We were really looking forward to Namibia, after weeks spent roaming in Central Africa. That’s often more of a ‘spend the day struggling to get a viable ride to the next place, then go to bed the instant it gets dark’ kind of destination.
When we reached Lubango we were still about four hundred kilometers from the Angolan-Namibian frontier. But Angola’s pretty big so it felt like we were getting close. We got pretty excited about it and treated ourselves to a stay at Casper resort. There was a noisy Portuguese tour group staying at the hotel too, and there was a pool. But as usual the pool was surrounded by the wooden frames of sunbeds only one or two of which had cushions on, and the full-time pool staff never did a thing about it.
The Casper was on the edge of town so we had to be careful about walking at night whenever we went to the plethora of American-style bar and grill restaurants for dinner. The woman at the front desk constantly wanted to call us a taxi for an exorbitant price, but we just picked up motos in the street.
One morning in reception as the same woman tried to talk us into hiring the hotel’s driver for the day, we found Milton. He had no reason to be there but was nevertheless sitting in reception reading the newspaper. After we refused the final offer from the hotel desk Milton approached and introduced himself. ‘How much are you willing to pay?’ he whispered. We figured he already knew since we’d been arguing with the receptionist about that exact figure for the last fifteen minutes while he watched over the top of his newspaper. After another fifteen minutes of bargaining while the receptionist glared at all three of us, we hired Milton for a day trip. What with all the negotiating it was more like a half day, but we had a ride.
Milton gave his ID to the front desk and made a short speech about how he planned to start a driving business and hoped we’d be his first satisfied customers. The woman at the front desk informed us she did not know him and could not recommend him on behalf of the hotel, but that he was ‘probably fine’.
Around Lubango, first
‘That’s the university’ said Milton, pointing at some imposing buildings next to the road as we cruised out of town. ‘Is it a good school?’ I asked. ‘Yes it is. For those with no money, no options, and no vision.’ he answered. We were headed to the Christ the Redeemer-lookalike statue, listening to three Christian praise songs on repeat.
After a stop at the statue we headed for Tundavala Gap, a vertigo-inducing viewpoint about twenty-five kilometers from town.
Standing on the edge of the gap Angola seemed bigger than ever, and Namibia didn’t feel so close anymore.
Driving back down, Milton questioned us about our plan for getting to Namibia and quickly deduced that we didn’t have one yet. He said he’d be happy to drive us straight from the Casper to immigration in Santa Clara. It would be a lot more convenient for us and if there was one thing Milton wanted, it was for us not to suffer any inconvenience.
Since the buses from Lubango to Santa Clara really do run at inconvenient hours, we decided we’d take Milton up on his suggestion. We’d save a lot of time, which we could spend relaxing on the slats of wood poolside after breakfast. We decided this after breakfast the same day, since we were already reclining on the sunbed frames. So we called Milton. All of us agreed that time was of the essence now, and he’d get us to the border safely before it closed at six pm.
Cutting it close
Sitting in reception yet again, we watched as Milton pulled into the Casper’s huge carpark already almost half an hour late. He got out and leaned against his car. Then he lingered there on his phone for the next fifteen minutes. We went out to the carpark to speed things along, but Milton was feeling quite relaxed about the five hour drive. That was his brother-in-law who lived near Santa Clara on the phone, and he was pretty sure the border was open til seven pm.
Milton hit play on the three-song praise list and off we went…straight to a bakery, where he picked up some bread. Then we took the bread to his sister-in-law’s place, dropped it off, and picked up some engine oil. We took that to a garage. There we waited for Milton’s nephew, who needed the oil for his driving test that day. Milton was apologetic, but urged us to consider how we’d feel if his nephew failed the driving test. So we waited in the car while Milton disappeared into the garage with the oil and called his nephew, who clearly didn’t care as much about the driving test as we all did.
By the time we set off it was already one pm. As we drove along an endless road in the desert, Milton took another phone call. Then he started to drive faster and faster. And it turned out that when Milton’s brother-in-law said the border would close at seven pm he meant Namibian time. In other words, the border would indeed shut at seven pm – in Namibia – and so at six pm on the side we were currently on. Milton stomped on the gas.
We screeched into the carpark in front of immigration just before six. ‘Thank you Jesus!’ sang praise singer number two rapturously (to be fair, all three of them said that a lot). Realising he’d singlehandedly ruined our entire day, Milton leapt out of the car and ran towards the first official-looking person he saw. ‘It’s still open! Let’s go!’ he shouted, running back to the car. He yanked my backpack out of the trunk, put it on, and started sprinting towards Namibia.
A cross-country run
Oyv and I looked at each other and shrugged. Oyv hoisted his own pack to his shoulders, and passports in hand we started running.
