Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you've never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground - Judith Thurman

25 June 2019, Musserra to N’zeto, 53.95km
Pensão Ntadi-Dia-Ntenxa 9,000Kz (R401)

We met two cycle tourers today, the first since Springbok, South Africa. Youssef from Western Sahara, headed south to Cape Town then north to Cairo; and Blanca from Spain and the UK, who has already done Cairo to Cape Town and is headed north to her home in London. Blanca will be skipping some sections of the west coast, doing some using local transport, and will be home before Christmas.
Youssef has paid for accommodation only twice since leaving home, managing to camp in villages most nights. He has only run into trouble once, when a drunk man in Angola threatened him with a machete in an attempt to rob him. Someone called the police and all was resolved, but he was badly shaken.
Charl had been in WhatsApp contact with Blanca for awhile, having connected via the West Coast cycle WhatsApp group, and knowing she was slowly catching up with us from the south. She had “overtaken” us while we were in Ambriz, which is off the main route. While we slept in Musserra, she had spent the night at a beach resort south of N’zeto where she met a French family touring Africa with three small kids and a 4x4. Having decided to spend a second night at the resort, she and the family drove from there into N’zeto to do some shopping. We had just met Youssef, who had crossed the road to chat to us, when Blanca and the French family drove up and got out also to greet us. [The French family had a very frightening experience in Burkina Faso, but were rescued by the police from armed men...]
And it was there the police found us all, and told us we would need to report to the police in N’zeto. Charl and I planned to ignore this (silly / pointless) request, but in N’zeto we were accosted by the police and escorted to the station where again I had to lend my pen to the man completing our details in his book. He seemed to be using information from the Congo or Gabon visas in our passports, either a mistake on his part, or for some purpose undiscernable to me. Then to immigration where we went through a similar exercise.
The road to N’zeto is perfect, with a wide shoulder, always a pleasure. We passed the local buck butcher, his single catch partially dissected and displayed on a forked branch on the roadside, his hands still bloody; and bought oranges from outside a homestead, where we were immediately surrounded by kids. In the evening, we walked down to N'zeto's beach, a rather grubby piece of sand, with fishing boats at rest at day's close, and rough fish shacks empty. Another potential tourist attraction lying fallow.

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