Photos

The skyline of Luanda has gotten an incredible face-lift over the recent years. But it remains expensive. Although there are ways to get around some of the costs, it's hard for me to imagine how it must be living here if you don't have much money. The salaries won't take you far. Here is a local fisherman at work with the Luanda skyline in the background. The image was taken close to my host's apartment on Isla de Luanda, a long peninsula between the bay and the sea. I will not be surprised if that peninsula becomes a tourist hotspot full of resorts within a few years if Angola would open up for more tourism.

Here are my notes from the last full day in Luanda, June 21, 2019, hopefully giving an idea of how it was to be there:

"It took time before I discovered the bakery a few stone throws south along the peninsula. However, now that I had found it, I was sold. I ended up buying more than one bun, that's for sure. Afterward, I went back to the local fish market passing my humble spot behind Fininho (the local restaurant), the only one in the area with wifi connection. A local fisherman seemed to enjoy the presence of my camera and started posing enthusiastically. Then he asked me to follow him to a park called "La Floresta". I kept both my eyes and ears wide open as he showed me the way through the narrow corridors of the compound.

To call it a park would be an exaggeration. But there was at least an open space with spread-out trees which appeared numerous poses later at the end of the labyrinth.

Just nearby was a beach, full of colorful boats. I held my camera in constant preparedness as we walked alongside it. Before returning to Fininho, the man wanted to show me his shed. The shed that he eventually stopped with was just big enough to accommodate its only piece of furniture - a worn mattress. Something to think about.

In the evening, I went to a pizza restaurant with my local host. A worthy goodbye to an appealing country. Peace out Angola."