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DRIVE OUT
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2010
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dEstinAtion
angola
o d bt trcks i a
Angola’s sormy pas is gradually making way for more ouriss, beerroads (well, here and here) and poenial rugby sars, says
Dolf Els.
ext to a ricketysteel bridge overthe Longa Riverthe gun barrelsof two olive green Russian T-55 tanks are pointing acrossthe river. It seems as if thecrew have simply made aquick pitstop so they couldstretch their legs. But thisis postwar Angola and thetanks have been standinghere for years.Wrecks such as these area constant reminder of the27-year civil war that endedin 2002. As are the longline of burnt-out wrecks of a supply convoy betweenMenongue and Cuito Cuana-vale, as well as the threearmoured troop carriersthat came to a standstill,one behind the other, eachshot out with a single shot.For a generation of SouthAfrican men too, Angola isonly a war memory.
The first experience of this country for many of them was a baptism of fire in the rainy season of 1975/’76 during OperationSavannah when they hadto brave mud, downpoursand malaria mosquitoes.
I recently drove back onold boot tracks of war tovisit the places where theSADF had been involvedin heavy fighting: Cassinga,Cuito Cuanavale, Catengue,Ebo, Bridge 14 … nameswith which a generation of soldiers of 18, 19 years oldwere intimately familiar.
However, I also went back to experience thecountry’s natural splen-dour – and to tackle thenotoriously bad roads.
Our convoy enteredAngola through the bustlingSanta Clara border post andthen drove through Ondjiva,Cuvelai, Cassinga, Cubango,Cuchi and Menongue toCuito Cuanavale.
Next, we travelled north-west through Chitemboand Huambo to Quibala,where we turned southwestand drove along the coastthrough Sumbe and Lobitoto Benguela.From Benguela we wentto Lubango, and fromthere to the coast betweenNamibe and Tombua, andreturned three weeks laterthrough the much quieterCaluegue border post.
N
p h o t o g r A p h s
J o h a n n v a n T o n d e r
Foothold.
ruis f fmst fmPtugus fm btw humb althm i t sut f agl.
Stick together.
n Cutt i tsut f agl. It’s btt t tvltug tis cuty i cvy.
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dEstinAtion
angola
Massacre, 4 May 1978”, theinscription reads. The soldiersand civilians who died onthat day are buried here, all608 of them, says Pedro.Late afternoon we stop atthe mining town of Jamba onthe Cubango River. Underall the decay the Portugueseheritage still shows through,such as the broad streets andthe rows of flame trees withtheir bright orange flowers.
Oxford professor Richard,who grew up in Durban, putson his Springbok cap andtakes out a rugby ball. We kickthe ball around in the dustystreet while a few childrenenjoy the spectacle. It’s nottoo long before they join in.
The police chief slowlydrives past, but doesn’tinterfere.In Cachingues we wantto refuel, but learn Lesson#5: Just because there arefuel stations all over Angoladoesn’t mean they alwayshave fuel. So don’t assumeyou’ll be able to fill up in thenext town.Here’s
gasolina
(petrol),but the
gasóleo
(diesel) pumpsare dry.
Lesson #5 also has anappendix: Be patient when youand the fuel truck arrive onthe same day. It happened tous a few times and we had topatiently wait in long queuesof cars, trucks, motorbikes andpeople with empty containersstacked on wheelbarrows.
Dust, more dustand potholes
Just about every village wepass through has a smallchurch built by the Portu-guese. Some have been van-dalised, but others are wellmaintained.
Cubango has a pinkchurch on the town square.It’s weathered, but still inuse.
Domus Dei
(“House of God”) is written in largeletters above the archedwooden doors with theirheavy iron hinges.Inside, a few women are
What tourist facilities?
Large parts of Angola are stilluntouched. It’s a country of contrasts: Landscapes varyfrom desert dull to subtropicalgreen, from Karoo koppies toblue granite mountains, densebush country to grassy plains.You drive through twistybends on mountain passes, onjeep tracks in the bush, roadswith the occasional patch of tar, through rivers and streamsand over narrow patched-upbridges, but also on brandspanking new tar roads andover modern bridges.
Tourist facilities are justabout non-existent and youcan pitch your tent underthe stars every night.
Angola requires patienceand
vasbyt
. This is Lesson #1.At the Santa Clara border postwe are delayed for almost sixhours while officials were nit-picking about imaginary faultswith our visas.When we hit the first of thousands of potholes withina few metres of the borderpost, I just know: This trip isgoing to be different. Thereare potholes everywhere, fromtea-tray- to car-sized ones.