I arrived at the counter just in time to witness Milton’s eloquent plea to Angolan border authorities to allow us through. The officer looked extremely reluctant but at the same time clearly wanted us gone. Stamping our passports, he looked at us and said: ‘Run’.
‘Obrigado!’ Oyv shouted, and we left at a run for no-man’s land. But at the very edge of Angolan territory, Milton put up his hand and stopped us. It was sunset and we’d arrived just in time for the border-closing flag-lowering ceremony. Now we had to demonstrate our utmost respect. That would have been a lot easier to do if the soldier lowering the flag wasn’t raging drunk. He slowly exaggerated every pull on the rope, pausing occasionally to scream at us to stay back, and that was that.
We walked back to Angolan immigration. Now that they were done work for the day, the officers there didn’t seem at all bothered that we were stamped out of their country, visas expired, and trapped in some kind of limbo. The officer in charge took out a huge ledger and his phone. I assumed he wanted to make an official note about it for morning, when we’d be coming back and trying to explain our illegal presence in Angola. But no, he only wanted to document this occasion with a selfie.
After the photoshoot with the officers we returned to the carpark, resigned to just spending the night somewhere in Santa Clara. Once again, Milton had disappeared and we assumed he was running yet another personal errand. But no. Determined to salvage the day, and probably his driving business, he’d hired a fixer. ‘This is Maputo. He knows another way’ said Milton when he came back, and he pointed at the ten year old boy now standing next to him. We didn’t know what to say. What we did know was that we definitely had to see what this was all about. So we piled back into Milton’s sedan, this time with a child-fixer up front muttering in Portuguese.
‘Maputo has an idea’
Turning down a dark side street at the edge of town, we drove past a few huts. The chickens scratching in the dirt scattered in front of the car as we crept slowly into a field. At Maputo’s direction, Milton stopped and turned off the engine. Lights off, he rolled up the windows and told us to keep quiet. Two soldiers approached the car. ‘Maputo knows them’ Milton explained as he rolled his window back down and politely said ‘Boa noite’. The whole thing was starting to remind me of why we generally try to avoid traveling after dark pretty much anywhere in Africa.
The soldiers leaned in and looked at us, and Maputo took it from there. His idea, relayed to us in whispers by Milton, was that we should walk around the long, high fence with one of the soldiers. Out of Angola and right into Namibia. Maputo pointed to a dirt path snaking away into the trees and back towards the limits of Angolan territory. People living on both sides of the frontier unofficially work and trade cross-border. We could see their shadowy outlines flitting between huts, as they made their way home.
While Oyv and I agreed that the beauty of the plan was in its simplicity, we nevertheless saw quite a few issues with it. ‘What about our passports?’ I piped up. Milton hushed me and repeated my question to Maputo. ‘He says you can just walk back to the border on the other side and get a stamp in the morning’. That sounded like a terrible idea to both of us, but Maputo continued to discuss the terms with the soldiers. He was very keen on the whole thing, I could tell, language barrier or not. But he was also ten years old. I loudly voiced my opposition to this plan from the backseat. Neither of us was comfortable with the idea of being smuggled into Namibia of all places by a kid and his contacts in the military.
‘Sarah, you’re right. We’re doing business in the dark, and it seems like we’re hiding something.’ said Milton, suddenly the voice of reason. ‘If we have to hide, it must be wrong.’ he went on seriously, as though we’d been trying to insist otherwise.
One more night in Angola
So we stayed in Angola. First, we dropped Maputo off where we found him. Milton paid him and he went away, I assume to do his homework or maybe some reconnaissance along the border.
Then Milton found us a room at a grim hotel and strongly advised us to stay inside it, not that there was anything to do in Santa Clara anyway. He sheepishly wished us well, and drove back to Lubango early the next day.
We walked back to immigration in the morning. After a bit of explaining why our passports showed that we’d left the night before, we finally crossed the border – at a walk this time, not a run. No one there was expecting us or had ever heard of us so the devout flag bearer must have been sleeping it off.
As we lingered over breakfast in a comfortable guesthouse on the Namibian side, our host regaled us with stories about people wandering across the porous border illegally at all hours and shots ringing out in the night.
Still, we missed Milton. After all we weren’t in a huge hurry, and he’d turned an otherwise ordinary day into something we definitely did not see coming. It’s all about who you happen to meet. And we happened to meet Milton and Maputo.
Read More
For more of our adventures (and misadventures) as we travel from Cameroon to Japan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.
Or if you’re in Angola and planning to travel to Namibia by road, have a look at this post: Crossing the border from Angola to Namibia for some quick info about the border crossing itself.
