First weekend trip — Kalandula waterfalls
The second picture in the Angolan guidebook is of the Kalandula waterfalls (the third highest in Africa). It was one of the first things on my list of things to do here. My friend, Sofia, who is from Namibia and was doing her thesis there at the time had planned to come to Angola for a long weekend so we tied the waterfalls trip in with her visit.
It’s 380 kilometres from Luanda to Malanje (a town near the waterfalls), and with a newly built Chinese road, it was sure to be a doddle… Or so we thought. The Chinese have been investing heavily in Angola (Angola is now China’s biggest trade partner in Africa). Most of the investment has come in the form of construction — roads, bridges, public buildings… Except quality has sometimes been an issue, as evidenced from the Chinese built hospital that closed down after one year because it was literally falling apart…
Unfortunately the road from Luanda to Malanje is much the same. Apparently six months ago it was ‘very good’. But when we went (in April) it was fine for a while but soon pot holes started appearing… everywhere. And I’m not talking about the little 1 foot wide, 6 inches deep potholes you find around Dublin. No, I’m talking meteor crash site kind of potholes! Some potholes literally took up the width of the lane. We would have to slalom between the lanes, going from one side of the road to the other!
We left Luanda at 10am and had a couple of stops along the way. One stop was particularly interesting. It was raining at the time and we pulled up on the side of the road where there were people selling fruit and other things. One guy was hacking away at what appeared be a goat’s leg. Once he was done he just dropped the raw meat on the tarmac and looked at it, proud of his carving efforts. Sofia’s first purchase in Angola was at one of these little stalls, if you could call them stalls. She bought some kind of local moonshine from a group of women who were delighted to meet us! It was a cloudy liquid in plastic bottle and actually tasted alright!
It was just about getting dark by the time we arrived in Malanje. There’s not much to do there. We found a small restaurant to have dinner in, but there wasn’t much beyond that. Sofia managed to get a good exchange rate for her dollars with some lads on the street — due to a shortage of dollars in the country at the moment.
The next day we set off for Kalandula, about an hour’s drive from Malanje. The whole area around Kalandula and Malanje is amazing. The roads are incredibly long, straight and deserted, and sometimes go as far as the eye can see. Pigs and goats occasionally populate the sides of the roads, munching on the grass. The land is so fertile there, the grass grows over your head. It’s really beautiful to drive through. Every few kilometres we passed little villages — groups of mud brick houses with thatched roofs. A couple of times we stopped to ask for directions and the people were always really friendly and curious as to why a ginger white boy was in their neck of the woods! I must say, having Sofia in the car was a great help when it came to the police check points, which were very frequent — every 50 to 100 kilometres. We were only stopped a few times and only had to pay a ‘gasosa’ once. The other times we were waved on, and I think it’s because they thought Sofia was Angolan!
Once we got to the waterfalls we were surrounded by about 30 kids, all vying to be our guides down to the bottom of the waterfalls. We had heard that a bunch of kids would offer to take us down but this was intense! They were pushing and arguing amongst each other so much that we actually had to wait a couple of minutes before we could even open the doors. They all seemed to flock around me and the bigger kids were using their size to push the little ones out of the way. It was impossible to choose a couple of them without the rest all pushing in the way and arguing as to why I should choose them instead. Sofia suddenly shouted, “Gordon, I have two!” While they were all fighting for my attention the two smallest kids out of the lot had gone around to her side of the car and were able to calmly convince Sofia that they were the ones who should show us around. It was much easier that way! We also took one bigger guy with us, as the two little ones mustn’t have been much more that five years old — not the kind of guides you want if an unwanted animal appears on the path! I thought it was interesting how they all came to me rather than Sofia, and I think it’s a cultural thing — they expected that because I am a man I would be the one with the money and probably the authority when it came to deciding who to choose!
The waterfalls were spectacular. The mouth was so wide, and because it was the rainy season it was at full volume. I thought the view point at the top was better than from down below, but it was definitely worth going down.
Around midday we left to go to another waterfall we had heard about, one you could stand under. We drove for about 20 kilometres, through 4 little villages and turned left onto a dirt track, again with grass on each side growing well over the height of the car!
Because it had rained the previous day, parts of the track were quite flooded. Luckily a kid on a motorbike passed by and turned around, offering to guide us through the big puddles. He drove in front of us, instructing us which parts to avoid. After about 5km we got to his village, a set of 15 mud brick houses and not much else. He said the waterfall was another 5km on, so we asked him if he would come with us to show us the way. He happily agreed! David was his name, and he was 15 years old.
We had to take it really slow because the road was so bumpy and flooded. Eventually we got there — a small but charming waterfall hidden beneath trees. You could stand under it which was cool! There were two other boys there fishing, probably from one of the local villages we passed on the way there.
On the way back we dropped David off in his village and got out to say hi to his friends and family. It was really fun, about 15 kids were there with a couple of grannies. I asked to take a photo and the kids were too happy to pose! They loved looking at themselves on the screen and laughing at one another. Sofia asked to buy sugar cane, wanting to try it. To which one of the grannies replied, “we don’t have sugar cane but we have rabbits”. She went around the house and came back holding a white rabbit by the ears! I thought about buying it as a pet, but it wouldn’t have lasted long in Luanda…
We headed back to Luanda a little later than planned. This meant driving after the sun went down. We had to do about 150km in the dark, and it was lashing rain, on a road that in many parts of Europe would have to be closed for maintenance. I had the full headlights on and at times I couldn’t see more that 10 metres ahead of me. Sometimes we’d go straight through pot holes, the two feet deep ones, without seeing them. Looking back it was definitely the most dangerous driving conditions I’ve ever experienced. Around 10pm we finally made it back to Luanda and I was quite relieved we’d got through it in once piece!
Overall a great trip and something you have to do if you ever come to Angola — I’m not sure how many people that applies to but hopefully the country will become more accessible to tourists in the not too distant future and some of you will come explore this virgin land!
