Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 11

Benguela

Benguela is one of the oldest Portuguese settlements, a small coastal town of great strategic importance in days gone by. Nowadays it has only four or five paved roads, but the many other non-paved ones serve as a testament to its past grandeur. The city is the capital of the province with the same name, a position that has forever been disputed by Lobito, its upstart rival. The province's total population is around 1.4 million souls, more or less evenly split between these two cities, with the important caveat that census haven't been conducted for the best part of fifteen years. Much like the remainder of Angola outside of Luanda, the province is very sparsely populated.

Benguela was designed in the South African or American style, with great many parallel roads and avenues, one big square of a place. The two or three avenues are large, very wide. Due to this design, it is really easy to learn your way around town. In less than a couple of days we were fairly proficient, and moved confidently when out and about. You can move with total freedom at all hours, even at night, and carry valuables with you without having to worry about it. We didn't experience a single problem during our stay, even though we walked the town extensively at all times of the day, and we frequently carried our camera. This was a greatly appreciated freedom, the ability to leave the house and roam, not depending on anyone other than ourselves - something we dearly missed in Luanda. There are a few places to eat, but not many. Although the prices are still a bit high, they are much more reasonable than in the capital. Most of our meals ended up costing between 2000 to 2500 kwanzas for the both of us (25 to 30 USD). A place we recommend is Tan-Tan, a Brazilian restaurant that specialises in buffet food by the kilo (a popular concept in Brazil).

The architecture of Benguela is almost exclusively colonial. Government buildings are solid, large, grand old things, built in that ostentatious style of one or two hundred years ago. A large number of these buildings have been well preserved, and a few key ones were completely renovated. There are important exceptions such as the immense Post Office building, a majestic structure that has been robbed by time of a lot of its splendour. The old anthropology museum, just around the corner from the beach, is an even worse example of conservation, a skeleton of its old self, only ruins really. Overall, though, there seems to be a concerted effort from government to keep their property more or less in order, so one hopes that the much that remains to be done will one day have its turn. The biggest problem in Benguela, and I suspect in most of Angola outside Luanda, are private homes. The vast majority of houses and flats were erected in colonial times, up till independence in 1974. Whilst Luanda has seen a massive construction boom in recent years, little has been built since the seventies outside the capital. In Benguela's case, almost all properties we've seen date back to the seventies and less than half of those were in good condition. There are some new houses being built in the city, but we didn't get a chance to see them since they're slightly out of town. We did see many refurbished houses, all quite impressive indeed, with lush greenery popping out behind high fences, but the worry is that many properties will never get the attention they deserve. Flats in particular have suffered the most neglect, but, fortunately for Benguela, there aren't that many large towers like there are in Luanda and Lobito - the fourteen, twenty stories high giants. Most of them are less than five stories.

Still on the subject of architecture, A place one must visit in Benguela is the open air cinema Kalunga. It was recently refurbished, and sports a lovely esplanada (or beer garden) at the top. Its worth going there almost at all times, during the day for the shade and nice cool beer, at night for either the beer or the cinema. You can also eat some snacks and fast food meals such as fried octopus with chips, which we highly rate. Unfortunately, the cinema is not making that much money at the moment, and capacity is far above demand for such a little town, so its economic viability is in doubt. One hopes dearly that they manage to make it work. The bar, however, is doing fairly well, and we got to chat to the manager a few times, Cid, a most likable character.

Funnily enough, the biggest annoyance we found with Benguela is the rain, but for very different reasons than the ones we complain about in England. The rainy season is extremely hot, but it rains almost every other day at dusk or at night - just when you want to watch a movie at Kalunga. The rains can go on for a bit, torrential downpours that leave everything flooded in their wake. The paved roads are not greatly affected, they dry out as soon as the sun shines and you can hardly tell it rained. The sandy roads, however, somehow manage to convert themselves into thick mud, alternating with huge, swimming pool sized-puddles, and remain in this state for days on end. These can be extremely difficult to negotiate by foot or even by car. We were housed in one such road, which made getting in and out of the house somewhat challenging after the rains. To make matters worse, these roads aren't pleasant even in the best of times - when rain isn't around for a few days - since the fine sand they're made of produces vast amounts of dust when bikes and cars travel across them.

But the negative side of Benguela was more than compensated by its many positive aspects, including its delicious ice creams and fresh bread, the niceness of the people, the many means of transportation available and the beauty of the nearby beaches. Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our two-week stay.

Praia Morena

Praia Morena is the city's beach, nowadays no longer an "in" beach for the well-off people. Instead, its mainly used by the less wealthy, who congregate there in large numbers, seven days of the week. For us, the best thing about it was the short distance from our house: less than half-an-hour walk. Its not a great beach, but, for a city beach, its also not that bad, all things considered. The water, whilst clean, is fuzzy-sandy, making it impossible to see the many fish that swim around you. The sand has some rubbish lying around here and there, but perhaps not as much as Ilha, especially if you bear in mind that there are no concessioned areas with expensive bars in Praia Morena. In fact, in the vicinity of the beach there are only two bars, probably more accurately described as cafes, and these only busy themselves a bit at midday, when a few office workers stroll in for their two-hour lunch breaks. A fino (draught beer) costs between 50 to 100 kwanzas, a far cry from the 400 or so kwanzas one would pay in Ilha.

A large road follows the beach for part of its length, but the partnership soon ends and the road shoots inwards, towards town. The dividing line between road and beach is a decaying sidewalk shaded by tall green trees, underneath which lie benches and a long, knee-high bench-like wall. These are perfect for kipping when the afternoon sun proves to be too hot, the shade being really cool and breezy, and many a time we felt obliged to accompany the locals in their afternoon siestas. On the benches, and on the wall, kitandeiras sit to rest awhile from their never ending journey, always taking the opportunity to promote their wares to passers by. They sell all sorts of things, from exercise books to mangoes, to doughnut-like fried delicacies stored in great big plastic boxes. Ten kwanzas will buy you a doughnut. Below, in the parking lot by the sidewalk, large numbers of kupapatas - the bike taxis - await their clients in convivial conversation, a typically animated affair. Eventually, slowly, one drags himself from the group to do an errand, sometimes involving carrying a passenger with a bag or two, or a large load, or a kid, or all of these at the same time, all in one small 50 cc bike. Somehow, both driver and passenger seem to have a deep understanding of the laws of physics required to make such an improbably loaded vehicle balance, dynamically, a feat made all the more impressive when one takes into account the state of the roads. Away they go, slowly moving towards their destination.

Walking the entire length of the beach, we found it actually extends for quite a distance. We went all the way to the end, from the promenade to the point where the ocean meets the local river, over an hour walk. On the horizon, the never ending green-and-blue sea is interrupted by fishing boats and some flying fish, all framed on a background of clear blue skies. There is the occasional cloud. The coast is populated by a musseque-like fishing village, one or two stationed boats alternating with one or two houses and vast expanses of empty space, small groups of village people roaming up and down the hot sands. An impromptu fish market near a tiny agglomeration of boats; fishermen and their women selling the catch of the day. As the river nears, the land becomes greener. All the while, at a distance, one can see many palm trees and green vegetation. Then, the intersection between river and sea arrives. The waters become tumultuous, brown, dangerous. There are little islets of land in the river. Time to return. The experience is repeated, but this turn in reverse.

Baia Azul

Elsa's auntie Teresa put us in touch with a couple of her contacts that lived in Benguela: Ricardo and Pedro. The guys gave us some basic tips with regards to the town and its surroundings, where to eat, key places to visit and such. One of the spots that got mentioned was Baia Azul. We had heard of it before, probably in conversation with Lau and Leonor, and talking to the boys made us even keener on seeing the place. The name translates literally to Blue Bay, and, says who's been there, its a most fitting description. The boys pointed us on the right direction with regards to means of transportation but, owning cars, they didn't know the ins and outs of getting there by candongueiro. However, they did know somebody who knew someone who had an inkling on how things worked. Following their tip, we decided to wake up early and wait on a busy roundabout for a candongueiro heading towards Baia Azul. Plenty went by, many shouting "Baia". We stopped a few, but as soon as we asked "Baia Azul?", the cobrador would reply negatively: "Baia Farta!" and quickly move on. This went on for some time, so much so that we started to feel that either there weren't that many candongueiros to Baia Azul or we were waiting on the wrong place altogether. But, never fear. To our rescue comes a candongueiro whose cobrador had a big desire to fill the last remaining seats, even if it required talking to customers for more than ten seconds. Instead of replying to the usual question with the usual answer, he was kind enough to point out that no candongueiro actually headed to Baia Azul. Instead, best thing to do was to go with him towards Baia Farta and stop at the Baia Azul intersection. There, we could either hitchhike or walk up - not a huge distance, he says, convincingly. We jumped in, hoping that this cobrador was not just trying to milk us of our precious 80 kwanzas. Somehow space appeared in the crowded minibus - "Are you sure there are two seats available? Where??" - and off we went. Much to Shahin's displeasure, she was stacked next to a fisherman who must have just finished taking his fish to the market. Eventually, after quite some time riding, the cobrador signalled the driver to stop, in a place that seemed like pretty much every other place along the way: dry, hot, sandy, a few rocks. Upon closer inspection, it did vaguely look like an intersection; a sandy road shot into the distance, but appeared to lead deep into the mountains. There wasn't much time to think in the rush of the exit, but once we were out and the candongueiro had left, the precariousness of the situation became immediately clear. In front of us laid a long, really long sandy road, heading somewhere far in the distance - nothing that looked walkable, most certainly not in this heat. Other than the two of us, there wasn't a single living soul visible in this huge desert. We waited by the detour for a bit, deciding on the course of action. What if the guy was wrong, just trying to fool the foreigners? We had no way of knowing. We could be on a path to nowhere, walking for hours. We had to be sure. So we waited for someone, a car, a person whom we could ask. Eventually a car came, coming from what hopefully was the way to Baia Azul. Not ideal, not a potential lift - but still, someone. I tried to attract their attention, to stop them, but they just drove on. As I was about to return, Shahin shouts. I look back. They had changed their mind. We chatted. Turns out we were really on the right intersection, and the distance was actually walkable, hard as it was to believe from here. So we walked. The road had a turn, a bit further down the line. Twenty-or-so minutes later we found some houses, and following that we found the bay.

Baia Azul was practically empty, with the exception of one or two local kids. The scenery was stunning. The sea in front of us looked blue like the sky above it and the water was almost still, a whisper of a wave coming towards the sand. On the left, a huge, towering wall made of rock sat behind the sandy beach and continued further on, stretching into the sea. Its sheltering presence gives the bay a strange cosiness, making it look smaller and safe, but also a bit eerie with all the silence around you. To the right, the white sandy beach continues for many kilometres, almost the full half-circumference of the bay, interrupted only close to the very end by a rocky formation. The water was so calm it gave the feeling you could swim for miles, forever forward, all the way to the vast expanses of the Atlantic ocean.

We stayed at the beach for a good while, enjoying the swim and the sun. Fortunately we had brought some food with us, as the only restaurant available was shut. It seemed to only function on weekends. When the sea is calm, the water is perfectly clear, perfect for snorkeling. Unfortunately, there aren't that many fish around, making the experience less rewarding. In terms of rubbish, the beach is acceptably clean, but, in typical Angolan fashion, nowhere near spotless.

