the nape of his neck from the unforgiving sun. They must be worn from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon because that is when the danger of strokes is at the highest. I am talking about sunstrokes that are caused by an excessive exposure to the sun, and are usually the source of grim health problems. The stricken person becomes temporarily unconscious and usually ends up being paralyzed. I witnessed this when, many years later, it struck down a family friend playing in a soccer match in Leopoldville. He was one of a number of reckless Europeans who did not care about wearing sun helmets and was running around the field without proper head protection. He lost consciousness and was immediately rushed to the hospital, where he remained until flown back to Europe. Unfortunately, he had to endure complete paralysis for the rest of his life.
Before concluding my remarks about sunstrokes, I should mention the insidious aspect of the danger. Insidious because sunstrokes strike in a random way and give no warnings. For instance, a person may decide, from time to time, to venture out into the sun without a helmet. Experiencing no problems, he becomes nonchalant about the whole thing and decides against using a sun helmet altogether. But one day, without any indication, the sun’s rays might strike his head at the wrong angle, ruining his health and devastating the rest of his life.
Anyway, as we were about to rejoin our parents, Harry gave a yell and pointed to something on the dock, near the gangplank. I gave a look in the direction of his finger and burst out laughing so hard that my sides started to ache. A native had just left the gangplank with a large legal envelope held fast on his head by the weight of a large umbrella. As I found out later, this was the quintessential African messenger.
Eventually, we tore ourselves away from the railing and rejoined our parents in the cabin. They had just finished packing the remainder of our personal items and were ready to go to breakfast. That was to be our last meal on board.
After breakfast there were all kinds of time-consuming formalities that father took care of; such as settling up with the ship’s purser, completing Angola’s Transit and Customs formalities, etc.
It was shortly before noon that we left the SS Leopoldville.
09. Lobito
We stepped off the covered gangplank into the sweltering sun, and proceeded to a hotel that was within a short walking distance from the ship. All the passengers bound for Eastern Congo were assembling there for lunch and the ensuing boarding of the train that was to take them to their final destination in the very heart of Africa.
However, before talking about our train journey, I shall mention a couple of interesting facts about Angola, and say something about the rest of our day in Lobito.
Angola’s coastal region, except for the brief period from 1641 to 1648, has been under Portuguese rule from 1575 to1975. During the few years in question, the Dutch tried to set up their own coastal stations in that region because they needed to provide support for their oceangoing trade between Europe and Asia. Their efforts failed and they left the coast.The Portuguese colony was eventually named Angola, and the city of Luanda (Sao Paulo de Loanda) became its capital. Luanda is still a capital, but in 1975 it became the capital of the Republic of Angola. Luanda is a major port with a bustling metropolitan center and beautiful sandy beaches that extend up and down the coast. Tragically though, it is a city with a dreadful past. For some 200 years, it had been the hub of the slave trade between Portuguese Africa and Brazil.
I can personally attest to the charm of Luanda’s sandy beaches because I enjoyed them for several days over the 1953/1954 New Year’s holiday. I had earned my pilot’s license in the Congo just a few months earlier, and had decided to undertake a long-distance flight over the holidays. I picked Luanda because I had heard that it was an attractive city, and because I wanted to spend time at the ocean (the ocean is quite a draw for anyone living in the interior of Africa). However, once I had made my decision, I became a little apprehensive about what I was getting into. As an inexperienced pilot, I was going to fly for the first time through an international border, and I was going to spend several hours flying V.F.R. (Visual Flight Rules) over a large swath of unknown territory. Visual Flight Rules are the flight guidelines used by pilots that have only a rudimentary compass on board (magnetic compass), and nothing else to guide them to their destination. I had no electronic equipment in my Piper Super Cruiser, not even a basic radio to request landing instructions upon my descent into Luanda’s airport (in a future chapter I will talk about flying in the Congo “by-the-seat-of-my-pants”). But, I rose to the challenge and successfully plotted my course with good landmarks for points-of-reference. Also, I arranged for the refueling of the plane and for customs clearance formalities at Matadi’s airport, the only projected stop in the Congo. It took two hours to fly from Leopoldville to Matadi, with another three hours to get to Luanda. The Super Cruiser came from the Aero Club Royal du Congo Belge, and since I was one of the member pilots, I was able to sign it out for a whole week at a very low cost. By the way, Harry and a mutual friend went along on this flight.
We reached Luanda in one piece and, after clearing customs, took a cab to our hotel. We spent the rest of that day on the beach, ate an early dinner, and literally collapsed in our beds. It had been a long day.
Our vacation started well, but it became even better after I flew the manager of our hotel, and his photographer, over the city so they could take aerial photos and have new post cards printed for the hotel’s gift shop. From then on we were given full use of the hotel’s limousine, enjoyed freely all of the hotel’s amenities, and even became the guests of honor at the unforgettable New Year festivities that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. Those were the times great memories are made of. Anyway, I wonder whether the hotel, the Grand Hotel Universo, is still in business and whether the gift-shop still offers the aerial postcards that were made so many years ago.
Now, let us return to Lobito and our short stroll from the ship to the hotel. Although brief, this first walk among Africans was absolutely thrilling for me. Of course, I was immediately struck by the fact that most of them wore no shoes on their feet and that they appeared totally unaffected by the heated pavement of the dock. Then I saw an Albino. He was a young man with milky-white skin, white hair and pinkish eyes that he kept half closed against the sun’s bright light. I understand that this condition is due to a deficiency of pigment or dark coloring matter, and that it is inherited. I also saw many light-colored natives. They were mulattos, the children of mixed marriages. I really did not know where to look first and had a difficult time keeping up with the rest of the family.
As we reached the hotel, a single story whitewashed building topped with an oversized roof, and made ourselves comfortable on its huge veranda, I finally got an unobstructed view of the harbor that had welcomed us to Africa. It was a sweeping natural harbor protected by a breakwater sandbar over 3 miles long, with a 700 yard-wide navigable channel at its entrance. This wide channel allowed vessels to proceed to the port’s deep-water berths without pilots or tugboats.
A strong ocean breeze kept us fairly comfortable during the sumptuous lunch that was served on the vast veranda. The tables were covered with crisp white tablecloths and the napkin holders were large ivory rings with beautiful carvings. But it was the African waiters that most impressed us. They were efficient and responsive to all our needs, even though we had to communicate with them by gestures, as they understood only the Portuguese language. They were dressed in white shirts and shorts. But, as you may have guessed by now, they were all barefoot.
Our first meal on African soil was unforgettable and, if this was a harbinger of things to come, we had little to fear about our future lives in the tropics (strictly my own opinion at the time).
When the departure time drew closer, we finished our refreshments and moved leisurely to the adjacent rail-siding where the Benguela train was being readied for the long journey into the interior of the continent. The trip was to take three full days, and would cover some 1,400 miles from Lobito to Elisabethville. By the way, due to a unique agreement
