6 hours, 30 minutes, 500 kilometers (300 miles)

Visa, what visa?

I managed to get some sleep for the first time in a long time. No noise, great bed, air conditioning that worked, and a decent meal in my gut. I still only slept for about 4 hours, but for me, that’s a lot!

Daily Diary

Not sure how I missed this day, but luckily Josef was there to take a shot of me hitting the road.

For the Love of Motorcycles

Josef’s son is a huge fan of cars (BMWs because his dad has one), spiderman, and motorcycles.

Yeah, that’s the cutest picture ever with him doing his spiderman pose! Got a nice photo with Jose’s sister-in-law, wife and son. Such nice people.

Hitting the Road

It was only about an hour to the border. I tried to get some gas on the way, but the credit card machines were not working, no connectivity. Hmm. The whole time I was in Namibia, I had “service”, which basically meant I could get MMS messages sometimes, but no data – except one time in the middle of my 15-hour ride a the top of a hairy turn in 6 inches of sandy gravel. Needless to say, I didn’t stop when google said “you’re back online”. So to those of you who sent me text messages, sorry I missed you!

Border Crossing

The Namibian side was easy, get my passport stamped. get my road tax receipt stamped, and move over to the Angolan side.

Got my visa and waiting for the road tax paperwork. All of a sudden, no one takes credit cards. Their choice of currency – US dollar! Tried navigating the whole system on what the exchange rates were, but it was hopeless. Everything in Angola works on black market exchanges, just like Cuba.

As soon as I crossed the parking lot – guess what, cell service again… well, sort of. The data comes through in 10 second intervals. I’ll take what I can get!

Back to the Right Side of the Road

To say the roads in Angola are bad is not really fair given that they at least have paved roads.

It was weird driving on the other side again!

The problem is, they are littered with bike-swallowing pot holes – more like craters.

Babies ride too – right on her back.