The hook
Southern Angola's raw drama: the Namib desert running straight into the Atlantic, ancient plants that live for a thousand years, and a mountain escarpment that simply drops away a thousand metres into space.
01Why it's worth it
The far south of Angola holds some of the country's most extraordinary and least-seen landscapes. Along the coast, the Namib desert, the same ancient sand-and-gravel wilderness famous in Namibia, extends north into Angola, meeting the cold Atlantic in a stark collision of dune and ocean, and sheltering the bizarre welwitschia, a desert plant that grows just two strap-like leaves and can live for over a thousand years. Inland, the land rises to a high plateau, and at Tundavala the escarpment ends abruptly in the Tundavala Gap, a jaw-dropping viewpoint where the ground falls sheer for around a kilometre to the plains below, one of the great vistas of the continent. The old colonial towns of Namibe and Lubango add faded architecture and a base. As with all of Angola, travel here is hard, remote, and for the adventurous only, but the combination of desert, coast, endemic flora, and vertiginous escarpment is unforgettable for those who make it.
02How to experience it
Explore the desert coast around Namibe for the dunes-meet-ocean scenery and welwitschia plants, and drive up to the Tundavala Gap near Lubango for the sheer escarpment viewpoint. This is remote frontier travel best done with local guidance and a 4x4; check current conditions and requirements.