Around four o'clock we decided to make our way back into town. This was a very fortuitous decision. When we got into the intersection, all the candongueiros that went past were so full they weren't even taking any more passengers. You could see backs and heads coming out of windows, that sort of full. We waited for a while, more than an hour, but no luck. Eventually a candongueiro going towards Baia Farta stopped. We were a bit puzzled, but it had actually crossed our mind to go all the way to Baia Farta and then return towards Benguela. The driver must have read our minds because this is exactly what he proposed (the cobrador was just a little kid, his son). The driver was an extremely pleasant character, extremely apologetic for anything and everything that wasn't as he expected. When we got to Baia Farta we had to wait around for god knows how long, looking for people first and then loading fish and all sorts of other merchandise - he continuously apologised for every single delay. Very nice chap. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Baia Farta. The name looks like a bad pun with farts and the town smells the part: its a huge fishing town, with never ending rows of makeshift huts where fish is dried and sold. The smell is overpowering. To make matters worse, there's rubbish everywhere. At one end of town there is a large beach - the bay that gives it its name - but, although the natural scenery is nice, it is totally spoiled by the smell and rubbish. None of the damage appears to be permanent, mind you, and if the government decides to invest in some proper housing, Baia Farta may one day actually look quite nice. This is most certainly not the case at the moment. Many passengers later, we headed down towards Benguela.

We returned to Baia Azul a second time, but things were very different and mainly for the worse. We got a lift with Ricardo on a Sunday. Like him, most people seem to make the bay their destination of choice on weekends so there were a lot of people around. It wasn't hugely crowded, there still was lots of space on the sand and all, but it was very different from our last experience, having the whole bay just to ourselves. On top of that, the day started with a bit of rain, and although the weather had settled by the time we got to the beach - the sun was out and it was really hot - the sea was really rough. There were half-a-meter high waves. This made swimming a lot more fun, but it was impossible to snorkel since the water was full of sand. It was enjoyable, but not quite like our first outing. We had some food in the restaurant, nothing much due to its makeshift nature.

Caotinha

If getting to Baia Azul was adventurous, Caotinha can be considered a voortrek on its own right. Caotinha was the other must-see beach that everyone kept on mentioning. Unlike Baia Azul, all conversations on the subject were followed by "Shame its so hard to get there", "You need a pretty good jeep to climb that hill" or some other statement of that nature. Unfazed, we decided to take the same approach that brought success in conquering Baia Azul: get the candongueiro to the intersection and walk. Just to make sure the distance was walkable, we asked a few people including Pedro and Cid. Opinions varied. Pedro seem to believe it was going to be a long stretch whilst Cid was convinced it was no more than a twenty-minute stroll. Now, we had asked directions for many, many places before and we found out that, in general, anything beyond one kilometre is considered too far to walk by the vast majority of Angolans; poor people would say take the candongueiro, rich people would say drive - no one, but no one, would say "hey, that's just down the road, just walk there". To give a practical example, we had heard that getting from the intersection to Baia Azul was too far a walk. With all this in mind we decided to give it a go and repeat the battle plan. The trip started pretty much like the previous: we got a candongueiro to Baia Farta easily enough and stopped at the intersection. We even double-checked with some locals waiting at the intersection; this was indeed the right place. So we started walking. As we were on our way, the driver of a car going towards Benguela shouted something like "poor girl, why are you torturing her??" but it wasn't enough to cast doubts on our spirits. We kept on walking. The road was long. A candongueiro went past us but by the time we noticed it, it was too late. We had walked for a good forty minutes when we reached a little depression, a small hole, if you like. Nothing much, perhaps fifty metres across. Behind it, a small mountain, contoured by the sandy road. To its left, the sea. Was this the "hard terrain" that required a jeep? The sea looked so close, just behind the mountain, so much so that it made us believe we were almost there. So we crossed the hole and headed towards the hill. Less than an hour into the journey and we got to the other side of the hill. At this stage we realised our task was perhaps somewhat more difficult than what we had envisaged. There was a large prairie in front of us, and at a distance to our right, another fairly large hill. If the beach was near the town, we were perhaps thirty minutes from it. That was the good hypothesis. The bad hypothesis, however, was that the beach was behind the hill at the far end of town. This hill, a small mountain really, could not be circled round - it would have to be climbed. Hard to even estimate how long it would take to climb that huge obstacle. As we were contemplating our fate, a couple of local ladies walked past, a group of middle aged women. They confirmed our fears. The little village we were heading towards was called Caota. The beach we wanted, Caotinha, was indeed behind the mountain and there was no other way to get there other than climbing it. Around one hour and thirty minutes into the journey we got to the bottom of the hill, and readied ourselves for the climb. There was a road of sorts, wide enough for cars, so we thought it was prudent to follow it even though it was quite circuitous. We followed it for a bit, until it lead us to the top of the hill. From there the view is absolutely amazing. You can see the little village below, and further, you could clearly see Baia Azul. The rocks we had previously spotted don't allow walking from Baia Azul to Caota, but from up there one could see the interconnection between the two places. The entire bay is huge. We could also see just below us the Caota shipyards, probably the only reason for the existence of this little town in the middle of nowhere. A couple of wrecks there. As we continued walking, the other side of the hill appeared. A set of stairs led down to a little cove, and it seemed really inviting, except that there were many, many steps, hundreds if not thousands, and by then we were weary and tired and the sun was at its hottest. Instead, we decided to find an easier beach, hoping one did exist. Less than a mile down the road, a few houses appeared: a little restaurant, which much like Baia Azul's seemed to only function on weekends, and a smattering of small and middle sized beach houses. Just behind them, not even five minutes walk, laid the beach. It took us just short of two hours to get to the beach.

All the efforts were repaid in full, though. The small beach, another cove really, was totally empty. It is protected by a set of rocks, that are also used by fish as breeding grounds. Little bits of reef, or reef like things, grow on the rocks. If one was already amazed by the scenery, snorkeling was beyond words. I've never seen so many fish, of so many different kinds and colours, in one single place. Unfortunately, my knowledge of fish is rather limited so I can't even name one. Just when a marine biologist is needed, Shelbourne is not around. Due to the rocks, and the general roughness of the sea, it was not easy to get in and out of the reef so Shahin didn't really get to experience much of it. I, however, spent pretty much every single moment in the water, just coming out to warm up. It was an amazing experience.

Things were much easier on our way back. We climbed the hill, and investigated the shipyards a bit. The local kids seem to have loved us, and Shahin's camera. Eventually we decided to crisscross town, and much to our surprise a candongueiro appeared. This was extremely fortunate since there aren't that many doing the Caota route - three or so, with totally unpredictable timings. And there was even a couple of places left too, on an otherwise packed candongueiro. Our lucky day indeed.

Benguela's Market - or Caotinha part two

Our second outing to Caotinha was equally eventful, but for very different reasons. To make our lives easier, I had gathered some intelligence on the candongueiro routes during our previous trip. A fellow passenger had told me that the starting point of the journey was the market, just by the stand where goat meat was sold. Buses left from six o'clock in the morning onwards, but the only exact time was for the initial departure - all other times were dependent on journey time. After much debating on whether it was feasible to return to Caotinha or not - the two hour hike was etched on our minds - we decided to give it a go, but now taking the correct candongueiro rather than walking. The first step was to find the market and the goat meat stand. It appeared an easy task, as we knew the general direction in which to walk. However, one thing we didn't account for was that the roads were extremely muddy on that day, and that the poorer areas have much worse roads than the ones near the town centre. This was a very costly mistake that made our lives much harder by many orders of magnitude. Taking a single step required deep concentration, and there were many close call situations where one of us almost fell flat on our faces (or backs). Falling would have been disastrous because we were all walking in single file, with people in front of us and behind us, and a slip would have meant taking quite a few people down too. Fortunately it didn't happen, but it came pretty close a few times. The locals were much more practical than us, most of them walking barefoot to get better grip. We, however, feared the general discomfort of stepping on mud - not to mention the fear of cutting our feet - so we kept on walking with our sandals on. To make matters worse, one of my extraordinarily expensive hiking sandals decided to break there and then. Although Karrimor guarantees them for at least a year, mine didn't even last two months. That's when the ridiculousness of this guarantee business becomes apparent. I mean, if your shoes break in the middle of nowhere in a six-month trip, are you expected to carry them for the remainder of the time and walk barefoot all the while? Hardly. For more than half-an-hour we trudged towards the market, feeling, calculating each single step. Eventually we reached the market. However, our troubles were far from over. Instead of a nice, small market like say the Benfica market in Luanda, Benguela's market is HUGE. In all aspects. Its massive in terms of area, in terms of the number of people around, in terms of the types of merchandise for sale. And this market is made by the locals, for the locals - we didn't even spot any mulattoes, let alone white or Asian people. We just didn't know where to begin looking for the goat meat stand. Its one of those things, probably trivial once you know what you're looking for, but absolutely impossible for someone who has never been to a proper African market. We were dazed for a few minutes in the midst of all the confusion, candongueiros going up and down, people shouting everywhere, different kinds of animals everywhere too.

On the plus side, we were at the right place to fix broken shoes, or so we thought, so as soon as our heads cleared and adjusted to the surroundings, we went in search of a shoemaker. We were a bit intimidated by the fact that we stood out like sore thumbs, but there wasn't much we could do about it, so we just got on with the task at hand. Due to the structure of the market, with its very narrow roads overflowing with products, compounded by the mud and the crowds, it was actually very difficult to negotiate our way round. On top of that, we had to ask every five seconds for some more clues, since the directions we got from everyone were pretty sketchy. I'm not entirely sure how we managed to find the shoemaker, but somehow we did it. It took a good deal of asking and searching, of trying to decipher clues, but in the end the chap was there, fixing another customer's shoe. The shoemaker was old, probably in his fifties or sixties, and he worked slowly and patiently but with great dexterity. His tools were all hand-crafted and seemed to fit their purpose very well. He finished the previous customer's job and then turned his attention to me. Without much explanation from my part, he immediately diagnosed the problem and started working in fixing it. With no mercy or regards to brand names, he hole-punched, sowed, and hole-punched some more. The fallen strap was back in its rightful place in no time at all and the sandal felt as solid as before, if not more. The job was done in a fairly seamless manner. I felt somewhat guilty in paying the craftsman the fifty kwanzas he demanded, so I added an extra twenty - not quite enough to make me feel good about it, but at least the gesture was appreciated by the shoemaker.

We then went back to hunting the goats. After much misleading information - we walked up and down, up and down the market - we ended up settling on a stand that had a few goats, although these ones were alive and walking about. It wasn't quite what we expected, but then, what had we expected? There were candongueiros stopped everywhere, going to several destinations. Swarms of people everywhere. Many candongueiros were heading to Lobito, others to Catumbela and other nearby towns. However, we couldn't find a single one going to Caota, nor could we find a person able to confirm the usual departure point of these candongueiros, tried as we might. We asked lots of people, but no one knew anything useful. After standing for a while, it became clear that we were not going to find the right goat stand. So our only other option was to take a candongueiro to Baia Farta as we had done previously and walk the road up yet again. This was not a pleasant option, but the confusion of the market was fast becoming unbearable and we had to do something. We had to go for it.

The candongueiro dropped us at the intersection and we started walking, but this time we decided to try our luck at hitchhiking. To our great surprise, not even ten minutes into the walk and a huge truck stopped. However, we were somewhat confused as there were no empty seats in the cabin, and the cargo compartment at the back was just a huge big box, not really the sort of place one would put people - not unless you're smuggling them across the channel. The driver insistingly pointed to the back, so we went round. When we got there, dozens of eyes stared at us. It wasn't really a closed cargo compartment, it was more like a cattle transport truck - but instead of cattle it transported people. The vehicle was a kind of candongueiro and it was full to the max, or so we thought. That is, until the cobrador started shuffling people around a bit to make "space" for us. I would hardly call "space" to what he came up with, but we had to make do. Shahin kept on mumbling something like "I ain't getting in there man, I rather walk!" but it was too late since I was already in the truck. She somehow managed to jump in. The thirty or so minutes that followed were, up to this point in time, our worse ever trip in any means of transportation we have ever travelled in - and this includes the twelve our bus trip to Benguela. Truly. We were standing up, crammed, surrounded by dozens of people, unable to move even one centimetre in any direction, holding on hard to a metal bar, hoping that it wouldn't somehow break. Shahin held so hard she had bruises afterwards. The truck was moving at incredible speeds, or so it seemed for us at the back. To our great relief, around thirty minutes later we arrived at the entrance of the Caota village, where many of the passengers left. The remainder of the trip was done in great comfort and Shahin even managed to find a seat on top of a pile of corn bags. The people on the truck were awfully nice, and made sure we stopped at the optimal place to start our climb to Caotinha. It was then that Cid's comments made sense; of course, its only a twenty-minute stroll from the bottom of Caota to Caotinha. The problem is getting to Caota. The climb wasn't half as difficult as last time, and we even decided to take some shortcuts.

