Cabana_Boy's VirtualTourist Home Page

It’s January 1, 2006, New Year’s Day here in Luanda on the West African coast and after having seen the blue light of early dawn before going to bed I am glad to say another year has slipped into the past. Last night was my first New Year’s Eve spent in Angola and what I thought would be a boring night turned into a marathon drinking session with a Welshman, a Malay, a Coon Ass from Thibodaux, a hand full of Angolans and about forty Scotsmen.

We ventured out into the night’s humidity around 9pm with an open minds and thirsty palates; ready for anything and everything Luanda had to offer. After all, the culture here is Portuguese and they know how to enjoy life, but our initial search for a venue turned up more dry holes than D’s drilling projects offshore. The Welshman reported things were dead up at the Marine barracks in Miramar so I suggested we meet up at the “Blue Bar” in the old quarter just to get things started. But that was a dead end, all the lights were out and the doors were boarded up. We then headed up to the “Jungle Bar” on Largo do Kinaxixi, but the story was much the same there.

Send Photo to a Friend

Fireworks over the Fortaleza de Sao Miguel

The Scots…

At this point we started to worry that the night would be a sober one. But then the Coon Ass remembered hearing about a small gathering of Scots down on the Ilha so that’s where we headed. I guess when all else fails you can always count on the Scots to be throwing back booze somewhere in the patch.

We arrived at “8 mile” and quickly got caught up on consumption. As the clock struck midnight the fireworks began to light up the steamy night sky over the Fortaleza de Sao Miguel and Peter belted out a brilliant rendition of Auld Lang Syne on the bagpipes…quite fitting for the Scots, eh, they love that Burns fellow…. So with the smell of gun powder fresh in the air and the thunder of fireworks over head, we all gladly said goodbye to 2005 which will probably go down as one of the most tragic years this world has seen in recent history….

Send Photo to a Friend

Inside the Antonov-24 to Malabo...

The Southern Hemisphere…

I have been absent from this website for nearly nine months now. 2005 was a very busy year for me and didn’t leave me much time to document my travels around this Earth. Moreover, my vagabond lifestyle of constant travel slowed considerably in July when I moved across the Atlantic Ocean from one steamy armpit (New Orleans, Louisiana) in the Northern Hemisphere to another in the Southern Hemisphere (Luanda, Angola). Naturally, all of this is job related and by my choice as to experience as much of this world as I can before Father Time pulls my dance card. And I really have a lot to be thankful for as I dodged a lot of misfortune in 2005. I had been on two airplanes/airlines that went on to suffer major crashes in 05 and I moved from New Orleans about two months before the levees broke filling the city with rancid water.

Send Photo to a Friend

The Makgadikgadi Salt Pans...

The Summary…

So what’s in store for 2006 travelwise??? I know I will make the obligatory trip to the United States, but I look forward to exploring the vastness of the South African continent. After all, that’s one of the reasons I moved here. At the moment Namibia is topping the travel wish list and I am sure I will get back to Cape Town as well.

All this travel will documented on the webpages of Virtualtourist.com (in time), but my objective for writing about my little excursions on this website is totally self-centered. They are my experiences and opinions that I am documenting to describe my life's travels in this world. However, if other travelers find my destinations, activities and pictures interesting or my comments even helpful, then that is all the better.

So now that I have pulled myself outta bed on this New Year’s Day, a feat that gets more and more difficult each year, I say, let the games begin!!!