Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead - Ma Jian

24 June 2019, Ambriz to Musserra, 49,3km
“Camp” at police station 0Kz (R0)

We have been making use of two different maps, neither of which has proved 100 percent accurate: Google Maps, and a pdf sent to Charl by a fellow West Coast traveller.
On Google Maps, no direct route was shown between Ambriz and Musserra; on the pdf was a brown line linking the two. In similar previous circumstances, the brown line had turned out to be a perfectly usable, in fact, delightful, tar road. This time it turned out to be no more than a narrow dirt track through the countryside.
Of the 49km travelled today… 7km was on tar between Ambriz and the Musserra turnoff; 33km was on dirt, which began as a road, but for most of the distance was little more than a track; another 8km of tar took us to an entrance to Musserra, the extravagant sign to the town belying the 1km walking track to it.
Of the 33km section, without measuring it, I would guess we pushed our bikes at least 13km. Some of the cycling was a pleasure; most required caution. The sections we walked were deep sand, deep ruts, or deep river pebbles, all of which were beyond our ability to ride, particularly fully-laden. For long, exhausting periods we would cycle 100 metres, dismount to push our bikes for 200 metres, reboard to wobble along for 50 metres, get off and force our way up a rutted incline, clamber back into the saddle… get off and drag the bikes…
In some way we enjoyed the experience, though I would not want to repeat it, infinitely preferring a smooth ride on good bitumen. We passed a small town where school kids surrounded us and the bikes, crossing into the town via an iron bridge with holes big enough to swallow the tyres of far bigger vehicles than ours.
We did not manage to pass a police barrier, the first at which we have been obliged to stop since entering Angola. This one comprised a makeshift structure, a rope across the narrow road, and two men. Neither had a pen, so we had to lend them ours, and Charl had to help them decipher our passports - our names and nationalities, our entry point and date, our extended exit date. It seemed a pointless exercise, unless it was intended to alleviate their boredom - in our whole long day on that interminable track, we encountered probably five vehicles, all two- or three-wheel autocycles. Anyway, they were not in the least officious or difficult, doing their job politely and sending us soon enough on our way.
Musserra has no accommodation. We were directed to the police station where it was clear that travellers seeking a safe place to sleep are not unknown to them. They quickly directed us to an almost-empty room, indicating that we could erect our tent inside it. And showed us to a loo (unflushable and off their sleeping quarters, but better than nothing), and a cement room in the grounds where they provided a bucket of water from their delivered water supplies for us to take a bucket bath, the water running out the room under the door. We cooked pasta and added a tin of bully beef, not my favourite, its resemblance to cat food putting me off, but filling…

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