Whilst Caotinha was still very nice, it was not as nice as the first time. The weather was hot and cloudy and the sea was much rougher, with some real waves hitting the reef. This made it really hard to get in and out of the reef - even downright dangerous, since a wave could force you against the rocks. I still managed to snorkel for quite a while, but nowhere near as much as last time. On our way back, we waited for over two hours in the Caota village for a candongueiro. There really isn't much to do in the village, so we just loitered around the only "bar" we could find, getting stared at by all the locals. Eventually we gave up and started walking. It was getting late, dusk was setting in. Suddenly we spotted a candongueiro going towards the village and we chased after it. It was a good chase, across huts, up and down roads, but eventually we got it. Once we were in it, we found out we were waiting for the candongueiro at the wrong place. This was actually the last one for the day. We got lucky yet again.

Cubal

Another place that had been mentioned in our conversations with Pedro, Ricardo and Teresa was Cubal. It was described as a small city a good hundred kilometres in land in the Benguela province, with fantastic scenery on the way there. Pedro suggested getting there by train, using the CFB. Angola is currently restoring much of its infrastructure, and trains are a vital part of this effort. There are three main train lines: the CFL (Caminhos de Ferro de Luanda), the CFB (Caminhos de Ferro de Benguela) and the CFM (Caminhos de Ferro de Mocamedes, in Namibe). All three are being worked on, but of these, the CFB are the most important link since they will connect Zambia to the port of Lobito. In the past, this was a hugely important economic link, used to export Zambia's copper. Unfortunately, the work is still underway so trains in Benguela are still pretty sketchy. The trip to Cubal takes over 6 hours - the train is pretty slow - and trains only run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Since there isn't much to do in Cubal, going by train was not an option.

As we were speaking to our landlady Dona Judite about this, she mentioned that her husband, Senhor Chico, was going to Cubal in a few days time. Senhor Chico was extremely kind: not only did he agree to take us there, but he also found us some accommodation at no extra cost. He was currently doing a project for the local government in Cubal, a small hotel, and some of the rooms were already finished - we could sleep in one of them. This was a perfect arrangement, so we set on our way. The trip there was over five hours long. The road is mostly non-existent. In fact, as he was apologising for the haphazard driving, Senhor Chico told us a joke that describes driving in Angola perfectly: "In England you drive on the left; in Portugal you drive on the right; in Angola, well, you drive wherever you can." If you have never driven in Angola you won't understand how true and close to the bone this joke is, but for us it summarised our experiences. Senhor Chico could spend ten minutes driving on the left, followed by half-an-hour on the right, all the while jerking and twisting past holes. It must be a funny experience seeing somebody drive from up above; its almost like they're following an invisible road, turning where there doesn't seem to be any apparent turns, stopping in the middle of nowhere, leaving the road on detours that are not signalled at all.

Whilst the drive was not particularly pleasant on the stomach department, the eyes had plenty to feast at. The road to Cubal is full of greenery, increasingly so as you head towards the interior. Its similar to what we had experienced in Kanjala, just lush greenery, but here there are these high mountains in the background, and these huge rocks laying in the green prairies. Like Teresa had said, it is as if these rocks could talk, its an eerie experience. To make it even more eerie, Senhor Chico kept on mentioning how impossible things were during the war.

- "You couldn't drive around here in those days, no sirree. Ambushes all the time. You can still see the remainders of the wrecks, like that one there" - he says, pointing out to a bit of rust at the edge of the road. Greenery everywhere made the valleys look so peaceful. But they still looked like perfect places to ambush.

Half-way through our trip we stopped in a little town. Senhor Chico had some business to conduct there. This was a very little place, ten houses or so, a nice little village in the middle of nowhere. We were soon back on our way. In just over five hours we reached Cubal. The trip took this long because the pick-up truck was extremely loaded and we had to proceed slowly. Just as we were about to get into town and conclude yet another epic journey, a surprise awaited us. The main bridge that leads you into the town is broken, and has been broken for over a year. Senhor Chico pointed this out, in is usually dramatic tone:

- "See that over there? That's the town. We're perhaps five minutes from it, were we to go that way. Unfortunately, we have to go the long way round."

The long way round involved a lot of off road driving and dodging some really big holes, but the scariest bit of the drive was by far crossing the temporary bridge. This was a metal structure with a couple of metal panes covering the fast river moving below you. Standing before the bridge, it certainly didn't seem fit for people or animals - let alone five tonne trucks. It was very narrow, not much wider than a truck, and had absolutely no side protections, so if your steering wasn't absolutely straight you'd get to swim with the fish. That's, assuming the bridge would take your weight, of course, which seemed like very unlikely from where we stood. But, to our great surprise, a huge SGO bus crossed the bridge before us and disappeared in the distance. Then, proceeding slowly, we too crossed it, hearing the loud creaking noises metal makes. A few seconds later we were on the other side. Fifteen minutes later we entered the town.

In the sixties, Cubal was a booming town due to its sisal industry. Sisal is a straw-like material used to make baskets, mats and the like and was extremely popular in the fifties and sixties. Industries here boomed, much like they did in the rest of Angola, mainly due to the extremely cheap labour - free in many instances due to the "contract" system. This allowed Portuguese settlers to accumulate huge profits in very short time, and these profits were channelled to create lovely little colonial towns like this one. Once the war started the industries died, and along with them they took the towns they previously supported. All that is left of Cubal are its decaying colonial houses, the ruins of the sisal factories, an eerie, ghost-like town. Some of it is now being renovated, thanks to government's money, but one can see that Cubal will never be what it was - perhaps because like most of Angola in the sixties, it never "was", really; a fabrication; an invention in someone's mind. A castle in clouds. Nothing that could ever be sustainable.

We spent a whole day in Cubal, but there isn't much to do. After walking the entire town, we found the only existing cafe with its decaying pool table. There I played some pool with the locals, a sport that seems to involve every single person in the bar. Some of the chaps at the bar were part of an NGO demining team called HALO, and were working in nearby areas. In fact, Cubal was the only place in the whole of the Angola we've seen that had a sign "Do not walk: mines here". The HALO people and the locals were very nice and friendly, much like all other Benguelenses. At night we had some food in a "restaurant", but the "restaurant" is really someone's house, someone you can trust and who allows certain people to eat there, for a fee. There are no restaurants as we know it. We were also quite lucky to stay with Senhor Chico since we didn't spot a single hostel, so accommodation would most likely be a problem. All and all, it was well worth visiting Cubal, but its not the sort of place you can spend more than one day in.

The trip back was done on our trustworthy Interprovincial SGO buses, the same that took us from Luanda to Benguela. It was much more pleasant this time round though. Although the roads were equally as bad, it somehow felt much safer to travel on the bus this time round, so much so we even slept for a good part of the journey. It also helped that the trip only took three hours and a bit.

Lobito

One weekend we were invited for lunch at Teresa's, Elsa's auntie - my auntie too, really, in the African paradigm of extended families. Teresa is one of my favourite characters, a most likable person, full of knowledge and experience but never showing off, always making everyone around her feel clever, always making sure everyone is alright. She is at present working for a Portuguese private university, Lusiada, located in downtown Lobito. I know of very few people who are so thoroughly Angolan and so passionate about Angola like Teresa, so when she heard the call to came and help out, she left her very successful law career in Lisbon and headed back home. We were invited for lunch, but like all African lunches it was expected to start late and last well into the evening. We waited around for our lift, but he was running late, so we decided to take our chances with the local transport system which we grew to know and love. Candongueiros leave from Benguela to Lobito at all times, but unfortunately they are almost always full by the time they cross town. Fortunately for us, one of the chaps waiting at the bus stop was extremely friendly, and not only did he explain how to get to Lobito but he also gave us his seat when a candongueiro appeared with a seat or two available. This was an unimaginable act of contrition which we really appreciated since we were all waiting for over an hour.

There's only one word to describe the road from Benguela to Lobito: dangerous. For various reasons. First, the road is narrow, in most places with only a lane in each direction, and in some parts covered in thick dust. A Chinese company is busy doing an extension to convert it into a dual-carriage way, but the work will probably last another couple of years or so. Second, there are huge amounts of kupapatas driving up and down the road, most riding their bikes pretty slowly and orderly but some do it at crazy speeds or perform crazy stunts. This also means one spends most of the time overtaking bikes. Thirdly, a lot of the car drivers on that road are just plain crazy. They drive at unimaginable speeds, particularly at night. Luckily, we never saw or were involved in any accidents on the many times we were on that road - but we were close to being in one, as I'll explain later. The panoramic views are excellent though, on those short seconds when you manage to get your eyes off the road. There are trees all around, and lots of vegetation. This area once housed Angola's sugar industry and one can clearly see why, green jumping at you from all places. At the end of this interconnecting road is a bridge, designed by the French engineer Eiffel. It does look the part, sharing many similarities with the Paris tower and Porto's bridge, such as the massive usage of metal. The bridge is in dire need of some renovating though, looking very old and decrepit. One cannot but hope that some money is channelled for this soon, before the damage is irreversible, but this may not happen since architecture and landmarks are hardly the government's first priority. We drove on for a bit longer, but the cangongueiro route ends at the entrance to the city, well before our destination. There we had to catch another candongueiro, this time to Bairro Vinte e Oito. This candongueiro stops one block away from the University. The University itself is located just behind the Port of Lobito, Angola's most important port.

Teresa lives in the residence halls, in Angola exclusively destined for teachers. This is because a large number of the teaching staff are either foreigners - mainly Portuguese - or Angolan returnees, who have no housing of their own. Housing is thus one of the perks used to attract employees, in particular because decent housing is so expensive to obtain. The apartments are very nice, charming little places, sporting tall, wide rooms - but unfortunately not many of them. They are really made for one or two people at most, and most teachers are youngsters out of university precisely in this situation. Teresa had invited some of her colleagues for dinner: Dr Napoleao and Dr Edgar, in addition to Teresa's Mom. Both doctors were very likable chaps, and Shahin took a particular liking to Dr Edgar since he spoke fluent English. He had lived for a long time in England. The food was excellent and the conversation too, and we debated well into the evening all of our country's problems and strengths, and our role in its future. At one point I was bemoaning the sad state of Information Technology in Africa in general, and Angola in particular; how we were to yet again lose another race, even before it had started. Dr Edgar's response was extremely insightful, although he was kind enough to state it in a very nice way. Truth is, people like me just love to sit and complain, without actually stepping up to do something about it. This is common to most of the diaspora. I am not ready to come and teach IT in Angola even though my contribution is dearly needed. So many of us sit in our lovely little porches in our lovely little houses in Europe, in America, with our nice jobs and our nice lifestyle, and moan from afar. You see this in the web forums, in the parties, in the gatherings. We complain on how things are being done ever so incorrectly, how so much money is being wasted, how so many important factors are not being taken into account. In reality, many of the people that took the plunge and decided to get their hands dirty are doing a sterling job given the constraints; and there are many, many constraints, many of which you only begin to understand when you are there, in situ. What they really need is for more qualified Angolans to come and help out reconstructing their country. Whilst many are coming, the numbers are nowhere near the requirements.

