Angola, Angola - a tale of “tręs cavaleiros”

[Would I?]

Great report so far thanks.

[watkykjy]

Excellent Bezerker!
Why have you not told how we kakked off ?
HAHAHA

[ALLAWYN]

Great report, well written, well ridden and easy to identifiy with.

[Beserker]

Excellent Bezerker!
Why have you not told how we kakked off ?
HAHAHA

The diarrhea only started much later, if I remember correctly!

[BlueBull2007]

Absolutely fantastic stuff guys!

Keep it coming. Its great motivation for me to finish my RR 

[Heimer]

Man, I am enjoying this.

Thanks

 

[domstes]

Man this itch is getting worse every time I read more! 

[KAT-WP]

Well start the bloody thing.....

 

[KAT-WP]

Was lekka to see u guys @ KTM past Wednesday & Beserker, I know u guys had AWSUM trip as u told me.....those pics just get better and better, love the beach pics esp, great RR so far, thanks

[LuckyStriker]

Awesome, awesomer, awesomest
Can't wait to read more of it

[lemac]

Amazing!!!

[ThomTom]

Please do not make us sit the whole weekend without the next chapter, it is just not fair!

[Tankwa]

Great RR and brilliant photo's guys. Looking forward for the rest !

[Beserker]

Absolutely fantastic stuff guys!

Keep it coming. Its great motivation for me to finish my RR  

And I thought we enduring...till Tuesday night that is!  Great meeting you !

Was lekka to see u guys @ KTM past Wednesday ..

Long time no see, great to see you again...we need to go ride, what what?

[Beserker]

Angola, Angola

A tale of “tręs cavaleiros”

Day 7, 8 and 9, Namibe to Cuito Cuanevale via Lubango, Matala, Cuvango, Menogue.

Leaving Flamingo, we opted to follow the coast rather than the river road and the tarred stretch to Namibe.

Not plain sailing though, eventually you do need too move inland to skirt this canyon, and hit the tar about 7 km before Namibe.


 
Danie and Pete also went on weighless, again…Pete lost a tent, Danie his sleeping bag 

Namibe gave us our first taste of Angola city traffic, and although nothing compared to Lubango  --  ANARCHY – with driving on the right hand side of the road, no road markings, no rules, what – what?

In Namibe I went to change money and buy food whilst Danie fixed a puncture..initially the police had an issue with him pulling the bike onto a bench on the pavement, but no issue with him pulling a bench into the road, and then fixing the tyre. 



As with everywhere else where we stopped, pretty soon a crowd gathered around us, and Danie hurried his repairs…to hurried as it turned out, about 20km outside of Namibe:



en route to Lubango…remnants of the Portugese colonial era.


 

Not much worth noting of the route to Lubango, except two things, the most horrendous car and truck wrecks littered the side of the road (a grim reminder why we stick to off road as far as possible) and Leba pass.


 
An engineering feat, but still a tar road as far as I’m concerned.



Went past the “Biker Pub” and although we were offered accommodation, the place was being renovated and according to Juan, will be back to business as usual by November.

We opted for free camping at Tuandevale, about 27km outside Lubango, on the edge of the escarpment.

Bumping into a crowd we met at Flamingo, we were offered coffee by Wim and Rosarie, and a pleasant night was spend around the campfire..



Tuandevale, notorious for the fact that people falling into disfavour to who ever was the ruling party at the time - were thrown over the side…not the place to camp if you are prone to sleepwalking.



Knowing the history, sent shivers down my spine standing on the edge.

We also did the touristy thing - Dorsland Trekker memorial:



 

Christo Rei:


 
From here we “slabbed” it to Menogue, the consensus was to get this West – East stretch, on the fringe of civilisation washing down from the richer North, over and done with…we were going to get down and ride it, one day should be enough.

Lunchspot:


 
Bridge/Damwall at Matala, and I’m gatvol of “civilisation”:



 


Roman Cathlic cathedral in Kuvango,



On par for this part of the world, shot to pieces.


 
From here, the intermittend dirt turned to glorious full time dirt, and within minutes of leaving town, we were back in outback Africa, crossing the Cuchi on a bridge built by some Swedish relief agency,



The old bridge, coutesy of some shell, forms part of the rapids, which I would imagine to be to any river rat’s liking. (There is over a 100km of this, just in this one stretch)



Soon after we made camp, attracting local attention as usual.



After dinner, about to retire, we heard the faint murmur of a small bore engine approaching, a few minutes later, a 2 candlewatt light became visible…blow me over, a hunting party retuning to Cuchi:



Check out the drivers headtorch, about the best light of the whole setup.

The next day we set out, determined to make Cuito Cuanavale.

