Angola | Trip Report | Country 159/197

Trip Report: Angola

Visited in October 2023

Angola will probably go down in my personal history as the most chaotic short trip ever.

“Your flight has a delay of 40 minutes,” is not what I want to hear at the check-in counter. Especially not when I’m flying Air France and have to change planes at Charles-de-Gaulle airport, one of the worst airports for transits. My connecting time was originally two hours. But suddenly I only had an hour and 20 minutes. It became a close call. I reached my gate after doing several sprints while getting from terminal 2G to 2E. It seemed that I was one of the last passengers to board the plane.

This was the start of an extended weekend in Angola. Yes, you read that right. A weekend not in Paris or London but in Angola. After South Sudan in 2021, my second weekend trip to sub-Saharan Africa. You can call it crazy to fly to Southern Africa for only three days, but with two eight-hour flights during the night, I don’t mind. I can sleep on flights, even in eco.

Angola was my last country in Southern Africa, but maybe the most difficult in this region. At least that’s what I assumed. Angola has the reputation for being quite dangerous, especially in the capital city Luanda. Besides, Angola had the most difficult visa in the world until recently. As a tourist you could not officially enter the country and the business visa was difficult to get.

Fortunately, Angola introduced a tourist evisa in 2018 and suddenly it became easy to visit the country. But it got even better. Two weeks before my trip, Angola lifted the visa requirement for citizens of 98 countries. And I can confirm that you can enter Angola visa-free if you’re from one of these countries. They did not ask for it at immigration.

I was joined by Sanjay, another extreme traveler, for whom Angola was already country number 172. We had three (more or less) full days in Angola, so we needed to make our trip as efficient as possible. Therefore, we booked a 3-day tour consisting of Luanda, Kalandula Falls and Pedras Negras. The two latter are attractions in the interior of the country a few hours away from the capital.

When you want to book a tour in Angola you will learn that there are not many tour companies. After all, the country is not touristy. Unfortunately, most tour providers charge completely crazy prices for their services. For example, it is not uncommon for a tour company to charge $1,500 for a two-day trip. We received similar quotes from some companies.

In the end, we booked with Marta Tours & Trips. Their offer was: 125 USD for a Luanda city tour and 425 USD for the two-day trip into the interior. Split by two, that meant $275 per person, which was comparatively cheap. But yeah, if you travel alone in Angola, be prepared to pay a lot…

A day in Luanda

Our guide Nelson and the driver Flavio waited for us at the airport. Actually, Marta herself was supposed to be our guide, but she missed a domestic flight from to Luanda the day before. As a result, she had to outsource the trip and Nelson got our guide.

We first went to the hotel, where we were able to exchange money from a friend of Nelson. There is a black market for money exchange in Angola, where you get about 20% more than from the bank. Afterwards we started our tour, which included the highlights Luanda’s city center, the viewpoint of the moon, which is one hour south of Luanda, and the ship graveyard, half an hour north of the capital.

The viewpoint of the moon was our first stop. I don’t usually get sick in the car, but Flavio had a terrible driving style. He stepped on the gas pedal every few seconds, so the car never drove at a constant speed. Furthermore, he pulled abruptly on the steering wheel again and again, which is why we constanly took a slight left or right turn even when he wanted to drive straight. Flavio would pretty much get the award for worst driver I’ve ever had on a trip.

When we arrived at the viewpoint of the moon, I had to focus for about two minutes so I wouldn’t throw up. “Will Flavio be with us for the next two days?” I asked Nelson, although I already knew the answer. Needless to say, I wasn’t really looking forward to this trip out of the capital anymore.

The moon landscapes were impressive though. But in the end, the viewpoint of the moon is… a viewpoint. You get out of the car, walk to the viewpoint, take a picture and then leave. So it’s not like you can do a hike there or anything. Nevertheless, I can recommend this one-hour drive. The landscapes are impressive and look like from another planet.

miradouro da lua luanda angola — Miradouro da Lua

An hour later, we were back in the capital. Luanda is a modern city. I would even say one of the most modern in Africa. For expats it is also one of the most expensive cities in the world. Rents in the center can easily cost over $6,000 per month.

Angola is one of the most oil-rich countries in Africa and you can definitely see that in Luanda. Here you will find skyscrapers, fancy restaurants, rooftop bars…. basically everything you would find in developed countries. I must admit that Luanda fascinated me and I would call it a top five city in sub-Saharan Africa, even though the bar here is also very low.

Unfortunately, this wealth is distributed quite unevenly in Angola. 80% of the people live below the poverty line. This is also the reason why the level of crime is very high in Luanda. People come here hoping for a better life but there is not enough work, which drives them into crime. I even read in a travel blog once that the author witnessed how someone was shot in Luanda in broad daylight.