Once the dinner was finished, after we satiated ourselves with the lovely pudding made by Teresa, it was time to get back to Benguela. We got a lift with Dr Napoleao. This time it was really dark, that sort of dark you only see in Africa. As we were driving back, perhaps forty minutes into it, one of the kupapatas riding ahead of us decided to park up on the side. But, as any good Angolan would, he didn't park up to his right, the closest side, nor did he look back to see if there was anyone behind him. Instead, he turned wide to his left, slowly, unexpectedly, and moved towards the other side of the road. This, in the extreme dark, with almost no lights at all on the bike. Incredible. Fortunately for us, Dr Napoleao is a pretty good driver, and managed to somehow avoid the kupapata, but it is remarkable the faith that some of these people put on other drivers.

We returned to Lobito some days later, this time to actually investigate the town. We were lucky to get dropped off by Dr Napoleao and taken back by him too. We spent most of our time at Terminus, a lovely grand hotel in Restinga. Restinga is Lobito's Ilha, identical in shape to Luanda's but much wider. Much to the grin of all lobitangas, I, a kaluanda, had to admit Restinga is much nicer than Ilha. It has lovely colonial houses, wide roads and parks. It's also much cleaner. Terminus has a lovely beach behind it, similar to the concessioned beaches in Ilha. One can eat at the hotel for very modest prices, and we had two omelettes, very nice indeed, setting us back less than 2000 kwanzas for the both of us.

Our third visit to Lobito was rather... interesting. We were invited to the launch party of the Lobito's offices of a new law practice. The partners are Teresa, Dr Napoleao and Dr Jaime, and Teresa insisted on having us there. I did warn that we didn't have any special clothes other than jeans and t-shirts but she said it was going to be a small affair. We got picked up and dropped off by Ricardo. The party was at the posh Navegante hotel. We should have remembered how Angolan's love to underestimate things. I mean, really. Even the television and radio were there. The head of Lobito's port was there. And the three of us, Ricardo, Shahin and me, were the only ones wearing casual clothes. Shahin was dolled up enough, but being a girl kept on complaining all night long. In total, there must have been over one hundred elegantly dressed, fashionable people, a sort of Hello magazine party for Lobito. However, as soon as we started chatting to people we quickly got into the swing of things and it ended up being a really enlightening experience. We got to meet lots of Portuguese and Angolan returnees, some captains of industry and important people, to really get a feel for what is happening in the country. It ended up being a fantastic experience. The party lasted well into the night, dancing involved and all, but we made a move around midnight, since we still had the long drive back.

Our last visit to Lobito was via candongueiro. This time round, we decided to go to the end of Restinga, to one of the non-concessioned beaches. It was very nice, and fairly clean. We swam first on the inner side of the bay, the side facing the town. Shahin loved the water here, incredibly quiet, and I liked the snorkeling too. There were lots of fish in the water. It wasn't anywhere near the variety of Caotinha, but the fish here move around in large schools, very impressive numbers. The scenery is stunning too, with large mountains and the town. We then went to swim on the Contracosta, the ocean facing side of Restinga. Much like in Mussulo's, the sea here is rough, wavy, harder to tame. The snorkeling is great too, but one cannot avoid thinking that a shark is looming around.

All and all, we liked Lobito quite a lot, but not as much as Benguela. This is because the city sprawls a lot more, making it really hard to walk round. Just Restinga itself is huge, requiring a candongueiro to go from one end to the other. Also, whilst there are many nice neighbourhoods in Lobito, there also appear to be many more musseques, particularly at the entrance of town, making it look like a shabbier place. This is not true at all, and one can confirm that by going to Bairro Vinte e Oito and Restinga, and probably many other places we never managed to get to, but still. So as far as we were concerned, Benguela won the battle, but only marginally.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 10

Benfica Market

Benfica, like many areas of the greater Luanda, is not a particularly nice place. There isn't much to it, really, apart from the main road and the thousands of makeshift houses, scattered in all manner of improbable shapes, layouts and compositions. However, Benfica is home to a smallish market that specialises in African art, making it a very popular place amongst foreigners - a claim to fame that few musseques have. In fact, one can even go as far as saying that this market is created by foreigners, for foreigners. This is because a large number of the craftsmen exhibiting their wares are not from Angola but from other parts of the continent such as neighbouring DR Congo, or even from further up north like Mali and Senegal, and many of the items out on display seem clearly to have been imported rather than crafted locally. The punters, mostly white and mulatto, but some black faces can be spotted too, are most likely members of the diaspora or foreigners working for one of the many multinational companies present in Angolan soil. We went to the market with Elsa and Rui, the main excuse being that Elsa wanted to buy some art for the house, but in reality, we all know that women just love markets.

The market itself is a small, unofficial affair, laid out in that characteristically narrow way that almost all informal African markets are. The rows of stalls are very close to each other, and are densely packed with merchandise. The remaining gaps are filled with people, many of them vendors and a few buyers. This results in dark, narrow alley-ways piercing into the market, and then across it, and give it a somewhat menacing look at first. One soon gets used to it though, if not by our own devices then by the insistent calling of the vendors, almost all men: "Amiga, Amiga, aqui!!". Marketers are successful predators, so they know to always target the vulnerable - in this case the girls. When one does venture into the narrow corridors, stall after stall packed with different kinds of objects greet you. But don't delay yourself too long on any one given stall - long here being measured in tens of seconds - lest the vendor think your interested in one of his goods. For if he does, he'll chase you down the market, continuously enticing you, continuously negotiating the price, forever making sure you are aware of the incredible deal you're missing out on. The items for sale in this section of the market are mainly wood carvings, but incredibly there's also a lot of ivory carvings too. Further afield there is another section specialising in paintings of all sizes, not quite as large as the carving section, but with fair variety. In between the two is an area with various other types of craftsman such as the mosaic tiles Elsa was after, and has been after unsuccessfully for the past five years. Behind all of this, hidden by a large corrugated iron fence, is the food hall. Here grilled fish and other delicacies are sold, and some kitandeiras (or street sellers) sell diverse foodstuff. The food hall is, unfortunately, as informal as the rest of the market, so you can eat there at your own risk. Not advisable to foreign stomachs, basically.

Whilst it is worth visiting Benfica's market, it has to be said it is somewhat disappointing. First, many of us were actually looking for some authentic Angolan art, and there was very little of it around. Most things on display belong to that fuzzy category of "African Art", the sort of thing that you see in markets all over Europe and all over Africa. The usual masks and statues, the paintings with people wearing straw skirts and dancing to the rhythm of the tan-tan. I recall Naomi Klein complaining in No Logo of the manufactured "world culture" created by people like Coca-Cola and MTV, which resulted in the homogenisation of teenagers all over the world: the baggy trousers, graffiti-like t-shirts, hip-hop or rock music. The same globalising trend left no area of African life untouched, but its art was affected mostly from within. No multinational company was involved in the process; for a change, Africans seemed to have done it all by themselves. The result is this polymorphic "African" art that belongs to no country but takes traits of a few, and just like the new global youth culture, it is "local" everywhere. This African Art, by trickery or merit - the verdict is not out yet - steals the oxygen of any local art that attempts to emerge and is extremely popular with tourists looking to give that "African" feel to their houses or establishments. There were very few differences between what we saw in Benfica and the goods available in Swakopmund's market, Gambia or the Cape Verde islands. I'd wager that very similar items are available in Wembley, London or in Feira da Ladra, Lisbon. In fact, the problem has become so severe that the few remaining local tradesman use their nativeness as a competitive advantage and sell themselves as providing authentic local art - as opposed to "these foreigners, selling their stuff as if it was our own". Of course, the foreigners were quick to catch on, so they'll tell you exactly the same, except that, in Angola, one can easily tell them by their accents; at any rate, the real Angolan sellers will probably be peddling the same type of goods. The second thing that was disappointing was the amount of ivory for sale. Literally every other stall had items carved in a shinny white material which appeared on sight to be ivory, and was sold as ivory by the merchant, up to the point when you asked whether it was legal to buy it and take it on the plane - and suddenly the ivory transformed itself into another material altogether, unspecified, but assured to be as close to ivory as it gets. Crazy, the things science is able to come up with these days, hey. Some stalls even specialised solely in these items, to the exclusion of everything else. The third negative aspect of the market were the prices. In a way, this had to be expected since everything in Luanda is expensive as a norm anyway, and to make matters worse, foreign buyers are always prepared to pay over the odds. Still, one always expects to find a bargain. As far as we could ascertain there were none to be found, and even haggling with the sellers - which Rui did with extreme expertise - yielded no breakthroughs. This is a clear indication that somebody else must be willing to pay these horrendously high prices. In the market's defence, one has to say that Angola is not, by any stretch of imagination, a tourist destination, so a more diverse offering would not make any economic sense. And vendors are catering for what punters buy, so there must be a lot of people still buying ivory out there.

After some browsing we decided to inspect the food stalls, but since both girls have very sensitive stomachs and were entirely unwilling to eat there, we ended up going to the nearest restaurant, Girasol. This is just up the road from the market, in the rest area of the Sonangol gas pumps. Unfortunately, very much in keeping with the theme, prices were extremely high: the only available meal, a Brazilian rodizio buffet, was 3400 kwanzas per person - over 40 dollars. This did not include drinks, desert or starters. The food was alright, but not quite good enough to justify the price tag. We heard since that many Angolans actually make the most of their 3400 kwanzas, getting there for lunch and not leaving until almost dinner time, eating all the while from the buffet.

After lunch we returned to the market and haggled some more. In the end, I was the only person to buy something: an Angolan white top with Mantorras on the back, the team's main striker. (Yes, the one that never plays.) It set me back around 1000 kwanzas after some haggling, which I was quite proud of since I hate shopping in any shape or form and, as a rule, I tend to just pay what people ask and run out of the shop as quickly as possible. (Come to think of it, my lightning fast exits from shopping malls probably raise a lot of suspicion, but I've never been stopped and searched in England.) In addition, I was also quite happy about the final price because its roughly eight times cheaper than what I had paid for the official top during the World Cup. Who said there were no bargains to be had? This one was a fake of lower quality, of course, but still.

