Coming through Luanda was challenging, traffic busy and roads flooded from a burst sewage pipe evident from the flow of turds floating down the street. After a two hour planned tour of the city I decide it’s time to escape.

Exiting Luanda, along the coast road heading South, I notice the land between the road and coastline sign posted as prohibited and suspect the land is still heavily mined which is a shame as the deserted white sandy beaches looked perfect for a wild camp.

I get stuck behind a heavily loaded truck and jeep climbing the coast line hill. I wait for the opportunity and check to see if it’s clear before making my overtake manoeuvre. I have a good view of the road ahead and its clear so open the accelerator and move out from behind the jeep. As I draw level with jeep he also decides to overtake, ignoring my beeps. The gap between the jeep and the verge on the opposite side of the roads gets narrower until the jeep purposefully pushes me in to the grass, sandy verge and down in to the triangular ditch. Still traveling at speed I gently squeeze the brakes so Livingstone can come to a slow stop. I have to dismount and pull Livingstone out from the ditch. I climb aboard angrily and accelerate quickly to catch the jeep and ask his reasons for such aggressive driving. He knew he had done wrong and probably noticed me disappear in to the ditch but he was nowhere to be seen. I stop at the next check point to tell the Police Officers of my experience but the language barrier made it impossible to explain my story so I ride on.

Approaching the lush green, palm covered foot hills of Angola I stop to refuel. In the petrol station shop I see chocolate, savoury waffles, ice creams and even coffee for sale. There’s so much choice to what I have been used to and buy them all.

I text Bruce to find out his location. We calculate I’m just ahead but only by a few miles. I decide to wait and five minutes later, Adrian and Bruce turn up on their very muddy machines.

Arriving in Benguela, we try to locate a beach front hotel but they’re all very expensive at a minimum of 160 USD per night per room. Benguela is a relatively quiet city with beautiful views across the clean white sandy beaches but murky ocean.

We decide to head out of the city in search of cheaper accommodation. Along the way, we ride through huge mountainous sand hills. I suspect its some form of mine, possibly diamonds.

We reach the quite town of Baia Farta which is hillarious considering Adrian and Bruces digestion problems.

That leads me on to say I experienced my most sleepless night so far. We agreed to share a room to keep the cost down but Adrian and Bruce literally queued most of the night to take it in turns to use the toilet. I decided, tomorrow I shall have a room of my own.

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