We left for the embassy this morning at 10 am hoping to retrieve our passports. It was raining hard and we all got soaked while putting fuel in the vehicles. At the embassy we were told that we had to wait until the consul arrived. We finally got our passports back (with visas!) at 1pm.

We drove the 6km to the Angolan border and checked out of DRC. The customs officer on the Angola side wasn't there so Witt and a police official took Rafiki into town to retrieve him from his house. He was friendly and efficient and after he had stamped our carnets Witt drove him back home. The immigration officer proved to be more of a problem. He seemed to have difficulties with his arithmetic as he asked us for a $50,000 (US) bribe. We all thought this was very funny. His office was very small, and lacking anywhere else to sit Graham sat on his desk. This didn't amuse him much, and even after Graham had apologized it took another hour until his boss arrived to settle him down enough to stamp our passports and return them to us.

Meanwhile Vicki had made friends with Fifi, the wife of the local police chief. Since it was nearly 5pm we accepted her offer to camp outside her house. We set up and made dinner and afterward watched Tomorrow Never Dies with Fifi, the police chief, and their newborn son. The spot where we are camped, in Fifi's front yard, overlooks a beautiful spot on the Congo river. We watched some fishermen paddle pirogues across the river as the sun set. We have a report from another traveler who says the next stretch of road is very bad (105 km in 11 hours) and we are concerned that the rain could make conditions even more difficult. Graham spoke with his doctor this afternoon. The doctor doesn't think he has malaria, but he's not sure what he does have.

We said goodbye to Fifi this morning and set off at about 8:30. The track is obviously seldom used and never maintained. It's extremely overgrown with deep ruts and long water-filled sections. By the end of the day we had covered about 120 km. We had a hard time finding a bushcamp because of the number of people and the dense vegetation, but we did eventually find a spot near an abandoned village. Graham now has small rashes, which is consistent with Dengue fever. He will probably try to find a doctor in Luanda.

We continued on this morning, reaching an old tarmac road about mid-morning. The remnants of the tarmac is worse to drive on than the dirt track. It's rather like driving a slalom course trying to avoid potholes and constantly changing gears. Toki's hood came loose (it wouldn't latch down) and we stopped and tied a strap over it to keep it down.

Unfortunately the road doesn't go right along the coast, and the beach camp we were hoping for didn't materialize. Angola was mined during the last 30 years of war, and we are reluctant to just drive off into the bush. We saw evidence of the wars today in form of abandoned tanks and other military vehicles alongside the road. Fortunately Graham seems to be feeling better. The rash is gone, and he's not as tired.

The road is slowly improving, and we were at Caxito by lunch time. We had to check in with the immigration office there, giving a guy a ride from the police checkpoint on the road to the office in town.

We made it into Luanda by mid-afternoon. According to Lonely Planet, Luanda was designed as a city for 30,000 people. Currently there are 3 million people living here, and it is easily the dirtiest city we've driving through thus far. We encountered a traffic jam where we sat for about a half hour. When we finally reached the obstruction it was obvious why. The street was full of water which covered massive potholes, one of which required Witt to use low range to get out of. We made our way out to a spit of land in the sea where we found a nice beachfront restaurant. We phoned Mario, who met us after about an hour. He has friends in the Luanda 4x4 club, and Robert from the club showed up in his Defender 90. We got out the map and they showed us some good sights to see on our way through Angola. Robert had spoken with someone at the local yacht club, and they allowed us to camp for free in their car park.

Since the stores are closed tomorrow (Saturday) we went shopping in the evening. Food is incredibly expensive here (1 kg of mince (ground beef) is $10). We bought some staples, but we're hoping to pick up more food along the way. Eating at restaurants is also very pricey (Robert says an average restaurant meal starts at about $30) so Elza made some cous cous with tomatoe sauce for dinner. Afterward we had drinks with Mario, Robert, and a few other people from the 4x4 club. We very much appreciate their hospitality!

Rob was kind enough to let us use his apartment for laundry today and spent the morning shuttling the girls back and forth between two apartments using the washer and dryer in each.