The Long Walk; Goodbye and Hello

As the new year dawned, time came for Elsa and Rui to return to Portugal. Just before departing, they still managed to find a bit of time to give us a quick tour of some interesting places in Luanda we hadn't yet visited. Ever enterprising, we decided to walk from Kinaxixi to Maianga and meet up with them at their house. This is a fair but not unreasonable distance to walk, at least as far as the map is concerned. To be perfectly honest, I don't really know how I managed to convince Shahin to walk up since she - and everybody else I know, now that I think of it - is acutely aware of my special abilities in getting lost. But, convince her I did. I'll spare you the suspense and go straight to the conclusion: for some unexplainable reason, totally unrelated to my person, we managed to get lost. I mean, we were not lost as such, we just didn't know the exact turns to make, which for Shahin and most women is equivalent to being lost. Me, like every other bloke with an ounce of self-esteem, I know that given enough time you'll eventually start heading down the right road and before you know it, your target lies ahead of you. Its just a matter of time. Asking for directions is for wimps. Problem is, the rainy season in Angola is hot, damned hot, and to make matters worse, we left the house an hour or so before the hottest time of the day. After a good hour of walking round, I started to notice the menacing groans, moans and cursing coming from behind me, which seemed to continually increase in loudness and menacingness and displayed an obvious correlation to temperature and elapsed time. I was forced to admit that I was a little unsure of the exact road on which to turn. Like, half-an-hour ago. The response sounded so inhuman - so much contained rage was involved - that I immediately decided to lose all my street cred there and then and ask for directions. We asked a few times, but the passers-by either didn't know the best way to get there or they gave us directions in that vague way that only Angolans can - "go like that a bit more, turn like this, its there!", all the while pointing and gesticulating. "But is it the first turn or the second?" we would ask, only to hear an angry response "No! Go like this!!", followed by some more gesticulation pointing in the general direction ahead or behind you. Everyone we spoke to, even those unsure of the exact location, were invariably convinced we were going the wrong way. We ended up going a good twenty minutes backwards only to find out we were, indeed, going on the right the direction all along. Eventually I decided to ring Rui - an act that was repeated a good twenty times before the hour was over - and he gave me some clues as to which way to go. Unfortunately, as I think I've mentioned before, Luanda's streets are not named. That is, they have official names, but since there are no signs up in the actual streets, no one, not a single inhabitant of this city, knows the real names of its streets. Ask them, as we did, where Avenida Lenine is or where Rua Agostinho Neto is and they will look at you in disbelief. All directions are given in terms of reference points: "turn at Chevron's building", "just before you reach the Portuguese Embassy", "turn before hotel Tropico", "go towards Radio Nacional". Almost all these reference points are meaningless for foreigners. After all, unless the reference point is incredibly obvious, and most aren't, you don't know when you've gone past it. As we were stumbling across town we somehow managed to bump into the church of Sagrada Familia, which was just as well as that's were I was baptised, many, many years ago, and that's where the only proof of my Angolan citizenship remains - at least one hopes so. If we knew anything about Luanda's layout, all warning bells would have started to ring as soon as the church became visible. Fortunately, we didn't. As it turned out, the path we took is quite possibly the longest possible path joining Kinaxixi to Maianga, even if ones excludes the twenty minutes up-and-down-hill detour. We finally reached our destination a good two-and-a-half hours later, in the blistering Luandan heat. The funny thing is, afterwards, Elsa and Rui showed us the "other" way, and not only is it easier, almost all the way straight ahead, but it takes probably thirty minutes. Shahin somehow did not see the funny side. Oh well, at least we got to see a lot of the city, I say.

Once we rested and recovered, we set off to Wimpy's, one of the very few fast food places available in Angola - no, MacDonald's hasn't made it here yet. Prices in Wimpy are fairly reasonable for Luanda, and a meal can be had for around 1000 kwanzas. After eating our burgers, we had copious amounts of ice cream, which whilst not the best in the world was of a fairly decent standard. Rui then took us to the sights. This included another trip to Fortaleza, now inside the comfort of the jeep. Unfortunately yet again we didn't have our camera on us, so we'll have to return a third time to take pictures before we go. Afterwards we descended towards Bairro Azul, Rui's old neighbourhood, which we dutifully inspected and listened to Rui's reminiscences. There's always a special feeling when you return to the places of your childhood. Then it was Cidade Alta's turn. Cidade Alta, of which we knew only DEFA's headquarters, sits high above town. Here is where most of the offices of the ministries are, as well as the presidential palace. It is such an important place you are only allowed to stop there to drop passengers and even then only for the briefest of periods. Whilst driving round, with the usual carelessness of the Angolan - "e' tudo nosso" they say, "its all ours" - Rui managed to take the wrong turn and head towards the presidential palace. The flag was up, indicating Jose Eduardo dos Santos, or Ze Du, was in. Two guards standing at the door noticed our mistake within seconds and one of them, springing into action, came towards us. Nobody else other than Shahin noticed this, but the other guard actually cocked his gun. We were told in a very firm and clear manner that this was a restricted access road and we were to turn back immediately. Obediently and apologetically we turned back and descended towards town, this time via the other side of the hill that leads into Cidade Alta. Here one can see many grand colonial houses, in varying states of decay. Some of them have been recently renovated, but many are still in the hands of squatters and are in a messy, musseque like state. All of them have important proprietaries though, and none are up for grabs. Not unless you have half-a-million dollars or so lying around. Here, like in most prime areas of Luanda, the government is moving in to perform a clean up operation, removing all the unwanted musseque citizens and relocating them to other areas of town. As pretty much everything else around here, this process is not done in a nice, orderly manner, and there are many well founded complaints from humanitarian organisations. Nevertheless, I think few people disagree that something needs to be done. Some of these musseques - like Praia do Bispo - are sitting on prime land for real estate development, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Such revenue is more than enough to create decent housing for the relocated inhabitants. However, the latter rarely seems to come to fruition, probably due to the influence of the usual interest groups. With election time looming - or forever looming, should I say - its in the government's best interest to look after these people, at least in some small way.

Piscinas do Alvalade - the Alvalade Swimming pools - were our next destination. It was here that myself and Elsa had our first swimming lessons, many moons ago. They now have a lovely esplanada, famous for its milkshakes. Judging by the quality of the avocado milkshake I had, the fame is well deserved. They also have very good snacks, in particular prego no pao (stake in a bun, literally). The day was concluded at Walter's house, a cousin we hadn't met before. Walter is a TV director, with his own company, but with very close links to the state's TPA. He is an incredible character and the couple of hours we spent on his presence where absolutely hilarious.

This was the last day we spent with Elsa and Rui. The time we spent together was excellent, and it was with great sadness that we waved goodbye to them. After all, this was the first holidays I spent with Elsa since our teenage years. Unfortunately, most people have jobs to go back to, and so their holidays must, at some point, come to an end. Its hard to imagine from where we stand, but one day this adventure will have to end too.

On the positive side, just as we were saying our goodbyes I got a call from an unexpected source: Lau and Leonor had just arrived in town.

On the Road to Benguela

With Elsa's departure, we began to feel more and more restless. Luanda is not a friendly place to people without a vehicle; it makes you feel a bit like you're on house arrest, and each outing requires more planning than a prison escape. Its just too damned hard to get anywhere without a car. Besides, we initially wanted to spend as little time in Luanda as possible, a plan that failed miserably: we'd been stuck in the capital for over a month. The situation was desperate. It was time to move on. But, like so many things in Angola, its much easier said than done. For starters we didn't have our passports on us since we were working on getting the visa extended (a topic we'll cover extensively on a subsequent chapter). Whilst the DEFA people insisted you can travel using the receipt they supply, we simply could not bring ourselves to believe that life would be that easy, and no one of authority wanted to confirm this statement - including the Taag Airline people. There were also some more philosophical reasons: you don't see much on a plane; you just get instantly transported from one place to another without being given a chance to understand the context in which these places exist, without seeing the smooth transitions, the slight changes in the landscape, the beginnings of that small river that becomes big and feeds the city. And that is the whole point of long term travelling: to understand. So we started investigating the possibility of getting somewhere overland. The most likely candidates were Benguela and Lobito, the sister cities in the province of Benguela, about half-way down the Angolan coastline. The capital of the province is Benguela, but Lobito is an extremely important economic centre since it is home to the Lobito Port, one of the biggest deep water ports in Africa. Elsa's auntie Nene lives in Lobito, where she teaches at the private university Lusiada - so it seemed like the perfect place. Initial contacts were made and we quickly ascertained that finding cheap accommodation in Lobito would not be trivial. Nene is housed in the university halls of residence, and staying there was not an option. And all her contacts didn't seem to come up with an affordable hostel, catering for two poor backpackers. However, we had a wild card up our sleeves: both Lau and Leonor are from Benguela, and have family there. Through Lau's contacts we found out that his godfather's sister had a little hostel going, for the extremely reasonable price of 40 USD per night, including television and air conditioned. We waited a while longer to see if something would turn up in Lobito, but nothing did, so we asked Lau to confirm our stay at the hostel. Clearly, the operative word in organising things in Angola is not "Internet"; its "Contacts".

Now it was time to sort out transportation. We had conflicting intelligence with regards to the buses to Benguela. On one hand, one of our contacts was convinced that the buses were departing all day long from Rocha Pinto, an infamous musseque. These were candongueiro like buses that waited for customers and left when full; no time table was available. On the other hand, our cousin Rosa was convinced that a fairly organised bus service ran from Multiperfil, or thereabouts, and this service had a timetable, air conditioned and everything else one expects from modern transportation. However, since none of the contacts had actually been on a bus, they didn't know for sure how things worked. In fact, everyone we spoke to was extremely surprised with our decision to go by bus. They first displayed some incredulity: "you're joking, right?! do you know how these buses are like?!". All tried to change our minds, and all had lots of advice on how travelling by plane is faster, safer and actually not that expensive; 100 dollars or so would buy you a ticket. Once they saw that we were actually seriously considering going by bus, they would explain the state of the roads. "Well, I suppose the road to Benguela is one of the good ones, probably the best to travel on... And if you're not taking too much stuff, you shouldn't have to worry too much about being robbed...". Thus encouraged, we decided on this course of action. But before we could know for sure, we had to go on a scouting mission to the bus terminals and see the vehicles with our own eyes, to figure out the missing details such as whether you needed to buy a ticket beforehand, the exact location of the terminal and the timetable - if one did exist.

With Elsa's departure, our mobility was greatly reduced, so we had no option but to venture further inland into the candongueiro transport system. While we were extremely confident on travelling from Mutamba to Ilha, either by Taxi or Candongueiro, we had little experience on any other route. This is a much more severe problem than what it seems to the untrained eye. You see, the whole infrastructure is designed for locals who know what they're doing. There just isn't a candongueiro central information point, explaining all the routes and detailing the most optimal way to get from A to B. People who ride on these things know them inside out, nobody needs external information. The difficult bit is attaining membership to this select club. Our intelligence pointed out to a candongueiro that did the route from Mutamba all the way to Rocha Pinto, precisely what we needed. However, we didn't quite know the exact spot in Mutamba where the stop was, and this is no small place - particularly when there are dozens of candongueiros wizzing past in all directions. And since the cobradores (or ticket inspectors) in the candongueiros just shout reference points, one did not quite know how to make sense of what they were saying. "Angolense!!" - does that go past Rocha Pinto or not? To make matters worse, cobradores and candongueiros in general are always in a rush; its impossible to maintain a conversation with them for more than twenty seconds. You can only ask something like "do you go to Rocha Pinto?" and get a yes or no answer. That is, if they manage to understand what you're saying. And herein lies another of the great difficulties facing the diaspora. No one, not a single young Angolan, seems to understand what we say unless we speak r_e_a_l_l_y s_l_o_w_l_y and with no slang whatsoever. Forget about looking cool, its much more important to be understood. I just don't get it, its like we're speaking in a totally different language - except we use almost identical vocabulary, with words like kota, kubico, kamba, bueh and so on. Don't get me wrong, when they talk back to us, good lord, we can't understand a word of what they're saying either. So we have these hilarious conversations with no meaning whatsoever:

- "What is the price?",
- "Destination is Sao Paulo!"
- ...

It can take quite a while to obtain meaningful information. And then there is one additional complication to this already extremely complex picture. There are not that many non-blacks who travel by candongueiro, and those who do stand out like a sore thumb. This, in a place where unemployment is rife, and where non-black people are seen bu default as rich, is a sure recipe for daylight robbery, unless you appear to be streetwise at all times. And its hardly streetwise to stop in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in town and ask for directions to one of the most notorious musseques of the capital, speaking in a language that no one else understands. So you can imagine our uneasiness. We tried a couple of places in Mutamba, and tried really hard to listen to what the cobradores were saying, but to no avail. We then asked some locals, again with no luck. Shahin was convinced the stop was just up the road, but I started to chicken out and decided the best bet was to go for plan B. There was a second route to get into Rocha Pinto which required changing. And we knew where the first candongueiro departed from; we were standing right on the stop to the airport. When the next available candongueiro appeared, we jumped in.

