{"id":12856,"date":"2013-04-13T21:02:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-13T21:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/g-adventures-west-africa-day-7-lobito-and-benguela-angola\/"},"modified":"2013-04-13T21:02:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-13T21:02:00","slug":"g-adventures-west-africa-day-7-lobito-and-benguela-angola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2013\/04\/g-adventures-west-africa-day-7-lobito-and-benguela-angola\/","title":{"rendered":"G Adventures West Africa. Day 7: Lobito and Benguela, Angola"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pics: Municipal building, Benguela; young women in national dress; locals
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turn out to wave during our train journey; Chinese-built bridge on the
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Lobito-Benguela road.<\/p>\n

There’s an old African saying that goes (something like) ‘when two elephants
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fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled’ and so it was with the people of
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Angola.<\/p>\n

Turning up in a country with such a tragic reputation for civil unrest and
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outright war was always going to generate some apprehension. For the best
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part of 40 years, Angola was torn in a vicious and bitter struggle, firstly
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with the stubborn Portuguese who would not relinquish the territory despite
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the drain on resources, then after independence in 1974, among the various
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factions looking to dominate the spoils. The parallels with Vietnam, East
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Timor, Cambodia and Burma are there, except (thankfully) without the Pol Pot
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type genocide.<\/p>\n

UNITA, MPLA, SWAPO and the FNLA (splitters!) propped up by various
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international powers including the USA, Cuba, the USSR, China, South Africa
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and even neighbouring Zaire fought vicious set piece battles for control of
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the resource rich nation. The Soviet-Cuban backed MPLA prevailed and almost
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immediately went to war with South Africa who were then in control of
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Namibia to the south. Hostilities in various forms continued until just a
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decade ago.<\/p>\n

Despite the presence of many uniformed men in one capacity or another, I
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didn’t see a single AK47 or overt military presence. Like so many countries
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released from the devastating grip of war, the regular folks are keen to get
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on with peace and rebuild what they have. Commerce, industry, agriculture
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and tourism will all play their part in the reconstruction, social and
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political. Financially, however, things may have toppled out of balance as
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our tour leader, Paul Wesson of Eco Tur (a Brit living in Angola for some 30
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years) tells me: “This is now the most expensive place in the world!”<\/p>\n

The Chinese influence is the first thing I noticed. Against a backdrop of
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fading, crumbling Portuguese colonial architecture, the Asian economic
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powerhouse is rebuilding roads, bridges and railways. Chinese workers are
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camped alongside their local colleagues erecting everything from power poles
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to airports. Some cynic sneered that the Chinese buildings will only last
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five years thanks to shoddy concrete and there was some evidence of that
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around the port of Lobito with semi-complete multi-storey buildings
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collapsing before they were even finished.<\/p>\n

Oil is the new gold in Angola. The port is chock full of rig tenders, while
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offshore the night horizon blazes with their tell-tale incandescence. With
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the unrest in Nigeria, it seems Angola is now neck-and-neck with its
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northern cousin as the primary African producer. Just where the billions of
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dollars are going is another question and during our 35km train ride to the
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neat seaside town of Benguela, the dirt poor locals turned out to wave us
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cheerfully on our way. Their houses, built variously from salvaged wood, tin
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and railway sleepers were the equivalent of South Africa’s shanties, albeit
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significantly cleaner. The wide, paved streets of Benguela were swept
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spotless with a general, pleasing absence of litter.<\/p>\n

The quick and almost reflex action of locals to break into smile and
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exchange cheery waves was a most heartening discovery. It speaks volumes for
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the resilience and resourcefulness of Angolans – and Africans in general –
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who see their best interests in the now and the future, rather than wallow
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in the misery of history.<\/p>\n

Our full day tour encompassed really just seeing what there was. A small
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market and dances in the central park, visits to significant buildings and a
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quite respectable buffet lunch at a seaside restaurant. A handful of locals
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cavorted in the meagre surf, occasionally stopping to peer curiously over
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the wall as we sipped local beer in the courtyard. A small group of
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schoolchildren stopped to chat and exchange inquisitive glances as we
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re-boarded our vintage buses to complete the tour.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Angola will capitalise on its new-found
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prosperity or tumble in fiscal anarchy like so many of its neighbours. Watch
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this space.<\/p>\n

For more information on tours in Angola, see www.eco-tur.com<\/a><\/p>\n

For more detail on this itinerary, see www.gadventures.com<\/a> > West Africa<\/p>\n

More images at www.flickr.com\/photos\/rodeime<\/a><\/p>\n

Sent to you over a satellite phone using GMN’s XGate software.
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Please be kind and keep your replies short<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pics: Municipal building, Benguela; young women in national dress; locals turn out to wave during our train journey; Chinese-built bridge on the Lobito-Benguela road. There’s an old African saying that goes (something like) ‘when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled’ and so it was with the people of Angola. Turning up in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[344],"class_list":["post-12856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gap-adventures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}