Meanwhile the boys busied themselves re-fueling the vehicles. The thing that is cheap in Luanda is fuel. Diesel is 8 Kwanza per liter, which works out to 40 cents per gallon. The people at the yacht club let us fill up at their pump which saved us waiting in the queues at the filling stations in town. We bought about 300 liters of diesel for the three land rovers and Urs bought 630 liters of petrol for the pinzy, which can carry 700 liters (!) of fuel.

Witt, Graham, and Slade gave an interview to a guy who is starting a magazine in town. In return he took us to his office where we were able to use the internet.

Meanwhile a French overlanding couple arrived at the yacht club. They had been following us south, hoping to catch us, but had been told that there was no way to cross the Congo river. They put their landcruiser on a military cargo plane in Cabinda and flew to Luanda. Mario invited us to a barbeque which we attended in the evening. There were loads of expats of all different nationalities. The Mexican guy who was running the grill was truly gifted and produced some wonderful meat.

We left Luanda early this morning with our convoy of six vehicles (Mario and Robert joined us, as did the French couple, Nadine and David) and drove out onto a narrow spit of land south of the city. A friend of Mario's has a campground there that he maintains for his friends who go there on the weekends. We spent the day digging (unsuccessfully) for clams, lounging under the palm trees, and relaxing.

Paul, a friend of Robert's, had sailed his Hobie Cat from Luanda and took a few of us out for a quick sail. They all left to return to Luanda in the afternoon (tomorrow is Monday). We are camping here this evening, grilling some meat and enjoying California rolls made by Connie.

Since David and Nadine had to go back to Luanda for fuel and shopping today, we decided to stay at the beach one more night. Graham and Connie went to town as well and did some shopping for the group.

Meanwhile Urs did some fishing for Bayo's lunch and Slade dove for clams. Witt and Jen walked down the beach and bought a few fish for dinner. That evening we made a huge meal of clam chowder (using Slade's clams), grilled fish, and a custard tart for desert. David and Nadine made a foi gras (duck pate) for an appetizer.

We left camp this morning at about 10 am after a swim and a run on the beach. We drove for about five hours, including a stop for lunch. The road is mostly good tarmac, but frequent potholes keep you on your toes. We were hoping for a nice camp site on the beach and followed a track in that direction. We reached a beautiful spot, but unfortunately someone else had thought it was nice too and built a village there. The only nearby spot to camp was too close to high tide mark for comfort. We drove back along the track and camped in the bush. We were surprised by a full lunar eclipse which left the sky dark enough to provide a nice evening's stargazing.

We drove to Binga Falls, which had been recommended by Mario in Luanda, in time for lunch. The falls are spectacular, and we enjoyed a swim in the river. After a relaxing lunch we drove another hour and found a nice camp site on the beach. Today is Krissy and Slade's anniversary, and the girls have been plotting ways to do something special for them. We set up chairs on the beach and gave them drinks along with a menu from the "Overlander Cafe" We served appetizers and Graham put together an excellent potjie. We had as much fun putting it on as they had enjoying it.

We left the beach this morning after a run and some exercises (Jen and Witt are trying to rebuild some muscle mass lost during the last three months sitting in the Land Rover). The road was potholed and the going slow. We passed a bridge which was surrounded by a mine field marked with red and white stakes. We're not sure who has the job of putting the stakes in, but we are sure he's not paid enough. Our lunch stop was littered with shell casings from automatic weapons and there was evidence of old trenches nearby. We stopped for fuel in Lobito and encountered a long traffic jam on the way to Banguela. We found a nice beach camp in the afternoon, and grilled some chicken after watching the sunset.

We spent the day driving on a little used piste down the coast of Angola toward Namibe. The road started out as a decent gravel road, but after we passed through a village, we stopped seeing any cars at all and the road became a track. We passed the rusting hulks of a few trucks that looked as if they'd met their end violently. The road wound through the countryside, and some of it involved some technical four wheeling. We pulled off on a side road and spent about a half hour searching for a beach camp used by Expedition Overland, but we were apparently on the wrong road and had to be content with a plateau overlooking the water (we were about 800 feet up).

