luanda: hot, dusty, and kinda falling apart
so i’m in luanda now, and let me tell you, it’s... intense. i just checked and it’s 32 degrees celsius out there, feels like 34.61, with humidity at 51% and pressure doing its thing. hope you like that kind of thing because that’s what you’re getting. sweating through my shirt before 9am.
anyway, luanda’s down here in southern africa, stuck on the atlantic coast at about -8.8383 latitude and 13.2344 longitude. if you wanna see exactly where i’m melting, here’s a map:
it’s this narrow coastal strip with a peninsula sticking out called ilha de luanda, which has beaches and fishing stuff. here’s what the skyline looks like from afar, all hazy:
founded in 1576 by some portuguese dude named paulo dias de novais. it started as a tiny tribal thing then got turned into a colonial slave trade hub. angola got independent in 1975, but then a civil war wrecked everything. they’re still fixing it up, slowly.
the city’s split in two: baixa de luanda (lower city) with old colonial buildings and narrow streets, and cidade alta (upper city) with newer stuff. here’s what the old part looks like, mostly empty streets:
and here’s the upper city vibe, modern buildings and parked cars:
population’s huge, like 9.3 million, mostly bantu groups like the mbundu. it’s angola’s industrial center, making textiles and cement. if you get bored, belas (~382k people) and cacuaco (~1.03 million) are short drives away. or you could hit up huambo (~750k) or benguela (~600k) for a change of scenery.
tourist spots: old buildings in baixa, the busy port, and ilha’s beaches. someone told me the beaches are decent, but also that the city’s so split between lower and upper you feel like you’re in two different places. locals call it a ‘vertical city’ or something. that’s what someone told me, anyway.
climate’s tropical but weirdly dry thanks to the benguela current. dry season’s june-september (hot, arid, avg 20c), rainy’s october-may. right now it’s the dry season but it’s still 32c. feels like the desert by the sea. post-war infrastructure’s a mess, and the city’s growing too fast. so yeah, bring sunscreen and patience.
luanda’s got this weird mix of old portuguese leftovers and new construction, stuck between the ocean and the past. it’s loud and hot and falling apart in places, but there’s something real about it. i’ll take it over polished tourist traps any day.
You might also be interested in:
- https://topiclo.com/post/osaka-where-my-brain-got-as-flat-as-the-city
- https://topiclo.com/post/ranchi-waterfalls-hills-and-a-whole-lot-of-dust
- https://topiclo.com/post/tripoli-the-city-that-feels-like-a-hot-mess
- https://topiclo.com/post/hyderabad-hot-crowded-and-kind-of-great
- https://topiclo.com/post/agra-heat-history-and-a-whole-lotta-dust