Following the sandy Guchi dirttrack,


 
we eventually intersected the dirt road that services the new railroad being built by the Chinese. Leading straight to Menogue, we took a left turn and headed there for some petrol.



In the middle of nowhere, railway station built by Chinese.



Some old bridges, and make-shift alternatives.



In Menogue, a sizable city, only one petrol pump working, and we had to queue.



We were promptly, and with consent from everybody, waved to the front…once again ANARCHY! With petrol splashing everywhere, the attendant managed the whole business with alacrity, pumping the next client whilst sorting out the change for about three clients back.

From Menogue we headed out towards Cuito, the ravages of war, after all these years, still very much in your face….what a fucked up business, war.

























A previous thread on Angola contained a qoute by a fellow dog…

 “ When two elephant bulls fight, it is the grass that gets trampled”

Sitting on the turrent of this tank,



I took the below picture, a wide angle stitched together shot  - apologies for the poor quality, but if I can describe.

As far as the eye can see, the little communities along the Longa river were going about their end-of-day business, washing clothes, bathing in the river…the kids playing in the water, the balmy air giving one a sense of well being.  The sound of laughter and singing filled the air.
I could not help but think of the elephant bull analogy, and how fortunate it was that the grass straigtened up, sprouted new roots and started growing again…a sense of sadness filled me - so much senseless violence when whole nations are led by their noses by puppet politicians and their generals, fuelled by propaganda from the puppetmasters, big business….food for thought.



We made Cuito Cuanavale late afternoon, and reported to the police station. The commander rocked up, and although hampered by the language barrier, we gathered that he wanted to know if we wanted a tour of the battlefields (if possible please), did we bring bibles (no…no packing space on the bikes),  we have to go see the administrator..and off we went.

The administrator was ill disposed, and could not grant us an interview, so went trooping off after the commander and his aide de camp, both off them on a 200cc Chinese single. Getting to sandy patches, the side kick would hop off smartly, push the commander through, and hop on…all of this with three 650cc thumpers in tow, falling over due to the slow pace.

I was not much into the battlefield tour, I needed to negotiate from the commander permission for a North - South passage.

Additional information would also be welcome, on Mapsource it looks like this..(A rough estimate, about the size of Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Free State put together, quite big.



The yellow, a definate as it is the major route servicing the area, the pink “a to be confirmed” meaning it has been driven before, although information on it is virtually non existent. The “driven before” is also slightly off putting, I wanted something un-charted.

Obtaining some Russian intelligence maps on the area was a boon, with a combination of OziExplore, Google Earth and the custom map function on the Oregon 550, I was able to tranfer the information to my GPS, and came up with these alternatives…

MapSource looking a bit better, the Cyan being routes that existed before the war, and when overlayed with Google Earth, I could see in most places a feint line in the bush that might indicate some vehicle traffic…


 
Armed with this info I approached the commander with my Russian map..apart from the Green and Purple, I had no idee if these routes actually still exist, or what the landmine situation is like…



I needed to know where I can find a “corredor de passagem segura”  a safe corridor, swept clean.

The blue route was promptly dismissed by the commander with an “ees bad, aqua!” (To much watercrosssing as it hugged the Cuito.)

The East – West stretch of the Orange was dismissed with “ees bad, BOOM BOOM!”, the facial expression and the flailing arms of the commander dispelled any doubt, BOOM BOOM is not a mobile disco on the side of the road.

The Green, according to the commander, “ees good” and it took me about half an hour to explain that wanting to ride offroad, “ees good” is not necessarily good, and “ees bad” can sometimes be “ees good”, a foreign concept to them, why make something more difficult than it allready is?

We eventually settled for a bit of Orange, circumventing the landmines by backtracking to the Longa river, a bit of blue, and a bit of purple, with a deviation (not on map) after Nankova.

Shaking on the deal:



That night we were allowed to pitch our camp behind the police station. A beer and some food saw us to our sleeping bags.

The next morning the commander managed some black market petrol for us (paid for duly, at a fair price) and we were ready.

We were waved on by the commander with an “It ees bad but ees good” blessing..
 
We left and found the turnoff…the start looked pleasant enough….


 
but the commander’s “It ees bad but ees good!..”  were to mock us over the next 4 days.


Next up….

Going down South…forcing the issue!!
 

[Brakenjan]

This is awesome stuff!! Hats off to all three of you! Respect!!

Beserker, nice to see the Zaar in its natural habitat. What a bike?!     

[Laban]

Job well done!! Thanks Guys, Respect!

[BlueBull2007]

Loving it Berserker!

[JMOL]

Eish!!!!

Wunderbar, wunderbar

[sidetrack]

Fantasties !