Trip report for Angola

In September 2018 my brother and I travelled for 10 days in Sao Tome and Principe and then 7 days in Angola.

Our itinerary for Angola was:
1. day: Arrived to Luanda very early. Day trip to Kissama National Park with Eco Tur Angola. Stayed in Luanda at Thomson Art House.
2. day: Sightseeing in Luanda. Flew to Lubango with TAAG. Stayed at Aldeamento Turistico da TAAG.
3. day: Touring Lubango (Serra da Leba, Cristo Rei and Tundavala Gorge) with taxi. Flew back to Luanda and stayed at Thomson Art House,
4. day: Two day trip to Kalandula Falls and Pedras Negras with "Pure and Authentic Tourism". Saw Kalandula Falls in the evening. Stayed in the town of Kalandula at Aldeamento Turistic Grape.
5. day: Second day of the two day trip to Kalandula Falls and Pedras Negras. Saw Kalandula Falls again and Pedras Negras. Back in Luanda in the evening. Stayed at Thomson Art House.
6. day: Sightseeing in Luanda and Shipwreck Beach. Stayed at Thomson Art House.
7. day: Left Angola.

We have European passports, so we got the newly introduced evisa through the official website: http://www.smevisa.gov.ao

Though it was stated on their website that the earlist you can apply was 60 days before entering, the correct was only 30 days. However, we didn't know about this mistake on their website, so we applied 45 days before our trip and got an evisa, which was only valid for 30 days. Luckily we found out about this in time, but we had to wait until our first evisa expired before we could reapply. Both times we got the evisa confirmation letter within 48 hours.

Filling in the electronic form for the evisa was fairly straight forward but time consuming. The following files were needed: passport photo, passport info page, bank statement, return flight tickets and hotel booking in very specific file types and sizes (Grey scale, 100-150 dpi, jpeg or tiff). Just read the instruction carefully.

Regarding the hotel booking we just booked a hotel on Booking.com for the full stay and then cancelled afterwards.

When arriving at Luanda airport (Quatro de Fevereiro) do not line up in the queue, go left to the SME office and exchange your evisa document for a real visa for USD 120. The immigration officer will stamp you in, so you don't have to stand in line.

Angola operates with an official exhange rates and a black market exhange rates. There was even a website (kinguilahoje.com) which everyone used regarding the black market rate. Though the black market rate was supposed to be 365 (365 KZ=1 USD), we only managed to get 350 KZ. We let the guys at our hotel in Luanda make the exchange for us. They didn't exchange themselves, but walked three houses down and did the exchange.

We talked to several other travellers and they have done the same thing without any problems. Exchange money in the big city for the best rates and with people you know.

By using the black market exchange rate, we didn't experience Angola or even Luanda to be that outrageously expensive as some expats or locals might tell you. No frills hotels costed about 10,000-20,000 KZ (30-60 USD), more in Luanda, and a nice meal about 3000 KZ (9 USD).

Most places don't accept foregin credit cards, so bring cash in USD and/or EUR.

Getting to Angola's natural sights by public transportation isn't an option, so we rented cars with drivers and even joined a day tour for Kissama National Park.

We did try to find prices for renting a car, but it was expensive and unclear whether we could drive on dirt roads. And then there is the issue with the many police check points.

Kissama National Park
We did an one day trip from Luanda to Kissama National Park with "Eco Tur Angola" (eco-tur.com). It costed 220 EUR per person (including food and drinks).

Luanda
Pickup from Luanda airport to our hotel on the Ilha do Cabo was 4000 KZ. Our hotel (Thomson Art House) had free transport on the Ilha.

Lubango
Taxi from Lubango airport to our hotel (Aldeamento Turistico da TAAG) was 3000 KZ.
Half day tour in Lubango including Serra da Leba, Cristo Rei and Tundavala Gorge costed 15,000 KZ and we just let the hotel call a driver.

Kalandula Falls and Pedras Negras
We hired a 4WD with driver from the travel company "Pure and Authentic Tourism" (www.pa-angola-tourism.com). The company is owned by Joao, who is Angolan but grew up in Germany. For a two day trip from Luanda to Kalandula Falls and Pedras Negras we paid 210 EUR per day for the car with driver (including gas). In addition we had to pay for the hotel for both ourselves and the driver, which turned out to be 16,000 Kz for twin (us) and 10,000 KZ for single (driver).

We didn't take long distance buses, but the bus company Macon seem to be the best (www.macontransp.com/).

Thomson Art House, Luanda, 80-120 USD (twin room).
Booked through Booking.com. We tried to pay cash, but it got complicated since they didn't have any change. Paying through Paypal was way easier.

Aldeamento Turistico da TAAG, Lubango, 13.000 KZ (twin room).
Had original booked over the web, but their walk in price in KZ was much less, so we just paid that.

Aldeamento Turistic Grape, Kalandula town, 16,000 Kz (twin room).

Since the volatility of the Angolean Kwanza, the hotels tend to charge more in USD than KZ, so we experienced that hotels were more expensive if they were booked over the web, than walking in from the street. Most hotels had fixed prices, which were stated on a board in the reception.

The highlights of our Angolan trip were for sure Kalandula Falls and Tundavala Gorge. But Angola really surprised us by being really friendly and have beautiful nature. We're a bit sad to have missed Namibe and the desert with canyons and giant flowers (Welwitschia). Benguela should also be nice.

Though Luanda has a bad reputation we didn't experince anything, but we were also driving around most of the time. We walked on the Ilha, also at night, but there were armed guards every 50 m or so. However, our hotel did recommend not to walk at night, even on the Ilha.

Bring your passport as our car got pulled over by the police in Luanda and they wanted to see our passport. Our driver still had to pay a bribe, but less because our papers were in order.

Else, people are really friendly, easy going, and helpful. Not once did we experience people being pushy, trying to cheat us, or being unpleasant in any way.

We did business with two different companies, Eco Tur Angola and Pure and Authentic Tourism. When we first contacted the companies they quoted really high prices. F.x. they had 100 EUR allocated for hotel for driver, but since we wouldn't be staying in such places, we asked to have those expenses removed from the quote.