Once you're in, you actually blend in with the crew fairly quickly. The stares cease. But then the worry is that you miss your stop. After all, the cobrador only tends to announce the final destination; the stops in between are up to the passenger. It stops anywhere in its route, all you need to do is signal your intention. But you need to know where you want to stop. Or you need to ask the cobrador to let you know when your stop comes - something you might just want to avoid when you're about to be dropped in one of the dodgiest parts of town. Fortunately, to our immense relief, our last stop was actually the end of the route. The airport is a large candongueiro interchange, messy, full of people and covered in mud. There one can hear the cobradores shouting almost all the names of all neighbourhoods in town. We had to ask the locals for some help, and, after a couple of tries, we managed to find some nice people that gave us lots of useful information. One thing we found out is that most elder people - elder being over forty - understand fluently the diaspora's Portuguese and are actually really friendly. Almost everyone we met went out of their way to make sure we were all right, and some even did it literally by giving us their seats on a hard to come by candongueiro. Conversely, almost all youngsters were rude, un-understandable and in general totally useless - this is valid for both boys and girls.

Armed with the additional help from our "Mais-Velhos" (elders, in Angolan Portuguese), we easily found transport to Rocha Pinto and jumped in. This time we had no excuse, we had to get out before the last stop. Luckily, some of the people who had heard us asking for information were also in the candongueiro - a couple of middle aged women. They started chatting to Shahin - its rare that we sit next to each other, you sit where there is space and that can be anywhere - and she had to pretend to understand what they were saying without speaking out loud in English. Soon enough we went past a set of buses stopped next to the road, and these really appeared to be the ones we were looking for. A quick exchange with the women convinced me we were in the right place, so we jumped off. In the midst of all the action, we didn't quite realise what we were doing. As soon as the candongueiro moved away and we were left standing in the middle of nowhere, and at that point absolute fear just overcame both of us. We had just been dropped off in the middle of one of the harshest musseques in town, the only non-blacks for miles, and everyone was staring at us point blank. We had been to musseques before, but always inside the safety of the car, always with doors locked and ready to move on if trouble started. This was different, there was nowhere we could move on to, not unless we got back into a candongueiro. This paralysis lasted for a split of a second, which seemed like forever, but then self-preservation kicked in and we immediately started to walk confidently towards the buses. There really were buses of all types, but most of them were just big candongueiros and didn't inspire much confidence for such a long journey. We were desperate to avoid deathtraps, and overall the buses on offer were extremely disappointing. The best buses were not going to Benguela. What the crappier buses didn't have in quality, the cobradores made it up with persistence: as soon as you went past some vehicles, a swarm of cobradores would instantly bombard you with information, telling you that their bus was the best and ready to leave, only waiting for you to get in. They'd follow you for a fair bit, continuously pitching their product over all others. One cobrador followed us for the length of the road, but I think it was mostly due to curiosity - Shahin gets stared at by almost everyone, there aren't that many Asians around. Prices started at 2500 kwanzas, extremely high for the vehicles in question.

Thus disappointed, we decided to move on and go to Multiperfil. Since we didn't know where this was, I thought the best bet was to keep on walking - hey, how far can it be, right? The end of the road was still at some distance, but not too far, hundred metres or so. We walked past all the street vendors and bayaye, past the kids bumming around, past the men carrying heavy loads in their wheelbarrows and past the old people trying to make a living out of whatever nothing happens to come by. Whilst we were afraid of being robbed, the truth was we had nothing on us, nothing that could attract attention - other than our skin colour, of course. The one hundred or so metres seemed to last for ever, dodging rubbish, people, kids, telling vendors we were not interested in whatever they were trying to sell us. After a while it became clear that Multiperfil was not up the road, so we had to again ask for information. We chose a particularly innocuous spot to stop, a place were people were already waiting for candongueiros, and waited for a suitable candidate. After a while, a middle aged man came and we asked if it was possible to walk to Multiperfil. He laughed at the idea and helped us get on the right candongueiro. We still had the slight problem of not knowing where our stop was, but after so much excitement we lost all fear and asked people inside for information. The candongueiro dropped us around the corner from Multiperfil, which until then we didn't know what it was. Turns out its a very large eye clinic. The bus terminal, however, was nowhere to be seen. We asked for some information in the local supermarket where Mr Sayeed, probably the only non-black, non-Portuguese for miles, told us in a broken Portuguese that the buses stopped right in front of his door but we had just missed one. This was extremely disappointing, we were expecting something a lot more organised than that. We left the shop - not before being robbed blind by Mr Sayeed on the bottle of water we bought - and waited outside. Time went by, and nothing happened. We decided to double-check the information provided by Mr Sayeed, only to find that it was totally inaccurate. There was indeed a bus terminal up the road. We walked in the direction indicated, less than two hundred metres, and a terminal (in the Western sense of the word) appeared. The company running the buses is SGO (also known as Interprovincial). They didn't have any more tickets, but if we turn up early in the morning, around 5:30 or so, we should be able to buy the tickets and travel to Benguela. Prices were similar to the candongueiros, 2400 kwanzas, but the buses looked a lot more reliable. Air con was dependent on the vehicle, we were told, but it was most likely not going to be available. Journey time was not known. Best ask the driver for some estimates. The scouting had been completed successfully.

Returning to Mutamba was a much easier mission, since there were candongueiros in Multiperfil that went straight there. We boarded one and got dropped just behind Mutamba, near Papelaria Fernandes. This is the stop for these candongueiros, and Shahin's intuition had actually pointed her in the right direction earlier on, had I only listened to her. We walked up from Mutamba to a local bar, where we had some really cold drinks in the esplanada - I had a thoroughly deserved draught Cuca, the Angolan beer of choice. Now all we had to do was to get to Multiperfil at 5:30 in the morning. Lau very courageously volunteered to drop us off, and this was a massive win as I don't think we would have been able to make it otherwise. We still had some fun in the morning, going back to Rocha Pinto to make sure there weren't any other, more modern buses, but there weren't, so we ended up just going to Multiperfil, buying the tickets and boarding the bus. Very unfortunately our troubles were far from over. The seats on the bus were numbered, and we got given those right on top of the wheel, with absolutely no leg room - even a five foot person would have struggled. To make matters worse, we had no room on the overhead compartments so we had to keep our bags on top of our legs for the duration of the journey. We were not the worse ones though, as some people shared their seats with two and three kids - you pay on a per seat basis and kids don't have to pay. Air conditioned (AC) was certainly not available - didn't look like it ever was on that bus - so we had to stick with the CA (Corrente de Ar in Portuguese, or Air Current; i.e. open the windows). Most passengers were of the decent, honest, working people sort, with the exception of a few youngsters; just as luck would have it, these were right around us: in front, to our right and behind us.

When we asked the ticket inspector about the duration of the journey, he said it was very hard to give exact timings but he thought we should be in Benguela before two o'clock. Departure time was going to be punctual, at six o'clock on the dot. The bus did depart roughly on time, and when we left the terminal, all passengers were neatly seated. However, things started to change as soon as we moved away from the terminal. The driver, once freed from the strict control of the head office, started to supplement his lowly wages with additional income on the side. This works as follows: people ask for the bus to stop, just like you would with a candongueiro, at which point the driver tells you the bus is full - but if you're able to handle it, well, there are standing places available. These "seats" are cheaper and don't go through the books. The journey continued in this haphazard manner, stopping every so often in inner Luanda to pick up passengers, at which point the crowd would start cussing - "we ain't getting there today!", "come on!". Eventually the driver filled the corridor with people to his satisfaction and the Luandan traffic was left behind. The route we took was the same we did when visiting Cabo Ledo, except this time we went past it and kept on going. Three or so hours into the journey a strange smell of burnt rubber invaded the bus. We couldn't quite figure out what it was for a bit, until the driver decided to stop and inspect it. The bus had a puncture. The operation that followed it was remarkable. All the kids and women left the bus and sat by the shade on the other side of the road; all the men and boys went to help out the driver in changing the tire. They all seemed to be experts in tire-changing, and everyone knew exactly what to do. In less than thirty minutes the old tire had been replaced by a new one, and it was securely tightened by a group of able young man - including the troublemakers surrounding us. Yet again I managed to clearly stand out from the group as I had absolutely no idea on what to do, so I decided to keep quiet and observe the proceedings. We were again on our way. The bus then reached a small town and was immediately assaulted by all types of sellers, shouting their wares: "Gasosa, Gasosa!!", "Bolacha, Bolacha!", "Banana, Banana!!", "Ginguba, Ginguba!!". Money exchanged hands through the windows, food was purchased and consumed there and then, all this without the passengers having to leave their seats. The resulting rubbish was mercilessly thrown out of the window, much to our dissatisfaction and general cringe. Four hours or so into the trip and we reached Sumbe. Here the driver made a "quick" break for lunch and toilets, fifteen minutes or so. These were, obviously, in units of Angolan Time. Over an hour later we finally drove on. However, the road that had been our faithful companion until then... disappeared. Yes, that's right, up till that point there was tarmac on the road - some holes here and there, some really bad parts, but tarmac was always present nonetheless. From Sumbe onwards the road is best described as, well, as being off-road really. Every so often there is a stretch of a kilometre or so of tarmac but its then followed by twenty or more kilometres of dirt tracks, full of huge holes. This remaining stretch of the journey is absolutely dire. There is only a bit of respite when one stops for a short break in Canjala, a lovely lush place in the interior, so green it could be Vietnam or Cambodia. The Angolan interior is full of such greenery. But it was hard to appreciate the sights in such a confined space, unable to move due to both rucksacks and lack of legroom, and general tiredness caused by waking up so extremely early. It was a trying journey. Every so often we would look at each other and just laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. You looked out of the window and all you could see was this long, never ending road, surrounded by greenery on both sides, chasing the horizon and ending far, far away. The road just didn't seem to have an end. Every so often a candongueiro or a jeep would overtake us, or a truck would move slowly in front of us, and the whole bus would get filled with fine, powdery dust. The entire bus population would then simultaneously close their windows, only to open them up on the first chance we got since the heat was oppressive.

Around eleven hours after departing from Luanda, we reached Lobito. Many of the passengers and their loads left the bus, much to our satisfaction, allowing us to have a little bit more of space. About an hour later we reached Benguela, taking a grand total of twelve hours. As we left the bus we were immediately assaulted by an army of taxi drivers, in Benguela done mostly by bikers, all trying to convince us to go with them. Thanks to Lau, we were fortunate enough to have Joelson pick us up from the bus station (which is also the train station). I actually knew Joelson from the 'hood, since he is a friend of Carla (Nogas), but couldn't recall him when I heard his name. I instantly recognised him when I saw him. We were just so incredibly grateful to travel in any kind of comfort. We reached the hostel and liked what we saw; the facilities were of a very good standard. But, priorities, priorities! We had to immediately have a shower, removing the thick layer of dirt that covered us.

We were now officially in Benguela.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 9

Ilha

Luanda's Marginal is the heart and soul of the city. It is a large road that circumscribes the bay, offering an excellent view. The bay is strikingly beautiful, both night and day, but more so at night, when the bright city lights are shinning and the darkness hides the less pretty parts. Its definitely worth seeing it during the day, though. As you walk up the Marginal there are quite a few colonial buildings that have been renovated, like the National Bank, and some new ones being built such as the high-rise Sonangol building - Sonangol being the state's oil company. Unfortunately, like in all of Luanda, a stunning large building is followed by either a bit of wasteland, some run-down flats in various stages of decay or, at best, a fenced-up area reserved for a construction site. And the sidewalks on the city-side of the Marginal are of the usual atrocious standard. The bay-side does appear to have been properly maintained, or recently redone, and it even sports some benches for better gazing at the sea.

