Travel brings power and love back into your life - Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

9 June 2019, Cabo Ledo to Barra do Kwanza, 40,7km
Hospedaria 3,000Kz (R134)

A shortish ride past baobabs and euphorbia, with the sea sometimes visible to our left. We passed the formal entrance to Parque Nacional da Quicama*, then dropped into the estuary / wetland created by the Rio (river) Kwanza. The estuary is flat, and pretty, all green and aubergine and sand. Oddly, several car wrecks dot the scene. We have not understood throughout Angola why these are not removed for scrap metal. They are a particularly odd sight in a national park / conservation area. At the north end of the estuary is the river itself, an impressive body of water spanned by a suspension bridge. At the toll booth on the other side of the bridge, we were waved on by the booth man.
Barra do Kwanza does not really qualify as a town. There are one or two upmarket lodges with restaurants, a garage, a cheap hospedaria, a local restaurant, and some scattered housing. The hospedaria had no electricity, so I negotiated the price down from the 4,000Kz originally asked. This was the second time only since entering Angola that I felt we had been charged more than a local would have.
Our host put clean sheets on our bed in our standard room, but though he mopped the floors, there was not much he could do to improve the appearance of the horrible shared bathrooms. Unusually, there was water coming from the tap at the basin, though none from the shower. We were told to use a Salada da Frutas tin to fill a pink basin with water for a bucket bath in the defunct shower stall. The water was tepid, the odour from the loo unpleasant.
Later, we had an unexpectedly good barbecued fish dinner at the local restaurant across the road. The proprietor moved a table into the shade of the palm trees on her lot, and seated us there. A dog and several chickens with chicks wondered about; one other table comprised three diners, another some drinkers…
*Parque Nacional da Quicama is a large area marked in green on Google Maps. The EN100 runs through it. Much of it seems to comprise a nature conservancy, though we understand Kruger National Park in South Africa has donated elephants and giraffe to the park, which is trying still to recover from the ravages of an extended civil war.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…