A trip back to the capital of Angola, Luanda and a tour of this big African country

Luanda, 31/10/2009
We thought that Norway had the best price! This only until a few minutes ago, when we resumed contact with the city of Luanda after 15 years from our last step. In 1995 Angola was still a country plunged into war, is now a country under reconstruction. The size of the city have multiplied, entire residential areas built as Talatona with its endless series of private housing. The new ghettos for the rich of the twenty-first century.
At the airport we were welcomed by Dino, the driver of the Guest House Solem, we booked via the Internet. It's Saturday morning and the chaotic traffic in Luanda seems to grant a truce in about 15 minutes to reach the Guest House Solem (Rua Kwammw N'Krumah, 1 - Web-site: www.soleme.com. Find a Hotel in Luanda seems to be always problematic enough, after a series of attempts to empty, we stumbled upon the site of Solem on the internet, contacted and received a reply in less than half a day, we have confirmed. The Guest House is up to the images of the site, clean rooms with air conditioning, domestic and satellite TV, the service is excellent. It is also strategically located in downtown Luanda to 500 meters from the presidential palace and key ministries, thus very safe area. negotiate with Dino for a panoramic tour city to see some of the cambiamneti suffered in 15 years.
We begin with the neighborhood of Miramar with the private rsidenza Dos Santos, the president, the area of the residences of ambassadors and magnificent views over the bay of Luanda and sull'Ilha, but also the popular district of Sambizanga where to find one of the largest markets Africa, the Roque Santeiro, a real jungle, an area extremely dangerous. We continue towards the port, overlooking the slums that rise just behind the wall. The marginal which is being a colossal project to upgrade the entire area, with drainage of the sand from the bay to build artificial beaches on which to build new tourist facilities. We pass under the Fortaleza San Miguel, to reach the entrance "da Ilha. Sull'Ilha arise a number of hotels and luxury restaurants, but nache small eateries frequented by the locals especially in the evening or on weekends. In "Ponto Final" end dell'Ilha grant us a "Cuca", the local brew, super cold. Clouds looming in the north of Luanda and the wind tries to bring the curtains shade poorly linked to the rocks. Time to go, we go to the Cidade Alta, with various ministries, the palace of the President, the Bom Jesus church, but nache the barracks "Hong Kong". Dino explains in Angola are very creative, an old palace of occupied was renamed "Chechnya", another neighborhood quite problematic "Baghdad", is now missing only Kabul, but maybe there are places like Angola. Passing near the residence of Dos Santos, the highly forbidden and hyper protected in times of Savimbi, head towards the new district of Talatona. 15 years ago there was only forest, now stands the largest mall in Luanda, the Belas Shopping and an endless series of private super luxury condominiums.
Dominant themes throughout the city billboards of CAN 2010 (African Cup of Nations soccer) and the campaign against AIDS.

 

Dino arrives on time at 5:30, we leave for the airport. Our rider has not arrived yet, try a phone call, but you can not find a phone throughout the airport of Luanda. We proceed with our ceck in, then the airport and I finally arrived. The airport controls are numerous, precontrollo first entry (ticket and documents), check into pre ceck, ceck in, pre control documents, inspection documents, baggage control, fiscal control (remember that is prohibited from exporting Kwanzas), finally last control for loading. Total 8 controls, not bad! Let's start with the strangely TAAG flight on time, at Lubango airport after an hour flight, we share and we are in about 1:50 a.m. in Windhoek.