The port of Luanda sits at one end of the Marginal. Its impossible to underestimate the importance of the port since it is the source of almost all goods you find in shops. The country's industrial output outside of oil is down to practically zero and agriculture fares a little bit better, but not much, so imports rule the day. In addition, since the roads linking the provinces were badly affected by the war and years of neglect, trucks cannot come from across the border or other provinces to bring in the goods to Luanda - the city where most Angolans live. So they are transported either via plane or, more likely, via large ships. The situation is changing with the reconstruction effort, which has already resulted in the reopening of many key links, but you still hear a lot of people in Luanda complain that fruit and meat rot down south in Lubango because they haven't got anyone to sell it to, while at the same time folks in the capital are paying top prices for foreign meat and juices, some of very dubious quality.

At the other end of Marginal is the entry into the Ilha, or island of Luanda. Ilha is a long strip of land that sits in front of the bay, as if designed to shelter it, to protect it. At one time Ilha was a real island - hence the name - and what is now the road into it was a narrow stretch of water. The Portuguese decided to link it to the main land, and filled the gap with rocks. This was done back in the days where haste and bravado ruled the day rather than engineering, so, as you can imagine, not a lot of analysis was done to understand the impact of the change. Turns out the little stretch of water had actually an important role to play, as it allowed water to flow into the bay. Once it was gone, little islets started appearing in the bay in low tide. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, the government has recently approved a polemic project that will modify the bay dramatically, reclaiming some land from the sea to enlarge the road. It may also add some large buildings to the other side of the Marginal, which would be a real shame. One just has to hope that this time the environmental impact analysis was slightly more thorough.

There's a long road that traverses Ilha. Travelling up it, one can see musseques alternating with large beach cafes, nice private houses and the usual bits of wasteland but this time with the ocean at the end. Ilha is the closest beach to town, so its pretty busy during the day, in particular on weekends and holidays. On our first few visits to Ilha we were not aware that the cafe's "private" beaches were not actually private. So we went to random bits of beach, and unfortunately most of them have a lot of rubbish. People here are still very casual with their rubbish in Angola, and they throw it all over the place. Granted, the government has sorted out the huge crisis of waste collection that existed a few years ago, but now the problem is one of social conscience. I recall those days in Portugal when people used to go to the beach and leave the sand full of Coke cans and plastic bags and thought nothing of it. Somehow it became socially unacceptable to do that. The problem still exists there, of course, but its nowhere nearly as bad as it was in the eighties. Angola is a lot like Portugal back then. People still finish their cans or bottles and casually throw them into the sea, and this includes the Portuguese and diaspora here too, who seem to copycat the locals. As a result, when you go to one of the non-concessioned beaches in Ilha, you'll have to put up with crisp packets and cans laying around. Not huge amounts, mind you - its not a dump or anything - but there's enough of it to give it a "polluted feel". You can't just choose any random bit of sand, you need to look for a clean area.

Of course, as we found out, only the commoners go to these beaches. The cafes have concessioned beaches which are actually available to the general public; you can go there without spending a dime. In most cases you can even access these beaches by walking up from the sand and there are no security guards to stop you. However, there is some kind of invisible force here at work, some kind of unexplained social magnetism law that creates a very effective barrier, disallowing the poorer people of the musseque across the road from stopping there. They do trek past these places, some times in small groups, other times one lone individual or two, but somehow never seem to stop for long. The crowd at the cafes and their beaches is very much an in-crowd. Five metres down the road everyone is black, the two of us standing out; here, there's an eclectic mix of black, white, chinese and mulatto; Portugal's Portuguese is spoken as frequently as Angolan Portuguese and in some corners one can hear English, French and Mandarin. The beaches are much cleaner, if not totally spotless. However, we found that the best way to enjoy these beaches is at an ever so slight distance, as the air is somewhat rarefied and the poshness and pseudo poshness is, at times, too hard to bear. So we tend to stay there only when we're meeting someone; the alternative is to sit twenty or thirty meters from one of these cafes, where one gets the best of both worlds. Maybe we struggle because we are the only ones to arrive at these places in a candongueiro or a mashed-up taxi, and that immediately puts us on the lower strata of society. It appears that we've also hit the invisible barrier and been forced back, only perhaps just not as far back as most locals. However, if you ever come to Luanda you must try at least once some of these haunts: Sao Jorge, Miami, Chill Out, Tamariz, Jango Veleiro. There are many to choose from. Some of these places are really, really nice inside. For instance, Miami Club could be in any beach in Ibiza, so cool and hip it is. The others are at the same level, if not higher.

Although there are quite a few places to go out in Luanda, Ilha seems to be epicentre of night-life. The beach clubs get even busier at night. Restaurants are busy too, and some of them are quite remarkable. For instance, Cais de Quatro has an excellent view of the bay and excellent food. When you're finished with the food, you can walk over to its sister-space Bar In, always ready to greet you. These places are quite enjoyable at night, even those which seem too pretentious during the day. I suppose its a mental thing. Perhaps we feel posher at night. But be prepared to spend, as a dinner at Cais de Quatro for two people wont be any less than 100 USD (8000 Kwanzas).

Ilha is our default location here in Luanda and we've been to it many times. Whenever there's nothing else planned, whenever our contacts are not around and the sun is shinning, we do the fifteen minute walk to Mutamba, turn right towards Nando's and descend towards the National Bank. There, people congregate as if in an invisible bus terminal. Most Europeans only see a parking lot and some wasteland but Angolans can clearly see a large central candongueiro and taxi interchange. There are many like these scattered around town. Just wait a few minutes and you'll hear someone shouting "Ilha, Ilha" in a loud, almost mechanical voice. On hearing this voice, particularly on busy days, the crowd springs in to life. Everyone reacts simultaneously to the call and attempts to board the vehicle, instantly disregarding any queueing that may have existed till then. If you're fast and lucky enough to get in, you'll be in Ilha in fifteen minutes. If not, no matter. Wait a few minutes more and the next taxi or candongueiro will arrive. Although they don't run to any known timetable, except perhaps an invisible one, they come as frequently as buses in Central London.

One day, as we were returning from Ilha, the harsh reality of life in Angola hit us straight in the face. Suddenly there was some commotion in the candongueiro, but we couldn't immediately understand what was the reason for it. To our right there was a private ambulance, and, like us, it was crawling at a snail pace towards town. We were all stuck in the horrendous Luandan traffic, somewhat less usual in Ilha at that time of day. People inside the van were shouting at the ambulance, and eventually I understood what they were saying. "You're an ambulance, why don't you go and pick up the kid?! If there's no money you don't do any work, you don't care if people die!". I couldn't hear the replies of the ambulance drivers, if any were said. Then, on our left we saw the inert body of a little kid, perhaps some twelve or thirteen years old. There was blood on his face and on his shirt. Cops where surrounding the body, but it clearly had been moved from the middle of the road to the side, to the gutter, so that the traffic could flow and it was obvious the move was done without any regards for internal injuries. There were no stopped cars or bikes near the cops, so one was forced to conclude that this was a hit-and-run. If the kid wasn't already dead, he was sure to die due to lack of medical care. We didn't halt the candongueiro to figure out what was going on, to try to convince the private ambulance to stop. Instead, like everybody else, we just kept on going, complaining about the state of affairs but doing nothing about it. This is probably the hardest thing about living in a poor country: the need to develop a thick layer to insulate you from reality. I wrote a poem a while ago, called "Little Black Child", and it came to my head then:

oh, my little black child
with your young, naive face
oh, how much i wish i could help you
hold you in a tight, warm embrace
you are our hopes, our dreams!
you are the future of our race!
but you dwell in a far, far away slum,
where you live, and where you die without a trace.
you are a nameless, shirtless body,
living everywhere but belonging to no place.

oh, my child, this is not your world
you have no nation and no state
you must be deprived amidst all the riches;
and, amongst all knowledge, you must learn only hate.
you see, my child, they have broken us, broken us bad
they have left us in a very sorry state.
they took our civilization, our glories, our past.
they erased us from history and determined our fate.
we are nothing and no one now, child;
there is nothing we can create.

child, my heart is shattered
but i cannot help you, i cannot
you are destined not to learn
not to know the proud history of our lot:
of the great yoruba, the brave kwanyama;
of the mighty warriors who stood tall and fought.
of those who ran away from the chains;
of those who tried but were caught.
they all gave their lives for yours, child
and they all have died for naught
for you have no future;
and, when you die, no one will spare a thought.

Suddenly it struck me that our deepest feelings of sorrow come when one can't actually do anything to change the world; but, when time comes for action, many of us are found wanting. Morrissey stated it best: "it takes guts to be gentle and kind".

Fortaleza

On Christmas day we decided to visit Fortaleza. Fortaleza, or "Big Fort", sits at the entrance of the Ilha junction, towering above it and overlooking both the bay and the city behind it. Fortaleza is a very old Portuguese castle-like building, originally created to defend the city from other predatory colonial nations, and these days it hosts the army's museum. Standing from Marginal, Fortaleza gives you a deserted, not-open-to-the-public look, but we were not fooled by it and climbed the many steps to the top. As we got close to the summit, we bumped into closed gates and a couple of army officers behind them. These gates are like a parable designed to explain Africa to Europeans. Here we are in a public building, open to all Angolans. Yet, the closed gates - they appeared to have been closed for a while - deny access to it during its opening hours. The soldiers behind the gates sit there, day in, day out but - and here's the crux of the parable - instead of opening the gates, they direct people to a beaten track around the bushes to get access to the next flight of stairs. This, to me, represented the whole philosophy of survival in Angola and perhaps even of Africa at large. Lord knows how many hoops one has to jump through to get the authorisation to open up a set of gates, and no one would dare doing it without clearance. But you do have the authority to create a new path in the bush, no one is going to hold it against you. Whenever the system raises up a barrier, people always found ways of routing around it, in this case all too literally.

Once you get to the top, you are rewarded with a panoramic view of Luanda, stretching as far as the eye can see. Since Fortaleza is a circular building, you can walk around it to view the different parts of the city. Behind it, there is the rather large Praia do Bispo musseque. Many kids seem to come up from the musseque to gaze at their city. However, perhaps due to the large presence of the military, the place appears to be quite safe. There were some Portuguese and French families up there, and the kids where roaming freely. Nevertheless, make sure to exit via Marginal - never by Praia do Bispo.

Watching the sunset from Fortaleza is an enriching experience.

Cabo Ledo

One sunny Sunday we headed off to Cabo Ledo. Normally you need to leave early in the morning as the trip takes a couple of hours or so, but this is Angola and everyone works in Angolan Time, so after a long wait we ended up leaving at one'ish. We crossed town and headed towards Benfica. Here you can see some nice views of Mussulo, Curimba, and the other islets that compose this little archipelago. On the way we stopped at the Miradouro da Lua, the Moonscape. This is a really high, really eerie sort of place, and it does indeed remind you of the Moon or some other inhabited planet.

A good few miles down the road, Barra do Kwanza appeared. This is an immense, unimaginable long stretch of beach, but unfortunately we only managed to see it from afar. We then headed towards the famous Kwanza river, the one which the currency is named after. Unlike Namibia, Angola is very fortunate in terms of drinking water. There are many large rivers, and most of them flow even during the dry season. The Kwanza can be forded via the new toll bridge, costing around 200 Kwanzas per vehicle. The toll has to be paid both ways, so it will set you back 400 Kwanzas in total. The river is a rather large green stream, flowing at pace. From the bridge it looks rather clean, unlike most European rivers. I suppose Angola still hasn't got the bane of industry to destroy her rivers.

Eventually, after a long drive, we reached an unsuspecting sign on the road. A rather small crab with no writing on it, or none that I can recall, marks the road leading down to the beach in Cabo Ledo. Its so small we went past it and had to come back. From then on, the remainder of the way is a "picada", or bush road, full of holes and can only be done in a big jeep. Its only a few metres long but it takes a while to get there because the road is so bad. This is in striking contrast with the road leading up to the detour, which for the most part has been recently redone. All and all, it is a pleasant drive, minus the last leg of the journey.

