Angola: The former war zone is now attracting intrepid travellers

Sitting on Benguela's Morena Beach, watching one of those brief and spectacular equatorial sunsets dip seductively over Angola's rugged coastline, it's easy to forget that you're in what was, until recently, one of Africa's most dangerous war-zones. Small fishing boats bob gently on the shimmering Atlantic, naked children splash around excitably in the shallow surf, while - silhouetted against the crimson horizon - women with bowls of bananas balanced on their heads stroll barefoot across a perfect scimitar of sand. Camera-toting tourists are as rare here as washed-up treasure.

Scarred by decades of war, and untouched by prying outsiders since the dying days of Portuguese colonialism in the early 1970s, Angola remains one of Africa's most remote and misunderstood countries. Few travellers are privy to the dramatic scenery and cultural riches that lie hidden beneath a reputation for violence. However, after the 2002 ceasefire began a new era of peace and economic stability, opportunities for tentative exploration are opening up. For first-time visitors, there is plenty to excite the imagination.

Despite widespread poverty, serial corruption and an infrastructure devastated by 40 years of on-off fighting, Angola has a lure that few other places can match. Here, amid the prickly cacti and gnarly baobab trees of one of Africa's most bitterly fought-over regions, is what feels like the continent's last true frontier: a stunning mosaic of mountains and rare wildlife that has been repeatedly ignored by guidebook writers and travel scribes for more than a generation.

From the tropical jungles of Uige to the sun-bleached deserts of Namibe, the vistas are jaw-dropping. Imagine miles of picture-postcard beaches, the stark wilderness of up to a dozen barely visited wildlife parks, half a millennium of Portuguese colonial architecture and the oft-forgotten sight of Africa's second largest waterfall after Victoria Falls, the Quedas do Calandula.

Fuelled by curiosity and inspired by the prospect of a six-month work sabbatical, I first went in Benguela in 2001 at the end of Angola's civil war. I was employed as a teacher by a European NGO on the dry, Atlantic coast, but the school in which I was staying was plagued by power cuts, water shortages and the threat of guerrilla attack by Jonas Savimbi's outlawed UNITA army. And then everything changed.

In February 2002, during a government offensive in isolated Moxico province, Savimbi was killed in a shoot-out with loyalist MPLA forces. With Angola's Scarlet Pimpernel removed from the national scene after more than 30 years of behind-the-scenes meddling, the rusty wheels of the peace process creaked into action.

The Benguela I returned to in June 2006, amid the euphoria of Angola's debut appearance in the football World Cup Finals in Germany, was a wholly different place to the battered city I remembered. Here among the Portuguese patisseries and busy internet cafés of the once dilapidated shopping district, foreign businessmen were booking themselves into recently refurbished guesthouses, while exuberant sports fans crammed into bars to catch the latest football action beamed live from Europe.

Founded by the Portuguese in 1617, Benguela - a former slave port - is Angola's self-proclaimed cultural capital and a city renowned for its expansive, diamond-dust beaches. Spared a direct hit in the bloody civil war that reduced the settlements of Huambo and Kuito to rubble, there's a strong sense of history here, augmented by the presence of some of Africa's most congenial, and perennially optimistic, people. What better place to sit back for a day or two and watch Angola's much-lauded football team - nicknamed the Palancas Negras (after the country's endangered giant sable antelope) - rekindle their national pride against the likes of Mexico, Iran and former colonial masters, Portugal?

But football wasn't the only harbinger of Angola's dramatic reawakening. For the first time in decades, the rubbish was being collected, hotels were being built and, thanks to a series of lucrative investment deals with China, the country's long-suffering transport network was getting back to something like normal. It was all music to the ears of Angola's re-emergent tourist industry.

Hampered by a legacy of hidden landmines and shackled by over-inflated prices, travel in Angola has long been the preserve of ardent adventurers, or those on a very flexible budget. Add in the pertinent issue of visitor safety, coupled with the fact that aspiring visa applicants must first procure a letter of introduction from a sponsor in the country, and it isn't difficult to see why this African country rarely figures in the average fun-in-the-sun-seeker's holiday plans.

But, with a smattering of eco-lodges springing up on the attractive Atlantic coast and one of the world's largest ever translocations of wildlife, shipping animals from Botswana and South Africa into Angola's expansive Kissama National Park, eco-tourists could soon be on the way.

