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African Cup of Nations - blog
Tales from the departure lounge as we say farewell to Benguela
by Paul Myers
Article published on the 2010-01-14 Latest update 2010-01-14 13:57 TU
Benguela airport
Paul Myers travels to Angola's port city of Benguela as he follows the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations for RFI.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow," as some playwright once said. And so I left Benguela. My Angola adventure must take me to new pastures. But there will forever be a valley of fondness reserved for Benguela.
Maybe it’s because it’s the first place I've visited outside Luanda. Maybe it’s because it is just a pleasant location. Maybe it’s because there’s a different kind of vortex existing there.
The flight to Luanda via Huambo was due to leave Benguela at noon. I’m clearly getting cabin fever because I arrived for the 10am check in at 10.20.
Thereupon I was told that I was not on the list. It’s true my ticket said Benguela to Huambo - Huambo to Luanda. But for the check in personnel I existed only on the Benguela to Huambo list even though the ticket and hefty price tag in dollars screamed the lad is heading for the capital.
Strange. Fortunately Michael the driver was on hand to explain in Portuguese what the ticket said in print: Paul has paid to go to Luanda and has no desire to sojourn in Huambo.
I’m sure it’s a lovely city but there’s no football in Huambo and RFI isn’t forking out for me to go and see the sites of that particular province.
On a tourism note, one of the features of Benguela /Catumbela airport is that it’s a combined civilian and military field.
As you sit in the departure lounge you can marvel at the Mig fighters preparing for their sorties. Snake-hipped men in fatigues saunter round the environs and you realise that taking a snap of the jets would be frowned upon.
The martial ambiance clearly got to me because when the yoghurt delivery van pulled up in front of the bus to carry us to our airplane, I said to a mate who’s working for South African broadcasters, the van’s going to open up with soliders inside.
Joachim started mimicking the machine guns and his colleague piped in: Commandante Peach and Mango … Sergeant Vanilla sir.
Not the height of wit I know but at least it wasn’t toilet humour.
Lavatories at Humabo airport are no laughing matter. We were ushered off the plane while it was being refuelled there and urged to go into the airport building. I duly complied and thought this is a good moment to answer nature’s call.
There in front of me was the referee from the previous night’s match in Benguela between Benin and Mozambique.
When I saw that the flush was an open bottle of mineral water, well he had no need to give me my marching orders.
