From the beach we continued on the EN100 up north. The road was perfect tar except for 60 kilometers of gravel. On the way, we passed another Overlander Defender with two French ladies, who were traveling from France along the west route, just the two of them. They make some very interesting documentaries of their trip, which are quite inspiring to watch, especially for us, traveling in this direction. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to spend a night together, but nevertheless, we enjoyed the quick chat on the road and exchanged our contacts so we could share some tips along our journeys.
We weren’t sure where we wanted to spend the night. Driving again to the beach would have meant, leaving the main road and driving towards the coast for an hour and then back again the next morning, and since we now wanted to bring some distance behind us, we decided to look for a spot just off the main road. For Tom and I, it was our first-time wild camping in Angola (excluding the beach with Marjin and Noortje) and we must admit we were a bit nervous. But this is, what we signed up for; driving up North we would be sleeping mostly in places like this, somewhere hidden from the main road but out in the wild, because on this side of Africa, there are not many campsites. Toby took the lead, since he is more experienced with finding wild camps to spend the night. He checked the map on Google for some possible spots. We found one and drove there to have a look, but when Toby stepped out of the car, he quickly jumped back in; the floor was covered with some huge creatures crawling around. After the first shock, we had a closer look: they were very big but quite beautiful crickets and they didn’t seem dangerous, so we decided to stay 😊
Just when we parked the car and started to cook dinner, a Military Jet flew very close over our heads, and it made a circle around our camp. This was very intimidating, and while we were wondering what they were up to, some more jets flew over us, this time just doing their thing and not minding us anymore. We came to the conclusion, that they were probably just practicing. On Google Maps we saw that a military base was close-by. After these first few stressful minutes, we finally could sit down and eat and we went to bed very tired.
The next day, we wanted to drive to Lobito, a small fisher town at the coast of Angola, which is famous for its old colorful buildings and a nice beach. We stopped at a Paderia (bakery) to get some sweets and had lunch at the Alfa Beach Bar. The owner invited us to stay for the night, but since it was still early, we decided to drive a bit further and check out another place at the beach. We found a tiny fisher village just before sunset and asked the people living there, if it was possible to pass here to drive to the beach. They were very friendly and showed us the only road that lead down to the beach, and it looked quite bad; the rains had washed away most of it. After inspecting the whole section, we came to the conclusion that it should still be possible for our Defenders to drive it. We filled the biggest holes with stones and sand and slowly and carefully drove down to the beach. The whole village was watching us of course😃 But the struggles paid off: the beach we found down there was empty and just beautiful. We collected wood to make a bonfire and had a fun evening at the beach. The next day, all of us were a bit lazy, so we decided to rest for a day and continue early the next morning instead.
From here, we drove inland towards the Calandula Waterfall, Africa’s second largest waterfall, and the Piedas Negras, some famous black rocks close-by. Again, the distance was too far to drive it in one day, so we spent a night close to a local village along the route. We asked a farmer if we could camp on his land and he welcomed us very friendly. We continued towards the waterfall the next morning – the road up there was very bad with many deep potholes. When we reached the hotel, from where you can view the waterfall, Toby told us that Olga was driving very weirdly, she was making a lot of noises and it did not feel good driving her at all. After drinking a beer and taking some pictures of the waterfall, we started checking the car and found that the screws, which were used to attach the suspensions to the chassis were actually too small. Now, that we had been driving a lot of bumpy roads, they were moving inside the holes and already had damaged the chassis. This was really bad and something that we needed to fix as soon as possible. But we also needed a place where we could get the right screws, which meant driving into Luanda, Angola’s capital city, which initially, we wanted to avoid. But we couldn’t change it, we carefully drove to the Piedas Niegras, the famous rocks, which were on the way to Luanda. We spent the night there and continued the next day. On the bright side, we still got to stay at the sleeping spot, which was recommended to us by the two French girls and some other Overlanders, and it was amazing. Tom and I used the time to do some yoga and Toby already did some further checks on his car. We cooked some pasta and went to bed, ready to be leaving early the next day.
