CAN 2010

Here in Angola the atmosphere is full of excitement.  Later today, the Angolan national soccer team will play Ghana in the quarter-finals of the African Cup of Nations (CAN).  If Angola wins tonight, there is a pretty good chance that the President will declare tomorrow a national holiday.  There’s also a pretty good chance that I won’t be able to sleep tonight.  If the previous celebrations that occurred outside of my window in the populous bairro of Cassenda can serve as any indication, there will be plenty of loud music blaring, horns blowing, people banging on tin or metal surfaces and kids and adults alike singing and chanting at the top of their lungs. All night long.  It’s not totally off the mark to think that Angola will win considering that Ghana sent its third-string soccer team to the tournament, keeping their more talented and valuable players fresh and ready for the slightly more important soccer tournament that will take place in South Africa later this year.

But for now, Angola is enjoying its moment.  Everyone is wearing Angola t-shirts, hats and scarves.  Angolan flags wave from every other car.  For the last game, the President declared a half-day of work so that everyone could make it to watch the game on time (it started at 5pm, but with Luanda traffic, people sat between 2-3 hours in their car to get to the stadium.)  Luckily, I decided to continue working till about 3pm and missed all of the traffic.

Angolans are so proud to be hosting this tournament.  It’s their debut to the world that Angola, one of the fastest growing economies in the world, has turned a new leaf and is enjoying the fruits of their natural resources.  Unfortunately, the world (at least the part of the world that is paying attention) is coming away with a different picture.  The games kicked off with a tragic incident in the northern region of Cabinda by a separatist group hungry for media attention.   The group misfired and instead of hitting the Angolan escorts they were aiming for, their gunfire fell on a bus carrying the entire Togo national football team.  Two men were fatally injured and Togo opted to return back home and not play in the games.  Here in Luanda, the city has been preparing for CAN since before I arrived.  New high-rise hotels built to accommodate the influx of tourists for the games have been popping up everywhere.   But there are no tourists and most of the hotels are still not finished.  Journalists and soccer teams were told they would be given visas upon arrival at the airport, but regular tourists still had to go through the normal process of applying for a visa – meaning theirs should be approved about a month or 2 after CAN is over.  It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, even most journalists can’t entirely afford to pay $400+/night to stay in a hotel in Luanda – the most expensive city in the world, especially those coming from other African countries.

As for me, this is all part of the experience.  And of course, I don’t want Ghana to spoil the party.  I will be heading out now to watch the game at a friend’s place.  Forca Palancas Negras!

Bela Angola

When I received the offer to go to Angola, the first place I went was the travel section at Barnes & Noble. There’s nothing like glossy, colorful pictures of beautiful places and cultural sites to quell my fears and give me that first sense of excitement that I usually get when traveling to new and unknown territory. But I didn’t find a guidebook on Angola. It took me a few minutes to realize it wasn’t there. Maybe someone had perused it and forgotten to put it back in alphabetical order on the Africa shelf. There was a guidebook on Sudan, but not one for Angola? I didn’t even find an honorable mention in the travel book on Southern Africa – not even a few pages to inform the reader that Angola was also a country in Southern Africa. When I finally did find a few pages in the huge Sub-Saharan Africa guidebook, it wasn’t flattering. It basically said: travel at your own risk.

I was going to devote this blog entry to how the guidebooks had it all wrong. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize that the “average” tourist may find the conditions unfit for their traveling tastes (note the distinction between traveler and tourist). Surely, they would all come back to their home country with stories of the wild and crazy adventures and near-death experiences in Angola. And they would be right of course. There are the inconveniences (sections of unpaved, pot-holed roads; few bathrooms, hotels or restaurants on the way) and the real dangers (landmines, high rate of car accidents, car trouble – you know, like wheels coming off, electrical fires under the hood, 4x4s sliding down an embankment). That’s what makes traveling in Angola that much more exciting. You just never know what’s going to happen. I have the benefit of traveling with people who know the land and who travel prepared (fire extinguishers, tow ropes, first-aid kits, etc.). They know where to go, and more importantly, where not to go.

Angola has a lot to offer in terms of untouched, breathtaking, natural beauty. What is even more wonderful about them is that there aren’t ANY signs of tourism. When traveling in Angola, you truly are at your own risk. But with any risk, the prepared know how to hedge their bets and enjoy great rewards.

Below are a few pictures from various places around Angola.  And lastly, I am posting a new link to my blog page on Luanda night life (on the sidebar to the right). There are lots of great pictures of bars and restaurants for those who are interested in seeing a few pictures of Luanda.

(The Leba Pass – the road between Lubango and Namibe;  Arco – an oais in the middle of the Namibe desert; Cristo Rei overlooking the city of Lubango; and, Tundavala)