Just to stop you frombecoming completely dis-couraged, you occasionallydo travel on a good gravelroad or even an excellent tarroad. Just beyond Ondjivawe turn off on a lovely, broadwhite gravel road where weencounter the first signs of the civil war – two shot-outRussian T54 tanks.
We’re on our way to Cas-singa and later on we turnoff on a bush track to Mupa.It’s a bad track with dongasand pools of muddy water. Wedrive past hovels with roundhuts made of branches, black-and-red MPLA flags flutteringin front of each one.Here our average speed is20 km/h, and I realise whatthe experienced Angola travel-lers mean with Lesson #2:You don’t measure distance inkilometres, but in hours.At Cuvelai I learn the thirdlesson: In Angola there arebridges and then there arethose that are only rumoursof bridges. The road surfaceon the narrow concrete bridgeover the Cuvelai River is sofull of holes it’s a miracleit hasn’t collapsed yet. Wedecide to drive through theknee-deep river instead.
We’re now in the HuilaProvince, still on a jeep trackthrough the bush. Red-and-white stripes on tree trunksalong the road warn us thatthis is still landmine country.
In between there aresigns with a white skull andthe message
Perigo Minas
!(“Danger, mines!”) on a redbackground.
This is Lesson #4: Neverstray off the roads. No oneknows exactly where the minesare, as the legless people limp-ing along on crutches attest to.
Does anyone hereplay rugby?
We push on to Cassinga,where Colonel Jan Breyten-bach, who is accompanyingus, led a paratroop assault on4 May 1978.Today it’s almost a ghosttown. Ruins of houses fromthe Portuguese era stand likemonuments along what usedto be the broad main road,the walls pockmarked withhundreds of bulletholes.While we are having lunch,local resident Pedro Jambajoins us. He was there, 32years ago, says Pedro.
There
and
there
soldiers fell out of the sky, he points to the riverand trees nearby.The colonel shows Pedrothe scar where a Swapo bullethit him in the arm that day.
Pedro takes us to two massgraves. We walk through thetall grass to a concrete slab of 7 m x 6 m. Swapo officers andcommanders lie buried here,he says.
The other grave is abouta kilometre away. It too iscovered with a weatheredconcrete slab, but it is con-siderably bigger. “Cassinga
te subopicallandscape becomesinceasingly beau-iul ... gian ganieomaions poina e sky like afnges and in avalley e boadQueve rive omsan inemiensiny line.
Rocky roads.
Te ie is oug ocky e Clueque, i te sout e teruc boe post (bove). Te ifmous dombe Ge Pss e Begueli te sout of te couty (top). Betwee Cssig te miig tow ofJmb it’s it o, you ee 4x4 (left). Te o betwee Meogue Log, o te wy to Cuito Cuvle, ws impott supply oute foCub Fpl supply covoys i te civil w i te eigties. nowys teo is i vce stte of isepi (below).
YesRther tBest time:
My-octb
Sty t est:
2-3 wks
Experiece:
Uspilt afic fily ppl
Distce frm:
Cp Tw: ± 2 300 km;Jsbug: ± 2 900 km
Sound like a
boffin
:
agolis cyig out extesiveecostuctio pogmme ims t builig mil-lio ew omes by 2013.
Fast facts
M
i
l
d
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dEstinAtion
angola
scrubbing the floor and theroughly hewn benches.
It’s hot and we stop at thetown bar to buy N’Gola Cer-veja (an Angolan beer). Fabio,the owner, stands behind awooden counter next to hischest fridge. He’s probablynever had so many clients atonce and looks overwhelmed.We buy his entire supply at90 kwanza (R9) per beer.In several places we seebridge sections lying in theriver – mostly the work of South African recces, an ex-recce in our group tells us.
At Cutato there’s a newsteel bridge, some distancefrom where the old concretebridge was blown up.The “new bridge” acrossthe Cuchi River, by contrast,comprises sections of railwayline placed side by side. Thesections are ankle deep underthe strongly-flowing water,and in places even deeper.The Chinese are buildingand repairing roads, bridgesand railway lines on a grandscale. En route to Menongue(previously Serpa Pinto) largetrucks with Chinese driversregularly roar past our con-voy. The clouds of powdereddust they kick up just aboutforce you to a standstill.Because of that and theterrible roads we only drove140 km today.