We continued our drive along the coast today. The scenery has changed dramatically from the humid tropics of northern Angola to the semi-arid Sahel-like area we are in now. The change is similar to what we experienced in Cameroon, only in reverse. The ocean currents here come up from the Antarctic, and although the sun is hot, the breezes near the coast are very cool. The roads today gradually improved until we hit old tarmac shortly after lunch. David and Nadine took a short detour to visit Lucira while the rest of us drove to a beach camp recommended by Mario. Nadine and David joined us about a half hour later and reported that Lucira has "nothing to see, nothing to do, and nothing to buy."

We had time to do some laundry and enjoy some Frisbee before starting dinner. The beach is steep and the surf breaks violently and close to the shore, creating impressive displays. Elza collected some beautiful sea shells, and has a little kit so that she can make jewelry out of them.

We awoke this morning to overcast skies and surprisingly chilly temperatures that had us digging to the bottom of our clothing boxes for fleece jackets that haven't seen the light of day since winter in France. Shortly after we set off we stopped at an old disused lighthouse. It was empty and abandoned, but the view from the top was nice. The road is excellent and winds through beautiful countryside. We made it to Namibe just after noon. Namibe is a very strange place with lots of colonial (Portugese) buildings, some of which are in very good repair. The town is set on the coast and has cool breezes and lots of palm trees. We stopped at a commercial campground for lunch and considered spending the night there, but since a few of us are running short on cash we decided to head inland toward Lubango and bush camp. We drove about 80km, on excellent road for the first 60kms, stopping at a dusty fuel station in the middle of nowhere so the Pinzy could fill up. Our campsite is near a rock outcropping which gives us a good view of the plateau we will drive onto tomorrow.

After an hours drive on good road this morning, we started the 4000-foot climb up onto the plateau. The road near the top is an engineering marvel with about five tight hairpin switchbacks. We stopped at an overlook that provided a great view of the plain below and the waterfalls flowing down off the plateau. We drove into Lubango where we planned to do some shopping and fill the "Landies" (which includes Land Rovers and the Land Cruiser) with diesel. The first station we stopped at had no diesel, and while we were discussing what to do, someone reached into Graham and Connie's car and snatched Connie's wallet that contained their cash, credit cards, and passports. About five minutes later the thief threw the wallet under the Land Cruiser, minus $200 in cash. We were thankful to get the passports back, as we didn't fancy returning to Luanda to get replacement passports. The group is short on cash (at least US dollars, which brings the best rates here) and David and Nadine were kind enough to buy some chicken for the group. We drove around to a couple more petrol stations and finally located some diesel. We stopped just out of town for a very late lunch.

The Pinzgauer (also called "the Pinzy")seems to be using a lot of oil, and when we camped Graham, Slade, Urs, and David disassembled the cylinder heads and found a bad exhaust valve guide. They discussed ways to get the Pinzy back on the road, and decided to try to disable the bad cylinder. This will require the Pinzy to run on 3 cylinders for the next 400 km to reach the first decent sized town in Namibia where we speak the language and can get parts. The guys (except David) in our group seem to be affected by a strange skin rash which so far has left the girls unaffected. It's just an annoyance now, but worrisome since so many of us are affected.

Slade and Urs got an early start working on the Pinzgauer this morning. They removed the pushrod and the rocker arm of the broken exhaust valve and plugged the holes with a piece of cork held in by a bolt (you'd have to see it). We left camp at about 10am and drove about 8km, but the Pinzy was still burning a lot of oil. We checked and found that the cork was not doing the trick. We replaced it with a bolt that was held in place with leak fix. This stopped the oil being burned, but when Urs stopped to check the oil about 20 minutes later, he discovered that oil was still leaking. We decided not to chance blowing up the engine and decided to try to tow the Pinzy to Namibia. We attached a rope and Slade was able to tow it with his Land Rover (the Pinzy weighs about 1.5x what the Landy does). We did pretty well and weren't going much slower than the speed allowed by the badly potholed road. We camped for the night just after the town of Cahama. Our rashes haven't improved, and we are becoming concerned that they could become infected. Graham's is the worst, being near his left eye. He has been swabbing it with alcohol, but this is very painful. Mario had recommended a piste that would take us through an alternate border crossing and through a scenic area of the country. We've decided to stick to the main road instead since we're not sure about towing the Pinzy along a piste. David and Nadine's visas expire tomorrow, so they will have to leave us in the morning to ensure they leave the country.