Angola in a bubble
My experience of Angola could not have been more plush. I was taken, driven, shown and fed. I was very much a backseat driver - without any of the negative connotations.
The first weekend we went over to the spit of land on the opposite side of Luanda - Mussulo. Mussulo, I was told, is famous for being gorgeous sunshine paradise - where Mariana spent most weekends through her childhood. With endless sandy beaches, beachhouse comforts, glorious food (as long as you bring it yourself), and mangroves creeping out of the sea in all directions.
It rained. Not just a little rain either. On the way over in the boat, my panama hat went from jauntily wind-blown to shapeless hood sodden and flopping all around my head. It never quite recovered for the rest of the trip. Mariana was distraught. "It NEVER rains!"
To make up for that we went down the coast to a beautiful stretch of beach where the ex-pats (the ones without the weekend homes on Mussulo) hang out. Sunshine! Hot whitey-toasting sunshine!
On the Monday we set off for a grand tour. Driving - being driven - from Luanda down to Benguela and Lobito. We stayed with Filipe (M's brother), Nilza and the kids. The one instance in the whole trip of a slightly unhappy tummy - which was over in a couple of hours - denied me one of the best looking meals of the trip on the grounds that I was 'sick'. Instead I got get-better-food - thin tasteless rice soup. Booh!
From there we went up into the highlands to Lubango - a name that is fun to say!
Lubango is high on the central plateau - the climate is much cooler here and wetter. On the way up we drove straight into a wall of fog/cloud that reduced visibility to a few metres. Bouncing along the potholes we caught glimpses of people shaped shadows, tree shaped outlines and goat shaped blurs.
We stayed at a 'lodge' - small neatly arranged concrete huts with thatched roofs, built to resemble something more tribal perhaps. Complete with exhibits - ostriches wandered around the grounds, a chimp was paraded through on a chain, a concrete enclosure with crocodiles, there were birds everywhere: turkeys, chickens, geese, and pigeons - prize winning fancy pigeons!
Oh and an extraordinary caged pen complete with a solitary goose. At first it looked like a joke - some elaborate holding pen for a crazed serial killer - as if Hannibal Lector had been born a goose. It behaved in much the same way. Silently sitting, occasionally turning to interrogate any onlookers with its gaze. It was at this point that I noticed all around it, in the long grass, were large powerful boas. When I pointed this out to Mariana she flipped. Not so much for herself as for her Dad.
Mariana's Dad, Toli, loves animals. He grew up out here in the fifties, surrounded by them, on the central plateau, before any of the trouble started. When Angola was a docile colony complete with thousands of white portuguese populating the highland farms. On arriving at the lodge we'd spent five minutes before we even got out of the car making turkey noises to prompt a reactive 'gobble-gobble-gobble'. For future reference the guaranteed way to do is to yell peru-velho.
Back in Cape Town, David Attenborough's Planet Earth had come on the tv - Toli was entranced; the large vistas of ten thousand cranes sucked him in. But later on, the show switched to a hunt. A herd of caribou were being hunted by a wolf. He couldn't watch - he twitched in his seat at every moment the panic-stricken calf would turn evading death for another moment. Before the grisly finale he'd got up and stormed out of the room complaining there was just no need...
Mariana was keen to excuse this goose as a kind of mistake - surely it's just too big. There's just no way those things could take it. I pointed out the goose shaped lump half way down one of the larger boas. This was no mistake. When Mariana's mum noticed she too was wary of Toli's reaction. She tackled the owner straight up, "Aren't you worried that this kind of thing is going to drive away your customers?"
"Seriously?!? ... But that's our most popular exhibit!"
To make up for that we went down the coast to a beautiful stretch of beach where the ex-pats (the ones without the weekend homes on Mussulo) hang out. Sunshine! Hot whitey-toasting sunshine!
On the Monday we set off for a grand tour. Driving - being driven - from Luanda down to Benguela and Lobito. We stayed with Filipe (M's brother), Nilza and the kids. The one instance in the whole trip of a slightly unhappy tummy - which was over in a couple of hours - denied me one of the best looking meals of the trip on the grounds that I was 'sick'. Instead I got get-better-food - thin tasteless rice soup. Booh!
From there we went up into the highlands to Lubango - a name that is fun to say!
Lubango is high on the central plateau - the climate is much cooler here and wetter. On the way up we drove straight into a wall of fog/cloud that reduced visibility to a few metres. Bouncing along the potholes we caught glimpses of people shaped shadows, tree shaped outlines and goat shaped blurs.
We stayed at a 'lodge' - small neatly arranged concrete huts with thatched roofs, built to resemble something more tribal perhaps. Complete with exhibits - ostriches wandered around the grounds, a chimp was paraded through on a chain, a concrete enclosure with crocodiles, there were birds everywhere: turkeys, chickens, geese, and pigeons - prize winning fancy pigeons!
Oh and an extraordinary caged pen complete with a solitary goose. At first it looked like a joke - some elaborate holding pen for a crazed serial killer - as if Hannibal Lector had been born a goose. It behaved in much the same way. Silently sitting, occasionally turning to interrogate any onlookers with its gaze. It was at this point that I noticed all around it, in the long grass, were large powerful boas. When I pointed this out to Mariana she flipped. Not so much for herself as for her Dad.
Mariana's Dad, Toli, loves animals. He grew up out here in the fifties, surrounded by them, on the central plateau, before any of the trouble started. When Angola was a docile colony complete with thousands of white portuguese populating the highland farms. On arriving at the lodge we'd spent five minutes before we even got out of the car making turkey noises to prompt a reactive 'gobble-gobble-gobble'. For future reference the guaranteed way to do is to yell peru-velho.
Back in Cape Town, David Attenborough's Planet Earth had come on the tv - Toli was entranced; the large vistas of ten thousand cranes sucked him in. But later on, the show switched to a hunt. A herd of caribou were being hunted by a wolf. He couldn't watch - he twitched in his seat at every moment the panic-stricken calf would turn evading death for another moment. Before the grisly finale he'd got up and stormed out of the room complaining there was just no need...
Mariana was keen to excuse this goose as a kind of mistake - surely it's just too big. There's just no way those things could take it. I pointed out the goose shaped lump half way down one of the larger boas. This was no mistake. When Mariana's mum noticed she too was wary of Toli's reaction. She tackled the owner straight up, "Aren't you worried that this kind of thing is going to drive away your customers?"
"Seriously?!? ... But that's our most popular exhibit!"
posted by Jyon-sensei at 10:04 pm
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