Good Day – Friday, January 23rd
So it was nailing down a few more clock hours. I think altogether during this process here, I got down about 13 hours out of the 30 that I need altogether, but I already had some. So that’s working out.
Nico Arrives After a 600 Kilometer Ride
At some point Nico got in touch and said he’d be around in the afternoon sometime. He came after 3 o’clock. What was surprising — I had let him know where I was staying and he was coming from Luanda the day before and had gone 600 kilometers. Which on that Yamaha is a very, very long distance. He didn’t make it before it got dark, so he did the last hour in the dark. But what surprised me is that he went past the hotel where I was staying, because he is in a different price range most of the time.
He’s a slow traveler. He finds places where he can stay a month and volunteer or work for food and lodging. So he’s having a grand old time. It was really fun to catch up and share stories and see what’s going to happen next. It’s the overlanding crowd — not a big crowd, but they’re generally pretty amazing people.
It turns out that he has a brother named Jordan who works on the ferry system in Washington State, and the rest of the family is spread between London and Cyprus. Worldly people, very worldly people.
Meeting Rick from the Canadian High Commission
Some other people stayed at the same hotel — and that’s one of the reasons why I don’t mind staying in hotels. One was a person named Rick who turns out to be Canadian, but he had a Dutch last name, which made things interesting. Apparently his parents are Dutch and they live in Canada. He’s doing his second assignment with the Canadian High Commission, which is like an embassy. His first one was in Kenya, with one or two surrounding countries under his territory. This time it is in Mozambique, in Maputo. He was here because of the Lobito Corridor.
The Lobito Corridor
The Lobito Corridor — which I mentioned before — runs from Lobito, the town that I passed where they’re expanding the harbor, along a railroad that is mostly single line and goes all the way to Zambia. I do not know if that’s already in place in Zambia, but it’s certainly in place in Angola. They make use of it now by having a commuter train, which passes by the hotel as it turns out — it just doesn’t stop there.
So that was interesting to find out more about. Those guys get to travel around and make sure that more things get covered and more people benefit from the infrastructure being put in place. It’s basically being put in place to get mining materials to a place where they can be shipped — and Lobito is becoming that port.
Very fun stuff. Thanks for coming along. We’ll see you tomorrow.