Driving to Luanda, we tried to not exceed 60 kmph because we didn’t want to damage Olga’s chassis any further. I texted Alexander, a Land Rover mechanic in town who was recommended to us. He said we could come directly to his place to have a look at the car. Unfortunately, when we arrived, he wasn’t there, and all his mechanics at the workshop didn’t speak English. He texted us that he needed to sort some things out in town, but that we should start working with his guys and he would try to translate. This was not what we expected and it was not easy to communicate at all. Of course, Google Translate helped, a little, but we really needed Alexander. Unfortunately, he didn’t end up showing up at all on this day, but he offered us to camp at his workshop and promised to come by the next morning. This wasn’t how we had imagined our day and night, but there was nothing we could change about it. We cooked some dinner and spent the night in between old Land Rovers…
The next day, Alexander arrived around 10 am and we finally could start checking Olga. For some unknown reason, he was more interested in checking out our Defender than looking at Olga. He was a very nice guy and he definitely knew a lot about Defenders, but, working together with him, especially focusing on Olga turned out to be a little mission. Tom and I decided to do an oil and filter change as well, since we were already at a workshop and had driven 5'000 kilometers since our last service. We also wanted to do the same for Olga, so Alexander went to buy the filters and oil in town, which took him 4 hours! When he returned just before sunset, we only managed to change the oil and filters on both cars, but Olga still wasn’t ready to leave the next day. We had to accept this fact and arrange ourselves with the situation.
Even though, they weren’t super efficient, all the guys from the workshop were very nice, so we ended up going out for dinner altogether. They showed us a cool local Restaurant and we enjoyed getting away from the workshop a lot. For the next day, we decided to try another tactic; Tom and I left with our car early in the morning, so Alexander would give his full attention to Toby and Olga. In the meantime, we went to do some laundry, buy groceries, and we met with Ana and Fabio, a couple we met in Botswana a few months back. They live in Luanda and took us to an amazing Korean Restaurant, which was a great change of cuisine for once – of course, we brought some take-away for Toby when we returned to the workshop afterwards. Our plan had worked, him and Alex managed to change the screws on the chassis and were just ready to finish up, when we returned. They were about to finish up and took a final look under the car, when they realized that the rear diff was very worn and leaking. Alexander strongly suggested to replace it here before continuing our trip. One thing that made Alexander very trustworthy was, that he didn’t want any money from us at all. He offered us all the second hand spareparts for free as well, and he happened to have a diff for Toby, which was in better shape than his, so we trusted him and his suggestions. However, this meant another full day of work. We were desperate to leave this place but we all came to the conclusion that it would be worth to invest this extra day. On the bright side, in the meantime, we became a little famous in the Defender community in Luanda. The Land Rover Club Luanda reached out to us on Instagram and invited us to visit them and have a braai together. Since we had to stay an extra day, we gladly accepted this invite. Ugo, the president of the club sent us his address and also told us that it would be no problem at all to sleep at his house. We were so much looking forward to a real shower! When we arrived at Ugo’s house, we couldn’t believe what we saw: In the middle of Luanda, he had a 2ha property with 7 horses, and many beautiful dogs, a big pool and about 5 houses, His parents and brothers were also living on this property with their families and they had organized a big barbecue just for us. We had a fun night and enjoyed their company a lot! The next day, we were all a bit hungover but we still got up early to go back to the workshop to get the work done on Olga. It was looking good, Alexander worked hard and finished everything. Ugo and his brother Victor invited us to spend another night at their house and also invited some more people from the Land Rover Community, also Alexander and his wife joined us for dinner. We had another lovely evening all together and Toby, Tom and I were ready to leave Luanda early the next morning.
