We’re camping for a day in Cabinda. Cabinda is an exclave of Angola, situated between Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa. After four days of driving – some long, some short – a day’s rest is just what we need. What’s more, the border with Congo-Kinshasa is closed on Sundays. For cars with foreign number plates, the route via Cabinda is the only practical way to travel between the two Congos.
Cabinda is small, but of strategic importance to Angola. Around 70 per cent of Angola’s oil comes from there.
We’re staying on the grounds of the Catholic mission. Young people are rehearsing for the Sunday service, which is packed to the rafters during the hours-long service, with people even sitting on chairs outside.
In the afternoon, we take a walk along the beach and through a fishing village. What an unbelievable mess it is. The whole beach is littered with rubbish and a sewer flows straight into the sea. Amidst it all, people are sitting on a terrace chatting and drinking a beer. A man is making desperate attempts to start his moped. To no avail.
The village consists of little houses made of rough stone and corrugated iron. People are doing their washing and mending fishing nets. It’s full of rubbish here too, but suddenly there’s a house with flower pots in front of the door.
In shops, it never ceases to amaze people that we bring our own shopping bag and don’t want plastic bags.
We visited Angola on our overland trip by car (a Toyota LandCruiser 4WD campervan) from West-Africa; see our channel https://www.youtube.com/user/JanvanBekkum for hundreds of clips. More clips of Angola can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMYlw_C7EP8KqyTKPnPCZ38MjsZxf_bkB.
Music and/or sound effects: - 'Umbrella Pants' by Kevin MacLeod. Link: www.incompetech.com. License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; - 'Symphony of the Streets. Hip-Hop Background Music for video 60 second' created by Maksim Dudchyk and uploaded from Pixbay (https://pixabay.com/nl/music/orkestraal-symphony-of-the-streets-hip-hop-background-music-for-video-60-second-476679/).; - 'Calm inspiring technology logo short version' created by Alex Zavesa, distributed by Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/film-special-effects-calm-inspiring-technology-logo-short-version-518993/).