Angola to Namibia in Less than a Week?! Que rapido!

We blazed through Angola in only five days, and my head is still spinning. Angola is not what I expected. At all. It is absolutely beautiful in every possible way: gorgeous landscape, wonderful people and the promise of a up-and-coming tourist destination. As compared to Gabon and the Congos, Angola is much drier and cooler. It reminded me a lot of Eastern Washington at times, and the sparse dispertion of people across Angolan meant that often I'd forget I was halfway around the world in Africa still. Many towns are still dusty and have a ghost town feel to them, though. As if normal town life was suspended once buildings started getting shelled. And indeed, every town we went through had skeleton structures and building façades covered in bullet holes. One of the best was “Hotel Tourstico” in Quibala that basically consisted of the front of the hotel and a sign—the entire back of the building was bombed out.

It was good to be out of francophone Africa as well, and to get to speak Portuguese again. Lubango, in the South of Angola, looked and felt a little like Brasil and even had a giant statue of Cristo Rei overlooking the city from the adjacent mountains, Rio de Janeiro style. We camped most of the way through Angola, though, as accomodation is still VERY expensive, and stayed one night in Catholic Mission in Dondo for free.

Angola seems like the kind of place in which a true traveler could get lost. Because it has slightly a bad rap from the long civil war that only ended in 2002, and since it is quite difficult and tedious to get a visa for the country, let alone get to the country from outside Africa, it is not teeming with travelers. Yet. But it is so beautiful, friendly and unique, that I could definitely see myself getting stuck here for a while. It’s a good thing we didn’t visit the costal town of Benguela, the “cultural capital” of Angola with plenty of beach capoeira, or I might have had the guys leave me there!

The five short days in Angola were quickly over, though, and we continued south into Namibia to the town of Tsumeb, just outside Etosha National Park. I was completely shell shocked to be suddenly in English-speaking Africa. We were on paved road with no surprise potholes or deviations, only the occasional cattle crossing. And there were modern gas stations with snacks, fast food restaurants and fast internet. Angola had some of these luxuries, but in Namibia it is the norm.

We’ve now stayed three nights at the Mousebird Hostel here in Namibia that is quite like every good hostel—clean beds, well stocked kitchen, bar—and feels like heaven after the bare accomodations we’ve gotten used to.

Yesterday we headed to Etosha national park to have our African safari experience. The park was teeming with giraffes, zebras, springbok, gemsbock, ostriches, wildebeest, elephants, warthogs and even a herd of kudo. No predatory animals though. Although we almost got taken out by an angry elephant. The guys are yahoos, and in order to get “good shots” hopped out of the car to take photos of animals or even tried to have someone ride on top of one of the trucks filming (which we got in trouble for). Mark drove right up to a herd of elephants crossing the road, and while I quietly pleaded with him to just stop the f*ing car and take a photo rather than continue to inch closer while hanging out the window, one of the elephants got upset. We were only about 20 feet away, and the elephant turned towards us, raised his trunk and huffed. It stayed in that position until the herd had all crossed into the bush and then continued to turn around every few feet as they retreated. I was not to happy. Sure it’s great to get so close to the animals, but not that close. It’s disrespectful to the park, other visitors and the animals to be so reckless, and the fact that the elephant felt threatened obviously means we were too close!!

The park was still great, though, and I was sad we only had half a day to explore. I know I’m going to have to try to see some of the parks in South Africa now (especially since we didn’t get to see any lions, cheetahs, hyenas, etc.). We’re headed to Windhoek later today and then will continue south to see some of the giant red sand dunes in the south of Namibia before finally hitting South Africa, the Garden Route and Cape Town. My time with the guys is starting to run short, though, as I have a flight back to Pretoria from Cape Town on July 3rd (so I can be back to celebrate Independence Day with my Aunt!), so we might be parting ways sooner than later. Perhaps a good thing for me; three months traveling with these guys is plenty!