"The Open Road"

I had an enjoyable time on the roads of Angola. These, like everything else, were destroyed during the war and are just now being repaired in some places. Most roads are dirt potholes one after the other. The ride is less than cushy to say the least. Not to mention the mode of transportation is different. The taxi that we hired to drive us the first week and a half was a blue and white van (the standard taxi and form of transportation for everyone). Imagine bumping down these washboard roads – they are everything you imagine and more – catching a foot or so of air pretty often, and then landing back down on “seats” which are metal bars covered with vinyl whose stuffing probably fell out years ago. The drive took you back in time as well because every-so-often there are police checkpoints where you are pulled over and your paperwork is checked. Mostly they are just hoping for a bribe. Fortunately, our drivers were usually able to talk their way out of it – as we were not going to pay one. We had this driver take us in his cab from Luanda the capital city to Bengala, about a “6 hour drive” down the coast. Here is how our “6-hour journey turned into a really long one.
So, we arranged with our driver to leave the capital city at around 10am after he had made a few needed maintenance adjustments. So he arrived promptly at 1.15pm and we packed in our bags to set off, so we thought. But we made a stop and took on a spare tire, a 10 gallon container of water, a large bag full of spare parts, and an extra passanger. I felt the anticipation building and prepared to enjoy my African journey. We pulled into the unsurpassed traffic of Luanda, took a few potholes in stride, and heard a rattling sound from the back of the taxi. I turn to see the back of the taxi fly open, and the luggage of the whole team spill into the busy streets and go gracefully bouncing down the road. Robert no-less gracefully hurled himself over the back seat and into the busy street to rescue our possessions while we all yelled for the driver to stop. (Whoa translates into any language). The other guys piled into the streets and helped pull our luggage to safety. We then re-load our now battle-scarred luggage and rope the back door shut. And we are off. A little ways down the road we stop to take a picture of some amazing coastal views of the slavery museum and note our random passenger filling the radiator from the water supply under the seat. Mystery solved, our new passenger is a mechanic who has come along as the maintenance was not all done prior to leaving. From this point on, our poor little van needed water added to the radiator about every 30-45 minutes. Fortunately this only involved everyone piling out of the car so the front beanch-seat could be lifted up as the engine and all other important mechanical parts were located underneath. Let me tell you we got it down. ☺ At one stop we had to let the van cool a while so we took a stroll down to a nearby beach and got to see a beautiful sunset. We drove as the stars came out and it was a breath-taking sight. The Southern Cross was so bright, and the stars were so numerous and just went on and on forever. We hit a town and we started smoking from our left front tire area. The mechanic said our wheel bearing had gone out. No problem though because we happen to have a spare in the bag of parts in the back. So we took turns holding flashlights while this was repaired. On the road again. Around midnight we are approaching a town and we start smoking from the right front wheel area. So we decided to call it a night, find a hotel, and head on again in the morning. We were about 2 hours from our destination. We made it in the morning and had a wonderful day.
(I will probably have more on the road trips later)