Oof! Got a proper welcome to West Africa by contracting a collection of tropical diseases. The Malaria was not that bad but the Salmonela has been a fucking pain in the gut. Treating it with antibiotics, but that dont help the pain so been necking pain killers like candy. My liver must look like a tea bag now.
After Luanda we headed down the coast in a mini bus built for 10 people with about 20 people in it. Talk about hot sweaty arse. Damn! Thunderous music all the way, and only the last 2 or 3 hours of the 11 hour trip were real torture. Arrived in the coastal town of Benguela and stayed in a lovely guest house where I ate the eggs that gave me Salmonela. Jim's Top Tip For The Day, don't eat fried eggs in West Africa!
Spent a couple of daze on the coast then caught the train (the subject of the documentary we're shooting here) inland as far as it went. At one point the train broke down and we were told it would be a couple of hours before another locomotive arrived to push us. So Jeremy and I got out and walked up the train, past the passenger carages to the cargo part at the front. Then the train started moving so we clambered up on the roof and spent the next hour thundering through the African countryside on top of the train like a frickin James Bond movie. AWESOME. I'll try upload a little video I took on my phone, but the conection in this internet cafe is way slow, so it may not work out here.
From the end of the train line we got another mini bus to a weird little town called Ganda to look at the continuation of the construction of the railway. This is being done by Chinese workers living in huge compounds, and there is some major economic political shit going on here.
Two days ago we got to Huambo, a city of a quarter of a million where the post war reconstruction is relativly advanced. But there are still buildings shot to shit on the central square.
Yesterday we went out of town half an hour to meet the Soba(tribal leader) of a mud hut village next to an enormous rock formation. He took us up the rock explaining tribal customs, me clambering behind filming everything. That was some HARD work, but great footage. I hope.
OK. Gotta go film some more now. More later.
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