After enduring 27 years of civil war, Angola is still largely unexplored by foreign visitors. The tourist infrastructure is underdeveloped, but with beautiful beaches, lush forests, coastal dunes, excellent fishing and welcoming people, this friendly nation has the potential to be one of Africa's up-and-coming destinations.
The best way to experience Angola is by road, but travelling overland through the country is not a journey for those who like their luxuries. After years of wear and tear, the main highway to Luanda was until recently a potholed stretch of disintegrated track.
But over the past two years many stretches have been significantly upgraded.
Angola offers a variety of landscapes in its 18 provinces. Coastal plains rise to mountainous plateaus studded with waterfalls and gorges. The southern part of the country features the soaring dunes of the Namib Desert while the 1 600km of coastline offers isolated beaches and excellent angling opportunities.
I'm on a three-week expedition across the entire length of Angola, running from the Cunene River in the south to the Congo River in the north and back again.
There are seven 4x4 vehicles in our convoy, led by guides from The Journey, a South African company specialising in off-road adventures around southern Africa.
After clearing customs, we head towards the small village of Chitado. A dry heat blasts in through the window. In this hot weather, the small fridge between our seats filled with ice-cold beer and bottled water is a necessity.
Chitado is a dusty place full of broken buildings and crumbling walls pockmarked by bullets.
The people here are not accustomed to tourists and a pretty Herero woman with smooth ebony skin and colourful bead jewellery smiles at us shyly. We drive until sunset and camp on a sandy plain. All is peaceful as dusk settles with all its pastel colours.
Early the next morning, we wake to find the locals watching us intently. I take their photographs and they gather round to look at the images, bursting into smiles and excited laughter. The digital age opens up to ancient Angola.
On the road again. The terrain we are passing through was once a heavy combat zone and we spot the site of an old South African military base where the remains of an army truck lie rusting next to the road.
During the protracted civil war, millions of landmines were deployed throughout Angola.
Although many roads have been cleared, large numbers of the deadly devices still remain and vast tracts of fields, forests and riverbanks are not safe to walk in. Several times on our journey we pitch our tents on the road because venturing into the bush is not a safe option.
One morning we come across a demining operation. Wearing anti-shrapnel vests and shatterproof face shields, the men gather up metal detectors and a spade before advancing slowly across a field.
A detector beeps and a landmine is carefully dug out from the soil. "Yesterday I removed 59 and in the past weeks we've taken out several hundred," says one of the men. "It's a dangerous job but it has to be done."
Our route ascends into the central Angolan highlands, past fields of sugarcane and sprawling villages. We swerve and lurch across the road, deftly dodging the potholes. It's late afternoon when we drive through a particularly bad section of road. I climb onto the roof and perch on the spare wheel, taking photographs as we splash and bump along the muddy track through small villages.
The locals shout and wave as they look with astonishment at the crazy foreigner riding on the roof. Soft sunlight washes the land in golden colours. Cows graze in the green fields. Earthy smells drift in the gentle breeze.
After three long days of bouncing over potholes, we reach Huambo. This important transport link was once the most beautiful city in Angola, but being a Unita stronghold it suffered terrible destruction during the war. The majority of buildings are in a dilapidated state, their battered walls bearing the scars from a bombardment of bullets and mortar bombs.
Just outside town, our convoy drives through a sprawling market where the array of goods for sale is astounding. Generators, foam mattresses, hundreds of cassette players, greasy vehicle parts, plastic chairs, sunglasses, crates of diesel and fake leather couches. Fatty kebabs and a goat's head sizzle on a sidewalk fire.
The days pass in a blur of bumpy roads, thick dust and colourful villages. We've settled into a daily routine: wake at 6am; Coco Pops and coffee for breakfast; strike tents; drive for 10 hours; make camp at sunset; drink beer.
Business is booming in Luanda, a sprawling city of six million people. Like most African capitals, it is chaotic and jam-packed with vehicles. But we're not stopping, as it's a long way to Soyo, our northern destination on the banks of the Congo.
Rich in diamonds and oil, Angola has the continent's fastest- growing economy and is the second-biggest producer of oil in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. Soyo is the centre of the burgeoning oil industry.
"There's fortunes being made from Angola's black gold," says a South African we meet along the way. "A lot of the oil gets shipped across the river to the Democratic Republic of Congo where it's sold for a huge mark-up.
After a night of comfort in Soyo, we take an excursion on a speedboat along the Congo. At the river mouth, we walk along a sandy spit where the great explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley began his historic trip into Africa in search of Dr David Livingstone.
Our GPS indicates we're now heading south for the first time on the trip.
We drive in rain through small villages, fishing nets hanging from trees outside clay brick and thatched roof houses.We break for a beer at the tiny town of N'zeto where I chat to Akhenaton Venancio, a 40-year old English teacher at the local school. Asked about living in Angola, Venancio shrugs. "It's tough but we survive. There is no more war, which is good, but I get paid very little as a teacher. Even if I had money, there is not much here to buy."
The next day we bypass Luanda and continue south towards more beaches and fishing villages. We make good speed along a tar road and pass Sumbe, one of Angola's principal harbours. We breeze through Benguela and camp under a crescent moon on the beach at Baia Farta.
Our hectic schedule has slowed and we enjoy a rest day, fishing, swimming and sun tanning. Further south the vegetation changes as we proceed into the semi-desert region of open scrubland and sprawling arid mountains.
With the temperature touching 40°C, we continue on a rocky track that turns into an obstacle course. We ascend a steep slope littered with stones and boulders. It's painfully slow going in first gear and low range with the diff lock engaged. We lurch over the rough terrain and in an hour our convoy covers just 6km.
After another lazy day on an idyllic beach, we arrive in Namibe, where we break for beers and hot chips before deflating our tyres and cruising along the sand to Flamingo Lodge; this stretch of coast is popular with anglers from South Africa and Namibia.
Our time at the coast is over and we head inland up a dry riverbed dotted with hundreds of huge welwitschias, the world's oldest plant. These hardy specimens live for up to 1 500 years.
On our final morning we strike the tents, eat a quick breakfast and make a beeline for the border. Soon we're back in Namibia, speeding along the smooth highway towards Windhoek. Memories of the past three weeks play through my head and I know I'll miss everything about Angola, even the dust and dirt and pot-holed roads.
If you go...