Still in dangerouscountry
We buy beer at Loja Eusvang’sneon pink shop on Menon-gue’s main road. Most prod-ucts on the shelves are SouthAfrican. A bottle of Nescaféinstant coffee costs R200.The narrow tar road fromMenongue to Cuito Cuanavaledoesn’t look too bad and wefeel upbeat about the 170 kmahead – but alas, prematurely.For long stretches there’sonly a narrow strip of tar inthe middle of the road, withsharp edges where the soil haswashed away under the tar. Inother places clumps of tar thesize of large soup bowls clingresolutely. It’s simply impossi-ble to miss all the potholes.
This road was a majorroute for Cuban and Faplasupply convoys. On onestretch you drive past a kilo-metre-long convoy of burnt-out wrecks – mostly fueltrucks, ammunition trucksand troop carriers. The steelpoint of a cannon shell is stilllaying next to one wreck.
The former recce tellsus how they often lay inambush on this road andhow Cuban armoured carsonce chased them throughthe bush for hours after onesuch an ambush.
Many of the wrecks havebecome a children’s play-ground. The steel sides of two Russian T55 tanks at thebridge over the Longa Riverhave been worn smooth bycountless tiny hands and feet.On this road there are alsotwo helicopter wrecks. Onehas burnt out, and the fuse-lage of another one, a Rus-sian Hind 128 combat heli-copter, lies in an open fieldnext to a small village. A neatrow of bulletholes marks thesection, from top to bottom,where the tail has broken off.
Our visit to Cuito Cuana-vale is short-lived, because tothe people here the war is stilla recent memory. In the restof Angola everyone is friendly,but here South Africans arestill regarded with suspicion.An official even threatens tothrow our guide in jail.
About 120 km north of Menongue we get a pleasantsurprise when the bad gravelroad turns into a new tarroad – the doings of the Bra-zilians who are at work here.We drive on this luxuriousroad to Chitembo, where Iencounter a young man oncrutches. “
Bom dia
,” I greethim. “
Mina
?” I ask pointingto his empty trouser leg.“
Sim, mina
(Yes, a mine),”he confirms. His name isKambale, and like hundredsof others he became a land-mine victim long after theend of the war.
Kamikaze drivers
Our convoy reaches Huambo(formerly Nova Lisboa) by lateafternoon. It’s a big place andit was one of Jonas Savimbiand Unita’s strongholds.The city suffered severelyduring the civil war, and someof the buildings have hundredsof bullet scars on the walls. Inother places large chunks weretorn out of the walls.Between Huambo and Cela(formerly Santa Comba) thelandscape starts changing. It’sless overgrown, and there arenumerous grassy plains.We’re still driving on agood tar road that apparentlygoes all the way to Luanda,and we encounter much moretraffic. Most people drive likekamikazes, overtaking on solidlines on blind rises and simplypush you off the road whenanother vehicle approaches.This explains all the wreckson the roadside. One of ourgroup says he has counted awreck every 5 km or so. Hestopped counting at 50.The subtropical landscapebecomes increasingly beautiful,with wild banana plantations,mango and avocado trees andflowering shrubs next to theroad. Giant granite formationspoint at the sky like fat fingers.In a valley the broad QueveRiver forms an intermittentshiny line.
At lunchtime we arrive atCela. My friend Sakkie goeslooking for the church thatwas used as a hospital duringOperation Savannah in 1975.
Sakkie took a photographthere of surgery on a woundedCuban. But a new housingdevelopment has since over-run the church.In 1975 this area wasthe scene of heavy fightingbetween the South African
Merry-go-round?
a st-ut russi T55 tk sts xt t t Lg riv, Cuit Cuvl. I t bckgu wm wsig clts.
Legacy of war
(bv). T agl Sbsti Itc lst is lg i lmi xplsi Cssig.
The business end
(tp). a st tk t btw ojiv Cuvli, mts f t agl civil w.
Wrecked
(below). But-out mility veicles betwee Log CuitoCuvle ext to te supply oute fo Cub Fpl supply covoys.
AngolA
±120 km
nAmibiA
Santa ClaraCuvelaiCassingaMenongueJambaCubangoCutatoChitemboHuamboCelaQuibalaGabelaSumbeLobitoBenguelaCahamaLubangoNamibeCaluegueCuito CuanavaleRoute driven
C u n e n e
EboOndjiva
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