January 18 – A Quiet Sunday in Luanda
Good day. January 18th. It’s Sunday, and I always enjoy Sundays in cities. They tend to be quieter, making it a perfect time to wander around without the usual hectic pace.
Affordable Angola
One of the big advantages of Angola is the price level. It’s the least expensive country I’ve visited in Africa so far. Take diesel, for example — 400 kwanzas per liter. With one U.S. dollar equaling about 900 kwanzas, that works out to roughly 45 cents per liter. Very manageable.
Lodging, food, and most daily expenses follow a similar pattern. You really get a lot of value for your money here.
Morning at Café da Esquina
I had located Café da Esquina and decided to check it out. It’s not somewhere I would necessarily visit every day, but for a one-time stop it worked out well.
As often happens, I ended up talking with some locals. There’s usually someone who speaks a bit of English or French, enough to start a conversation through translation. The discussion turned to the trip itself and to BridgesToDevelopment.org as well as BridgingTheContinents.com.
That exchange eventually led to asking Nathan to add Portuguese as an operating language on the website, which felt like a positive outcome from a simple café visit.
Exploring the City
I continued wandering through the neighborhood and noticed something interesting — the traffic lights in that part of town weren’t operating. At first, I assumed it was just because it was Sunday, but the following day proved that wasn’t the case.
Later, I spent some time back at the hotel catching up on various tasks. In the afternoon, I grabbed another beer across the street, where the people were once again very welcoming. We even took a few photos together around the car.
Evening Conversations
In the evening, I met three other guests staying at the same hotel. They were from Brazil, which made sense given the shared Portuguese language with Angola. They were engineers working for a Brazilian company constructing a large conference center in Luanda — apparently something even bigger than just a conference center.
They had already been there for some time and shared insights about the project. It was all very fascinating to hear.
Wrapping Up the Day
That’s pretty much it for today. A relaxed Sunday, good conversations, and interesting encounters.
See you tomorrow.