So, did I feel unsafe in Luanda? No, actually never. I have to admit that we didn’t spend much time on the streets of Luanda and Nelson was always with us. But there were some short moments when we were alone and nobody bothered us. According to Nelson, it would also not be a problem to walk around the center at night. However, we later learned that Nelson’s remarks were not always true. Anyway, I felt about as safe in Luanda as I did in Nairobi, for example.

luanda at night — Not your typical African city

Shortly before sunset, we drove to the ship graveyard north of town. When the Angola Civil War broke out in 1975, the Portuguese, the former colonial rulers, fled for their lives. To prevent the rebels from using their ships against them, the Portuguese stranded them. This created a tourist attraction in Luanda, a typical post-apocalyptic Atlas Obscura place to visit. Google it, it looks cool!

When we arrived we saw… nothing, because this graveyard no longer exists. We just witnessed how a few locals carried one of the last ship parts out of the water. According to a TripAdvisor review, the shipwrecks were still there a few months ago. Now the people removed the shipwrecks in order to sell the parts.

ship graveyard luanda — This is where the shipwrecks were.

Instead, our driver Flavio almost made the former ship graveyard become a car graveyard. He got stuck with the car in the sand and could not get it out anymore. It took almost half an hour until he could finally free the car.

Our Luanda tour ended although we did not manage to see all the places on our itinerary. This was on the one hand due to our late start (we started around 10am) and also due to some miscalculations by Nelson. So we unfortunately missed among other things the Fortaleza de São Miguel. Still, Luanda was a city I liked a lot and I wouldn’t have minded spending a second day there.

Kalandula Falls, Africa’s second largest waterfall

The next morning we left Luanda around 7am and headed into the interior of the country. Our destination: the second largest waterfall in Africa after Victoria Falls: the Kalandula Falls.

I honestly had zero desire to sit in Flavio’s car for hours and drive through Angola. However, I must admit that it got better on the second day. Probably my stomach just adapted to his driving style. Or maybe it’s because I reminded him several times not to drive so annoyingly. Who knows.

Unfortunately, once you leave Luanda, the roads get awful. Although they are still paved, one pothole follows the next and the closer we got to Kalandula Falls, the worse the roads got. Even though I felt less sick, the combination of potholes and Flavio as the driver was a recipe for disaster.

According to Google Maps, the drive from Luanda to Kalandula Falls takes five and a half hours. In reality, it took about seven. We arrived at Kalandula Falls in the late afternoon. There are two viewpoints for the falls: one from the top and one from the bottom. At the top there are some boys waiting to show you around for a small tip (1,000 AOA, which is about $1, is enough). If you are at the top viewpoint, it takes no more than 15 minutes to see everything.

Kalandula Falls are definitely epic. Standing at the top of the falls and hearing the thundering sound of the waterfall is an awe-inspiring experience. Certainly a top sight not to be missed when in Angola.

We did not go directly from the top to the bottom, although the boys offered us that. The reason for this was that we had booked a hotel that is directly at the Kalandula Falls. Not where this viewpoint was but on the other side of the river. Nelson said we would go down from there.

What made me a little nervous were two factors: first, it was already about 3:30pm. Sunset is sometime around 6pm. And according to Google Maps, the drive from the viewpoint to our hotel was almost an hour by car. Even though we could see the hotel and it was only about 300-400m away as the crow flies. However, the road made a huge detour, resulting in this long drive time.

Second, Nelson’s timing was already in Luanda not the best. We missed some attractions there because he didn’t know exactly when sunset was and how big the distances between the places were. “The drive to the hotel takes a maximum of ten minutes,” he assured us. “We drive on a road that is not visible on Google Maps,” he added.

After we had been driving again for thirty minutes and I realized that we were going exactly on the road that Google had indicated as the fastest way to the hotel, I told Nelson sarcastically that these ten minutes were actually quite long and that I think we really would need an hour. Nelson’s answer? None. He just ignored it.

Nelson’s English was okay, but not particularly good. You often had to ask the same question twice before he could answer. Maybe he just didn’t understand my comment. Possible but unlikely. Since Nelson was already often wrong with his estimates, I wanted to play it safe. “Is it guaranteed that we can walk from the hotel to the bottom of the waterfall?” Nelson answered in the affirmative. Even when I asked a second time if he was 100% sure, he said yes. I was already afraid that in the end there will be no path at all from the hotel to the falls.

“You can’t go down there. It’s too dangerous. Since it has been raining for the last few hours, the path is too slippery!” Those were Nelson’s words, telling us what the manager of the hotel just said to him. But you know what? To hell with it. We didn’t really care how safe it was, we didn’t want to miss the bottom of the falls.

pousada calandula angola — The views from the hotel were incredible!

Armed with a walking stick, we struggled down the muddy path. It really wasn’t safe, as it was quite steep in places and slippery at the same time. Nelson came with us at the beginning, but at some point we lost sight of him. I guess he lost interest on the way and turned back. Later he explained that he was not wearing the right shoes.

Fortunately we went down despite the warnings, because from the bottom the Kalandula Falls looked even more impressive than from above.