In Cabo Ledo, we were invited to Paulo's house. While at high-school, Paulo was taught by both of my cousins and is now a fairly successful entrepreneur. Amongst many other dabblings, he is now building a set of bungalows near his house in Cabo Ledo. He is a nice, affable chap, but his most distinguishing trait is an innate ability to stir controversy in any conversation. In someways, all mulattos have this ability, its just something we're really good at. I suppose, not being part of any culture in particular, but being able to claim all of them as your own, makes you a sort of a rebel from inception. And we all like to brag, to stir trouble. Mulattos always remind me of the Monkey in African fables: the king of mischief, forever causing trouble. However, even for a mulatto, Paulo has this trait in a concentrated, distilled, potent form. You spend every minute with him in permanent laughter, holding on to your insides. For instance, when asked whether he was going to have any partners in the bungalows business, he said something along the lines of: "Partners?! Are you crazy? Trust no one! If I hire a white man, give him a couple of months and he'll be running the business, and will find some ways of kicking me out! If I get a mulatto he'll think he's cleverer than everybody else and find all sorts of ways of robbing me blind! And if I get a black man, you can imagine the amounts of parties he'll organise here when I'm not around, besides robbing me!!! You can't trust these people!!". He says this in the serious, loud, high-pitched voice all Angolans use when absorbed in good conversation, a tone so high that sounds to most foreigners as if we're having an argument when in reality its just the usual friendly banter. Paulo helped me understand the dual nature of the mulatto. When asked whether he was Portuguese, he answered yes. But, was he Angolan? Yes, of course. And, what was he, white, black or mulatto? All of the above, but of course. Yet, all the same, he would have no problem slagging "those" white, blacks and mulattos, and when he was slagging them he was not, of course, part of them. But he was, too. That's what we are, really, a sort of a chameleon. During the world cup I had no problems supporting Angola, even against Portugal, but also supported Portugal with equal fervour in all games - except when playing against Angola - and, of course, one has to always support Brazil. After all, one must not forget that most of the black Brazilians are really Angolans. The logic has always been so crisp that I never really reasoned about it that much. Its only when I had to explain it to my English and Portuguese friends that it struck me how complex our feelings of belonging are. Everybody else has a country; we have none, yet we have many.

Paulo had many guests in the house, an eclectic mix of Angolans and Portuguese. After saying hello to all of them, we went down to the beach. It was mostly deserted, with the fishing villages at the bottom. Occasionally some fishermen walked down towards their huts. The beach in Cabo Ledo is large, full of lovely whitish sand and very clean. It was slightly windy on the day, but the sun shone so it was still quite hot. We had a nice swim and spotted some fish while snorkeling, but not huge amounts as the current was strong and we were afraid of going too far. After the swim we went back to the house and had some amazing grilled lobster, freshly caught by the fishermen. They sell a kilo of lobster for 700 Kwanzas, which sounded great until we found out from Paulo that they were selling it for 400 Kwanzas just one year ago. Prices have gone up dramatically, as there are many more people coming here from the city. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, eating lobster and drinking. Around nine o'clock we started to drive back. Not many people drive in Angola at night, and its easy to understand why: the roads are pitch black dark. I've only experienced this level of darkness once, in Green Cape. Its impossible to describe it, its so dark your window looks like its covered with a thick black sheet of paper. If you look up you can see the starry sky, everything else is covered in darkness. As we drove towards the city we kept on wondering what would happen if the jeep broke down somewhere in the middle of this emptiness. And, in fact, we went past a couple of trucks that seemed to have had that fate, with the drivers sleeping underneath them, waiting for rescue in the morrow. The drive back to Luanda was uneventful and we managed to get back home without any problems.

Mussulo

We spent New Year's eve in Mussulo. As I mentioned earlier, this is the largest island of a small archipelago off of Luanda. While Ilha is mostly reserved for day outings, Mussulo is the touristic destination of choice to spend a couple of days or longer stretches of time. However, the snag is you really need to have a house there - or have a friend who has a friend who has a house there - because there aren't many places where you can stay, and those that do exist are rather expensive. A bungalow can be as much as 100 dollars per person (8000 Kwanzas) per day. You can bring your tent and camp in the wild but this is not recommended, not just for fear of thieves but also because you won't be able to shower or wash unless some kind soul allows access to their house. We were lucky to have Elsa, who knows a really friendly couple whose parents have a house in Mussulo. After catching a lift with another mate, we got ferried across by a candongueiro (the boats are also called candongueiros). These motor boats are actually pretty good, not too overloaded and even have life-jackets. However, being New Year's Eve the prices had been greatly inflated: we paid 1000 Kwanzas instead of the usual 500, the additional 500 being the "boas-festas" for the boat drivers. In Angola, even more so than in the financial markets, all traders react in nanoseconds to the smallest fluctuation on the demand-supply curve and adjust their prices accordingly.

The trip into Mussulo was very nice, with a fairly calm sea. To our left we could see the Curimba island, deserted these days, but at one time inhabited by priests. The remains of a church are still visible. Further to the left there's another desert island, but this is mainly a wild life sanctuary and there is nothing on it other than lots of mangroves and birds. After a fifteen minute boat ride, we reached our destination. Elsa and the rest of the guys were coming on another boat, and met us at the island a few hours later. In the mean time, we spent our morning enjoying the nice, quiet beach. Mussulo is actually quite large, and its full of houses constructed in a haphazard manner. There aren't any roads, or any organisation. People just bought land and made their houses. Some of these houses are really close to the sea, so much so that if you walk up the beach you'll frequently need to cross someone's property to be able to continue going forward. They don't appear to be that safe, particularly when the sea is rougher. Those who can afford it spend a lot of money on their beach houses and, as a result, they look stunning.

Once everyone got there and settled in, myself and the girls went to the contra-costa, while the other boys went fishing. Contra-costa is the other side of Mussulo, facing the high seas. Its actually a bit of a walk to get there, around half-hour or so, and navigating through the sand can be a bit tiring. We walked past a little village where the real locals live, and we're fortunate enough to enlist a little girl as a guide. Somehow we had managed to get a bit lost and we're going the really long way. She took us all the way to our destination. Mussulo's contra-costa has a lovely beach, and unlike the other side its mostly deserted, with only little bamboo huts here and there. Most people don't really like coming this far. The sea is a bit rough here, though. The currents are really strong, and you can tell you're on high-seas as soon as you get in. However, if you're brave enough to get in you'll be instantly rewarded: the sea is full of fish. Huge schools roam undisturbed, literally two or three metres from the sand. Snorkeling here is absolutely fantastic, but one cannot avoid feeling a bit afraid, since when there's pray there are always some predators lurking around. Shahin was a bit afraid of going too far, but myself, Elsa and Dora spent almost all the time in the water spotting different kinds of fish. We returned before dusk for dinner, as its not wise to walk around in the dark.

New Year's eve was all about eating food, drinking, swimming, catching some sun rays and eating some more. At night, we had a meal at the house and then set up a table five metres from the sea. There we had the traditional raisins and sweets and some champagne. It was a quiet, subdued, family affair, but it was very nice - probably one of the most memorable New Year's I've had. I suspect this was also quite memorable for Shahin, as it was the first time ever she slept in a tent. Setting it up was the usual nightmare, but we had the help of all the boys and girls so we managed to get it up fairly quickly. After some initial fears, and after putting lots of sand inside the tent, Shahin managed to cope with it all reasonably well. The local animals and insects also decided to cooperate by not entering the tent, which really helped. I can only imagine Shahin finding a spider at 5 o'clock in the morning and waking up the whole of Mussulo with her screams. Next day myself and Shahin walked up almost all the way to the Lingua, one of the ends of the island, taking us around two hours in total. We walked past the expensive tourist bungalows, and they do look rather nice. There are also many large houses. We returned to Luanda after lunch.

A few days later we came back to Mussulo. This time we came on the boat belonging to the owner of the house. The boat departed from the Elf dock, much less protected by the islands and so suffering from a much rougher sea. Also, the boat was much smaller. To make matters worse, we were supposed to get there for 12 o'clock but only arrived at around three, a time at which the sea is very rough in this particular spot. We started our trip but the boat kept on dipping into the waves in a way that didn't look too safe. The girls behind me didn't look too good. Eventually, after a few minutes of fighting against the waves, our intrepid captain Luky determined that we could not proceed with this much weight and we had to go back. We then drove to another private dock further down the road, much more sheltered from the high seas, and departed from there. This time the trip was quiet and we got there without any major problems. Once we got there, I went fishing with the boys. It was an extraordinary experience. I actually thought I hated fishing, but this was because I associated it to catching fish. It couldn't be further from the truth. It would be more accurate to call it boating, or something similar. Fishing is only incidental; one spends most of the time gazing, looking at wild-life - some of the boys spotted large turtles - and drinking beer. We stopped near Curimba and caught some mussels for fishing. As we were on our way back we caught a Barracuda, which was just as well as we needed some fish for dinner. Next day we also went fishing, but this time on a larger boat. We didn't catch anything but went really far. That's when I realised how big Mussulo is. It continues on forever, becoming more and more sparsely populated, with less and less beach houses. We didn't even get to the end of it. After fishing, we had lunch and played some volleyball, but unfortunately my team got humiliated by the old codgers yet again. Not long after that we set sail back to Luanda.

Other Adventures

Other than the outings we had, I suppose the most interesting adventure was the paludismo episode. Paludismo is the Portuguese name for Malaria. I had a couple of days of fever, around 38 degrees, but it all went away. The first fever was funny in itself: we bought a mercury thermometer in England, one of those cheap jobs. The thing is, not only does it take some practise to read it properly but you also have to wait four minutes to do each reading. And to think we actually debated buying a ten pound digital thermometer but decided against it in the end. That's when Jojo's words came to mind, that one time on the subject of condoms, but totally applicable to the situation at hand: "hey man, that's not exactly the sort of stuff you want to save money on...". Oh well, onwards. After a good couple of days with no temperature, I had another day of fever. We had decided to go to the doctor's if I was still feeling ill in the morning but, lo and behold, I was fine again next day. A few days went by and I got feverish again. We went up to the local private clinic, five minutes walk from my aunty's house, and did a basic paludismo test called the Gota. It came up negative. We then went to see the doctor, a Cuban GP. She spoke a really broad Spanish, and I was just about able to keep up with her. Shahin remains convinced she wasn't speaking in Spanish, so broad the Cuban accent was. The doctor, somewhat jokingly but with a hint of seriousness, told me that I must be Angolan. You can always tell a foreigner from an Angolan because all Angolans do the cheap Gota test for paludismo instead of the more expensive analysis. The problem is the Gota is not entirely accurate, more so when you are taking the profilaxia - this is the name given to the Lariam treatment recommended in England. After shouting at us quite a lot for doing the profilaxia - she is adamant that the damage done to the liver is much greater than any benefits - she gave me a paper with a whole load of tests to take. We had already spent sixty dollars just to see the doctor and this new battery of tests set us back another sixty dollars. But, since we could not account for the fever we had no option but to take these tests. One of them was a blood test, but Shahin kept a watchful eye on the nurse to make sure she was using a new needle and clean gloves. About a couple of hours later the results where ready and we went back to the doctor. She had a look at the results and, indeed, I had paludismo - the dreaded malaria. She then prescribed some drugs and told us to keep an eye on my body temperature. I complained all the way to the chemist, "how can this be since I haven't got a single mosquito bite?". We bought the medicine, another fifteen dollars or so, and went back home. Interestingly enough, as soon as I started taking the medicine she prescribed the fever went away, and, touch wood, it hasn't returned since.

Another interesting event was my birthday. My cousin Rosa organised a very nice dinner at her place, with lots of people including Ica and Elsa. It was great fun, and the food was delicious - it's impossible to decide on which dish was the best one. The night ended with a drink at Chill Out, a very nice bar down at Ilha.