Binga Bay – Infotur Hotel (Day 32)

16 June 2019

Distance: 290km Distance to date: 7020km

Road Conditions: (out of 10)

Binga Bay – Lucira: 80kms – 3 hours (dirt)

Lucira – Namibe: 7 (tar)

Coffee, Tea, Rusks

Snacks

Fish Mayo on Provitas

We took a while to pack up this morning – we had quite a bit to pack in, and everything was full of sand.

We eventually got going at around 12h00.

We had no problems getting the bakkie out of the sand and back on the dirt road, and headed back up the escarpment after a quick stop when Dad inflated the tyres.

We got back to the boom at the top of the escarpment and the same guy as when we had come in, as well as another guy. We could tell that they wanted some money, but we gave them some Fantas instead, and they seemed content.

We continued on the dreadful road. It seems that there was an attempt to build a new road, because it has all been graded and there are as many as 15 bridges that we have found all along the road (all incomplete), but it was obviously never tarred or maintained any further.

All along the road you can see nomadic tribes that live in tents and roam around with their goats or cattle. Most times (well, almost every time), they point to their stomachs or gesture that they want some food. They live a very simple life, it’s not very pleasant to try and imagine giving up home comforts to live out in the heat and the dust like they do.

We had a quick look around in Lucira. It’s a little fishing town and has many boats anchored in the bay. There, a Military Policeman stopped us and tried to speak to us. Eventually we understood that he wanted to see our passports, which we handed over and he took some pictures of them. After handing them back, we were on our way.

We turned off the road a little while later, and drove down and behind an embankment. We were going to spend the night here, but had some coffee and tea instead and carried on driving. Eventually we found a hotel (between iOverlander, the GPS and the internet it can be confusing) in Namibe and we decided to see if we could stay there.

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We arrived at the hotel and were lucky to find someone that speaks English and bartered a little for a room for the three of us. When you’re travelling for as long as we are – you don’t want to spend money unnecessarily.

The room was nice enough – three single beds with a very nice bathroom (and hot water) – what more do you need?

I worked a little on the blog, Mom made us a quick dinner and Dad took a shower. Tired from the morning’s packing and all the driving, we enjoyed a hot shower and comfortable bed for the nights rest.

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