We spent the night at the Pousada Calandula. Admittedly, the view of the waterfalls from the hotel is brilliant. Otherwise, the hotel was rather disappointing. The rooms are small and a little run down. Moreover, the hotel seems like a two-star hotel, but calls itself a 4 star and charges €200 per night (half board at least).

But honestly, there are not many good alternatives either. There are some (very poorly rated) hotels in Calandula, the next town. Many spend the night in Malanje, the next bigger city. However, for Malanje you drive again over an hour, but well, even to the Pousada Calandula it takes an hour from the Kalandula Falls, although the hotel is only a stone’s throw away.

By the way, it is possible to make the trip to Kalandula Falls and Pedras Negras in one day. I know people who have done this. The tour starts at 5:30am in Luanda and you are back around midnight. But that also means that you sit in the car for about 14-15 hours that day.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to do this. But of course you save some money if you do it this way. At the same time, it’s probably not very safe for a driver to be on the terrible roads for that long. Imagine someone with Flavio’s driving skills having to drive 14-15 hours a day…

Pedras Negras

“Where the hell is Nelson?”

It was 6.30am. We were supposed to leave at 6am. Nelson was nowhere. He had a different accommodation than us and we didn’t know where. His Whatsapp status said that he was last online at 3.46am. He did not respond to messages or phone calls. My flight was at 8pm and since the trip back to Luanda surely also took another 7-8 hours, I was getting worried that I would miss the flight.

We could not reach Nelson, but fortunately Marta answered the phone and promised us that she will contact Nelson. Sanjay used this situation to complain to Marta via Whatsapp that Nelson was a terrible guide and listed all of Nelson’s flaws. Instead of sending an apology, Marta’s response was a gif showing a crying kitten.

Nelson and Flavio arrived shortly after 7am and we were finally able to leave. Nelson complained that he was tired. When I asked him what he did all night, he answered with “nothing”. I don’t know what they were up to that night, but sitting in the car with Flavio after he had only slept three hours or so wasn’t exactly what I wished for.

On the way back to Luanda we visited the Pedras Negras, huge, black rock formations that rise above the African savannah. You can already see them from a distance. We then walked up one of these rocks where we had an amazing view.

We spent about thirty minutes on the rock, took some photos, let the drone fly and went back down. Actually Nelson said we were in a hurry and should go back to Luanda in order to catch the flight.

The Pedras Negras were certainly nice, however, the whole thing was too rushed. I wouldn’t have minded spending more time there. So it was now more of a “been there, done that” activity. We definitely could have avoided that if Nelson picked us up on time.

It took another six or seven hours until we arrived in Luanda. At the airport I learned that my Air France flight was canceled. I was rebooked on a flight 24 hours later with Lufthansa to Frankfurt. The whole handling at the airport was anything but professional and I was also told to wait two hours before being provided with a hotel. After these two hours, I learned that I had to wait another hour before the hotel shuttle would pick me up.

It was more by coincidence that I was still flying home the same evening. An Air France employee approached me in the check-in hall and asked which airports as the final destination would work for me. I said that any airport in Switzerland was fine. I was eventually booked on the TAP flight which flew first from Luanda to Porto and from there to Zurich. Instead of 11.30am I then arrived home at 5pm. Still better than 24 hours later.

But anyway, it was a crazy end to a crazy trip.

Is Angola worth a trip?

In Africa, it is usually the case that countries are either top or flop. Something in between seems to be rare. Angola belongs for me in the category top. A beautiful country with an interesting capital and two great sights a few hours away. Especially the Kalandula Falls are certainly among the most spectacular waterfalls in the world.

Of course, there is much more to see in the 23rd largest country in the world than the places we visited. Especially the nature in the south of the country (Tundavala) must be stunning. Therefore, I do not rule out that I will return someday. The only downside is that it takes long to travel between places due to the poor infrastructure outside Luanda. Even on our short 3-day trip, we spent a significant part of our stay in the car – about seven to eight hours per day.

At the same time, Angola is expensive for tourists. If you want to travel with a certain level of comfort and at the same time not waste too much time, you cannot avoid booking a guide and/or driver. In our case, the guide didn’t add any value and we could just have traveled with only a driver.

Angola is a very good example of what applies to many African countries: you pay Western European prices, but you get only about 30% of the quality of service that you would get in Europe. Of course, this is not entirely true in the touristy countries in Africa like Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa or Namibia, but in most of the other countries. Reasons for this are that there are hardly any tourists and therefore you cannot easily join a cheap group tour. There is also hardly any competition between the tour companies, which can therefore charge insane prices.

Looking back, I am not sure if I can recommend Marta’s company. Better try with Luzayaturismo. This company has a good reputation and would have been even a little cheaper than Marta. Unfortunately, they had no guides or driver available for the dates I requested.

Nevertheless, the prices should not deter anyone from this beautiful country. After all, there is still the option to travel by public transport if you have more time than we did. Not that I would do that, but I just wanted to point out this option. Apart from that, I can recommend Angola to everyone who wants to visit a rather untouristy but nice country besides the classic African destinations.