both passed out at about 8 that night.  Apologies in advance, but this really is the best picture I have of our camp.  Ladies, close your eyes  :imaposer:

Tomorrow we would carry on, perhaps even meet MetalJockey's arm wrestling buddy :thumleft:

 

[Xpat]

Bueno!  :thumleft:

Would you please post GPS tracks once you are done? Ta

 

[TVB]

Can't wait for the rest!  :thumleft:

 

[Damaraland]

Bueno!  :thumleft:

Would you please post GPS tracks once you are done? Ta

Here you go https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yotgdqhzsfyhqw/Angola%20Tracks.gpx?dl=0

Will leave it up for a while in case someone else is interested.

 

[OOOOMS]

Last week

Musta just missed you as we were there 2 weeks before you  :thumleft:
Same route

 

[Ian in Great Brak River]

Cool bananas again.

:thumleft:

 

[Xpat]

Bueno!  :thumleft:

Would you please post GPS tracks once you are done? Ta

Here you go https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yotgdqhzsfyhqw/Angola%20Tracks.gpx?dl=0

Will leave it up for a while in case someone else is interested.

Thank you!  :thumleft:

 

[McSack]

follering  :bar:

 

[Fransw]

Last week

Musta just missed you as we were there 2 weeks before you  :thumleft:
Same route

Very nice! O0

What river is that ?

 

[Oom Foe-rie]

:sip: Epic ride ............. :thumleft:

 

[Das Alpha Tier]

Last week

Musta just missed you as we were there 2 weeks before you  :thumleft:
Same route

Very nice! O0

What river is that ?
[/Quote

It’s the kunene. Just before foz do kunene you can go down to river

 

[OOOOMS]

Last week

Musta just missed you as we were there 2 weeks before you  :thumleft:
Same route

Very nice! O0

What river is that ?

Kunene on the Angolan side  :thumleft:

 

[Damaraland]

Day 2

The first day saw us making the right call to stop, as it was getting dark and we were getting tired.  We had a great nights rest in our riverbed camp and our first morning in Angola saw us getting up bright and early.  Heiko kicked started our fire and made coffee, which was good because it was quite nippy.

Once we broke camp we started riding, and boy did it feel good.  The riding was still the same rocky riverbed terrain as yesterday, but everything feels much better in the fresh light of day.  There was about 10km's worth of rocky terrain to go:

After that it opened up into nice single track and we could open the bikes up a bit more:

We hit the Cunene again at about 10:30 that morning and carried on westward:

Had a epic moment with some of the locals, we were coming round this corner and there was this Himba coming from the front on a little bike, we heard them before we saw them because the music was pumping.  So we stopped them and asked them "Monte Negro, Monte Negro" and this dude takes out a remote and turns the volume down.  So this guy had a proper sound system built into his bike with a remote and all.  A Himba, with a bike, with a system, with a remote control to control it all.  Anyhow they motioned that we could get to Monte Negro by following the river, on the way we stopped for a quick breakfast consisting of water and biltong:

The road to Monte Negro was nice, nothing spectacular just lekker riding in between the palms and little homesteads.  Think it was about 30km or riding next to the river before we hit Monte Negro.  So when we get there the police is OK, they're not overly friendly but also not unfriendly.  We didn't know at that stage that everywhere you go in these village you have to basically register, that is enter your details in a book.  So at that point we're thinking they're just messing us around.  They didn't speak English and weren't talking to us either, so we're just sitting in this circle with the police.  That's when I remembered that Heiko had MetalJockey's Angola report on his phone, and fuck me if this wasn't the exact same strongman cop:

So we showed him the pic above and then it was all over, ice broken, they just wanted to see more pictures.  There was a bit of poignant moment as well when they told us that some of the people on the picture have since passed away.  Anyhoo - conversation quickly turned to our favourite topic - Cerveja and where to find to it.  P.S.  If any of you pass though Monte Negro, please print and frame the arm-wrestling pic - we promised the cop that we will make a plan and it's a promise I intend to keep - somehow.

So off we went with the police to the local watering hole and had about 3 or four beers there.  Here's us with our new friends:

By that time it was around 14:00 and we knew we still had a very tough piece of overlanding left - the one MetalJockey referred to as the landmine road.  That afternoon's riding to Iona was some of the toughest riding I've ever done.  Never ever in my life have I seen so much rocks, 60km's of rock riding.  The bikes made the terrain relatively rideable, but it was hard work because it was impossible to get any rhythm, 1st, 2nd, 3d and repeat.  No open stretches where you can just relax and chill on the bike.  Even when we hit the main road things didn't improve a lot.  We stopped, had a quick snack and assessed the situation.  We were both tired, sun was in our eyes but we decided to push on to Iona and camp there somewhere.  Also, there might be beer.

So we hit Iona and stop by two girls sitting by a building and ask for Cerveja.  The point us down the road and say loja (which means shop, but we thought it meant lodge.  Bloody hell.).  We roll up to the shop, see it's no lodge but see the place is kitted with a freezer and a TV.  Wasn't to be though, no beer, at least he had cold water, I was proper poked by then:

What really struck me is that Angola does not have this drinking culture that Namibia has.  Anyways, so we're in Iona by the shop and the Commandant rocks up, older fellow, very nice.  So we explain to him and show him how we want to ride to Foz do Cunene the next day, where we're from.  What also worked very nice in these situations was the map with our route that we stuck to the bike:

They always  ask Afrique du Sud?  And they always seem happy when we answer Namibia.  We asked the Commandant if we can pitch our tents by the shop and he was happy with it, so we did just that.  We heated up some tin food, had a lot of water and were just making ready to go to bed when another cop came past, demanding that we come to the police station with him.  I went with him and once at the station he wanted to see my papers.  I showed him my passport and drivers license, then he wanted copies of those, which I had, but in my tent.  No luck though, he just became more animated and belligerent. 

Wasn't long before I realised he wanted gazoza, which is what they almost fondly call a bribe in Angola.  When he took out cuffs from the desk I traded my principles for pragmatism and gave him 20U$, upon which we marched back to the tents.  Heiko knew something was up so when pressed for his papers he immediately gave as good as he got, not backing off.  He motioned to me to get the Sat phone, which I did, and he then threatened to call the "General".  This was a bluff, but the cop fell for it, so far so that he even gave back the gazoza I paid.  At this point in time the Commandant also arrived, probably alerted to the cop's behaviour by the locals.  The commandant immediately chased the cop away and told us that there will be no problems.  He even sat on a bench by the tents for a while when we went to bed.

Two things that I have to mention from this episode.  One is that this was the only dodgy and aggressive cop that we encountered on our trip, and lastly we think the guy was stoned by the way he spoke and acted.  Worth noting is also the next morning when we gestured to the shopkeeper what happened he was genuinely upset and disappointed, so I really hope they taught that cop a lesson.

I didn't have a great nights rest that night, and I think we were both up at about 5, both feeling that we wanted to put Iona behind us and quickly.  Besides today was the day we go to the sea, but that is a story for tomorrow.

 

[TVB]

Great read; I am learning thanks  :thumleft:
Looking forward to the rest

 

[OOOOMS]

Awsome stuff, keep em coming  :thumleft:

Found this link re the mighty Kunene interesting: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-bangs/capsizes-and-crocodiles-i_b_5673223.html