We were staying in the South of Luanda and needed to go North. Because of the crazy traffic in this city, it alsmost took us three hourse to cross it. When we finally were a bit out of traffic, we wanted to fuel up and continue. Just 10 meters before the petrol station, Olga ran out of diesel. Since the rebuild in South Africa, the fuel level indicator was a bit off. This wasn’t a big problem in Africa though. Very soon, we had many helping hands who pushed Olga the past few meters to the fuel station. However, when we were there, they told us, that we could not pay with our international credit card. I tried to get some cash at the close-by ATM’s but all of them were out of money. It was the beginning of the month, which means, that all the Angolese People get their salary from the bank. It was crazy and impossible to get cash! Luckily, we still had an extra can of diesel with us, so we used this one to be able to move a little. We left the fuel station and parked our cars on a parking lot close by, when Tom realized that Olga was leaking. We opened the front and realized that the steering oil was spilled everywhere. A friendly local who was standing next to us and spoke english very well, came to ask if he could help. We showed him our problem and he straight away went to a shop and brought us some steering oil, he didn’t even want money for it. He also gave us his number in case he could help some more, because he lived very close. We texted Alexander and asked him about his opinion, he recommended to come back to his workshop to have a look at it, but we really didn’t want to drive all the way back. We cleaned everything and refilled the steering oil and hoped it would be ok. Now, we still had the challenge to find fuel. We called the friendly stranger from earlier and asked him, if he could pay for our fuel with his local bank card (which is the only card they accept at the fuel station) and we would transfer him the money. He agreed straight away and came back and we went back to the fuel station together. Once more, we were amazed by the helpful people in Angola! Unfortunately, the next bad surprise was waiting for us: once the tanks were full, we realized that Olga’s fuel tank was leaking, too. This, however, made our decision easier: we definitely needed to drive back to Alexander’s workshop and have a proper look at everything. You probably can imagine how frustrated we were. None of us felt like driving back there. Even worse, it was now 4pm and the rush hour traffic had just started. We all just wanted to scream or cry and definitely not go in direction south again. But it didn’t help. The traffic into the city luckily wasn’t bad, and when we reached the harbor, I remembered reading about the Yacht Club, where Overlanders can camp for free. We decided to try our luck, because everything was better than sitting in traffic for the next three hours trying to drive out of the city again. The next day was a Saturday and everyone assured us that traffic would be way less in the morning.
We drove to the Yacht Club and one of the managers warmly welcomed us. After telling him our struggles, he straight away organized a bucket for Olga’s diesel, and told us where we could park, and then invited us to some beers at the bar – what a legend!! It was exactly what we needed! He was soo lovely and our mood increased a little. And on the bright side, we got to see another beautiful side of Luanda - our campspot was front row with a beatiful view over the skyline of Luanda - which otherwise, we would have missed 😉
Toby left early the next day to drive to Alexander’s Workshop, and Tom and I wanted to refill our gas bottle first and get some Pastel de Nata (a Portuguese sweet) at a bakery to bring to the guys at the workshop. Just when we were packing up and trying to fixate our bike on the rack, which led to another almost breakdown, because the steel brackets were bent and it didn’t fit anymore, the owner of the Yacht Club came to say hi. He offered us to get cash at the restaurant, we could just pay with our international credit card – once again, a stranger just helped us to sort out one of our issues without even being asked. We also managed to fill our gas bottle and drove to Toby, who unfortunately, wasn’t as successful. Somehow, him and Alexander didn’t really get along too well. Probably, because Toby knows a lot about Defenders himself, Alexander didn’t like all his questions and it just didn’t work well between the two. We tried to help with the communication, but we couldn’t do much. Alex told us that the rear bushes were worn, and there were no spare parts at Alexander’s Workshop, so there was nothing much we could do there anyway. We reached out to the guys from the Landy Club to ask if they could organize some bushes for us. They could organize them and so we drove again to Ugo’s place and changed the bushes ourselves. Once more, we were ready to leave the next day, but once more, plans changed… We got up the next morning and Tom wans’t feeling well at all. He was already having flue symptoms the past days but they now got worse, and we didn’t want to take any risks – after all, we were in a high Malaria Risk Zone. So instead of leaving Luanda, we went to the clinic to get a Malaria test. Ugo took us there, he was super kind! Luckily, the Malaria test was negative, but still, we decided we would take this day and relax. We all could use it after the stressfull events from the past days and Ugo and the whole family were beyond welcoming. Tom stayed in bed for a day and Toby and I relaxed at the pool. For dinner, we ordered some pizza and enjoyed it a lot. Also Tom was feeling better again towards the evening and glady had some pizza with us.
Toby and I used the drive to pick up the pizza as a short testdrive with Olga, and found that the steering was still pulling to the right when accelerating, eventhough we had exchanged the bushes. We started a google research and we successfully found the issue: it turned out that the front bull joint was very loose, which luckily, was an easy fix: it was just a screw that wasn’t really thightened, but this could have ended very badly. Toby thightened the screws and we went on another test drive, and finally, the car was driving smoothly again. We were now ready to leave Luanda, after spending a full week here unintended. But in the end, it was necessary to invest the time, there was nothing we could have changed about it. It cost us a lot of nerves but it also led to many new beautiful encounters and some new friends in a place far away from home. Eventhough, we didn’t really plan to spend all this time in Angola, everyday we made another amazing experience with the Angolese people, and this gave us soo much trust and confidence back. And it was also nice to see that even in these stressfull situations, Toby, Tom and I managed to communicate well and function as a Team. We were definitely ready for West Africa now.