Back in the 1980s & 1990s, I spent nearly seven months Birding in Sub-Saharan Africa visiting, Kenya (twice), Rwanda, bits of Zaire & Uganda, Madagascar, Botswana, the Victoria Falls, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Ethiopia & Cameroon. Since that time, my trips have focused on Latin America & other parts of the Old World, and I've not had the opportunity or priority to get back to Sub-Saharan Africa. A few months ago, I was offered the chance of joining a private Birding trip to Angola with mates Phil Hansbro & Richard Carden. They had arranged a private trip with their mate & South African Bird guide, Niall Perrins (pronounced Neil) for a sixteen days Birding trip. The duration was just about long enough on paper to see the Angolan goodies, but with no built in contingency for difficult species.
Angola obtained its independence from Portugal in 1975 and immediately descended into a twenty-seven year long civil war between two opposing independence parties: one communist & one non-communist. Quickly, neighbouring countries started getting involved, before the backing spread to Russia, Cuba and their allies and the US, as it became another Cold War proxy warzone. Finally, a peace deal was reached in 2002, following the death of the non-communist leader. This left Angola in a serious mess with millions of displaced and poorly fed citizens, many landmines, destroyed infrastructure and other impacts from the civil war. As a consequence, it was never a country that I thought I would visit. However, one of the Banda Sea Cruise punters, Steve Kornfeld visited in Autumn 22, as did Barry Reed & a number of other British Birders on a separate trip.
With Birders visiting Angola and the opportunity to join a private trip with a couple of mates at a price that was considerably less than other Bird tours, it was clearly worth considering. After a few hours of thought, I decided to take up the offer of the third & final place on the trip. The tour groups take larger numbers of punters and their bird guide in two or three 4WDs. We would only have one 4WD which Niall had driven up from his Johannesburg home, with Richard deciding to travel up with Niall. Although Niall was the Bird guide and driver, it quickly felt more like a trip with mates as Phil & Richard were travelling buddies of Niall and they had travelled together on a number of trips, both in Africa and elsewhere in the world.
I flew in from Heathrow with the Portuguese TAP airline via Lisbon. I finally arrived into Luanda forty-five minutes late at 21:45. The visa process then added the best part of another hour delay before I finally escaped from the airport. I had applied for my visa in advance in the most painful visa application that I have ever made. The application not only needed the usual personal details, but confirmation of the travel plans, confirmation of spending at least two hundred US dollars a day, but also the details of a local sponsor. Niall had provided the details of one of the hotel managers along with the details of her nationality card with issue & expiry dates. There were two options to apply for the e-visa: use the free government e-visa process or pay the best part of 100 US dollars and apply via a private visa company. Richard had already tried the government process and had his e-visa rejected, before being successful with the paid process. Phil had gone straight down the paid process route. I decided to try the free government route, but immediately became unstuck as the sponsor's nationality card had expired. I changed the expiry year & submitted the application, whilst urgently contacting Niall to ask for an alternative local sponsor. They didn't need the sponsors full details, but it was a mandatory set of details on the application website that needed completing before you could submit the application. Fortunately and surprisingly, my e-visa was approved within one day.
Barry had warned me that when I reached immigration in Luanda, I would be sent to another office to get my real visa. It was good being forewarned about this, as my lack of Portuguese and the poor English of the immigration official would have been worrying as to why I didn't immediately get through immigration. The e-visa is only half the process. The second half involved a half hour queue to get into the office where they slowly checked my passport & e-visa, pay the 120 US dollar visa fee in cash which was then changed to local currency to pay another man, before the visa could be checked & finally issued. It's a good job there weren't lots of tourists on the plane as there were only about eight people in front of me to get a visa & yet it still took me nearly an hour to complete the immigration process. Finally, I had my visa approved and I picked up my main bag.
At last, I was out into the main arrivals lounge, but there was nobody there to meet me. Niall had said that he would arrange for a driver to pick me up. Fortunately, the driver reappeared after a few minutes. It was a ten minute drive to the uninspiring and over-priced Golden Park Hotel in the city, where Phil & Niall were waiting for me, whilst keeping the barman busy pouring cold beers. It was good to see Phil again for my third trip with him and to meet Niall. Richard had already decided to get an early night.
The plan was to leave at 05:30 the following morning & drive just over two hundred miles North East to the town of Uige, with three Birding stops along the way. The first stop was a sandy track through scrubby vegetation at Santa Amboleia, soon after it got light. This doubled up as a convenient breakfast stop. Sometimes, Niall arranged pack lunches from the hotels, whereas other stops it was rolls and cheese, with lots of coffee and cold drinks. One benefit of Niall driving his own 4WD from South Africa, was the 4WD fridge, which provided a level of comfort I hadn't expected. Fortunately, Niall had already brought some rolls in the 4WD, as the hotel hadn't provided a vegie packed lunch for me.
After a short Birding stop & breakfast, we were back on the road. In addition to the Red-backed Mousebirds, we had seen our only White-fronted Wattle-eyes and first Hartert's Camaropteras. That was three of the fourteen (Clements) or fifteen (IOC) Angolan endemics seen.
While the main roads in Angola were generally tarmacked, they were also very potholed and it wasn't possible to Niall to drive too fast, due to the real dangers of hitting a deep pothole and causing serious damage to a tyre or the suspension. Even at moderate speeds, it was a very common event most hours for Niall to have to break sharply before swerving to avoid yet another pothole. We stopped for a Raptor in a tree, but it was only a Gymnogene: one of the common African Raptors we were to see on the trip.
The next stop was at the Dande River bridge. But I will cover that in the next Blog Post.