Day 129: Slogging it out through Angola
Soutpiel Safari
John & Jenny
Mon 14 Mar 2011 05:36
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Day 129: Sunday 13 March 2011. Hotel Mar Sol,
Sumbe, Angola. S11 11.727 E013 50.157 Distance driven 545 km
In some ways today has been annoying and frustrating and
yet, in terms of distance accomplished, extremely
successful.
On the negative side the first 80 km was dreadful after
overnight rain, we had a stupid altercation with blatantly corrupt police in
Luanda which cost $60 to resolve, it took over two hours to get out of
Luanda with all the Sunday afternoon traffic going to the beaches, the
tasty Angolan restaurant meal I had been looking forward to turned out to be
bland and expensive, and I think I may still have a problem with a wheel
bearing.
On the positive side, we did find diesel in Luanda
(there was none for 500 km to the north), I paid the corrupt policemen with the
counterfeit $20 bills I had picked up in Congo and I did manage to put in 545
km, the longest drive of this trip.
The rest of the road from our overnight bush camp to
just north of Barrro do Donde was in awful condition after the overnight rain
but from there on into Luanda was fast new tar. Coming out of Luanda on the road
south to Sumbe it took over two hours to get out of second gear and clear of all
the Luandans going to the beaches. From there the road south was good and
fast and very little traffic.
I had decided that after 2 nights bush camping I
would treat myself to a hotel for the night and pulled into Porto
Amboin thinking I would find a hotel there. The first one no longer
existed, two others were dedicated to construction workers and the last, a huge
glass palace, was closed! At that point I decided to go on to Sumbe as it was
getting dark and I drove for about a hour in the dark, which was quite
dangerous. |