Angola today is a mix of the surreal and the sublime. While the infrastructure might be archaic, and the bureaucracy tediously slow, the rewards of testing one's mettle in one of Africa's last wilderness regions are difficult to resist. Besides, it's unlikely that you'll be the only explorer wrestling with the red tape. Safely cocooned inside sturdy white 4x4s, car-loads of curious travellers are now spilling across the border with Namibia and heading north to the picturesque Angolan city of Lubango, in Huila province.

Barely touched by the fighting, Lubango is Angola without the war-wounds. It is a bustling and vibrant highland settlement embellished by attractive parks and dominated by a dazzling white marble statue of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) that towers above the pastel-pink colonial buildings like a miniature Corcovado Christ.

To the west, and accessible via a well-paved and spectacular road across the magnificent Serra da Leba Mountains, lies coastal Namibe, a balmy fishing port settled by the Portuguese in 1840. Here, surrounded by a mix of savannah and desert, lies the pioneering Flamingo Lodge - one of three eco-retreats set up by Angolan Adventure Safaris in 1996. Visitors are given access to such unlikely Angolan outdoor pastimes as shore-fishing, birdwatching and snorkelling.

With a decent 4x4 and a sense of adventure, some travellers press further north to the poignant ruins of Huambo. Others, lured by beaches, decent seafood and a laid-back urban ambience, home in on the twin coastal cities of Lobito and Benguela. Indeed, thanks to road-mending, Benguela is now within striking distance of the Angolan capital Luanda, and the 400-mile journey traverses river valleys, uninhabited bush, and dreamy mountainscapes.

Daily buses proceed slowly northwards, pausing in metropolitan Sumbe and dusty Port Amboim, towards the outer reaches of the Kissama park. It is a 2,445,300-hectare swathe of coastal savannah complete with recently renovated tourist bungalows and newly trained park wardens, which lies at the forefront of Angola's environmental rehabilitation. Marking the park's northern border, Angola's biggest waterway, the Kwanza River, is well known for its rich selection of rare and exotic wildlife.

Boat trips from the nearby Kwanza Tarpon Lodge (a sister lodge to the Flamingo) ply the river in search of squacco herons, crocodiles and African manatees. From here you can take in other local beauty spots including the burgeoning surfing centre of Cabo Ledo, the rapidly developing Mussulo peninsula, and the ethereal Miradouro de Lua, a moonscape of red and silver-coloured rock formations.

With Luanda shimmering on the horizon and thousands of miles of potholed road melting into the distance behind you, the sense of achievement at having venturedto where no guidebook-wielding tourist has been before is glorious.

Traveller's Guide

Getting There

BA (0870 850 9850; www.ba.com) and TAAG Angola Airlines (020-7170 4343; www.taagangola.pages.web. com) fly from Heathrow to Luanda once a week. Other carriers include Air France, SN Brussels Airlines and TAP. The writer booked through Holiday Genie (0870 442 4699; www.holidaygenie.com) and flew with Ethiopian Airlines from London to Luanda via Addis Ababa for £520 return.

To reduce the environmental impact buy an "offset" from Equiclimate (0845 456 0170; www.ebico.co.uk) or Pure (020-7382 7815; www.puretrust.org.uk).

Staying There

Angolan Adventure Safaris (00 27 21 462 6104; www.aasafaris.com) runs a number of lodges, including the Tarpon Lodge on the Kwanza River. It can also organise invitation letters for guests requiring visas.

Visiting There

Charme Tours (00 244 222 44 89 24; www.charme tours.com) in Luanda can organise anything from flights to tailor-made tours. Ecotur (00 244 923 501 387; www.eco-tur.com) arranges adventure trips.

Red Tape & More Information

British passport-holders require a visa to enter Angola from the Embassy of Angola, 22 Dorset Street, London W1U 6QY (020-7299 9850; www.angola.org.uk). Angola is in a high-risk malaria zone; visitors also require a yellow fever certificate. Contact the Foreign Office for the latest advice on visiting Angola (0845 850 2829; www.fco.gov.uk). African Travel and Tourism Association: 0845 430 1252; www.atta.co.uk.

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