Originally Posted by Alanymarce

I lived in the Republic of the Congo for two years a long time ago (when I arrived it was still the People's Democratic Republic of the Congo) and travelled within the country and into Gabon and Angola. Never actually entered DRC although you could listen to the gunfire in the evening from the poolside in Brazzaville.

We were at the Rwanda/DRC border in 2017 and considered spending a week however that was just after a number of Rangers had been murdered in the National Park, and the cost of getting visas plus accommodation led us to decide against a visit at the time (the idea was to look for Gorillas, however I had experienced Lowland Gorillas in (Republic of the) Congo and we then went to look for Highland Gorillas in Rwanda). I had looked into travel in DRC various times and had had each time decided against it.

I first saw Luanda in 1973; spent a lot of time there between 2001 and 2006, and was last in the country in 2017, briefly. The roads were improving, and things were returning to normaliy, however the aftermath of the war was very present. We went north of Luanda to a small seaside village and ate lobster for lunch. A group went to the same village a couple of weeks later, made the mistake of driving a couple of metres off the track and their vehicle set off a mine - very bad news! The national parks in Central West Angola had opened but there was little wildllfe. When we were talking with contacts who had recently been into Southern Angola they said that corruption was a major problem there.

We spent a month in Namibia in 2017 - entering from RSA and leaving to Botswana - we had a great time, travelling through the south, Fish River Canyon, Namib Desert, Damaraland, Kakaoland, Etosha, and Caprivi. The roads are excellent (although on a bike you'd have to take care on the gravel roads because of the risk ofloose gravel thrown up by passing tourists).

I don't think you'd have any problem riding the west coast from Luanda to Namibia, and Namibia itself would be great trip. If you take C27 south from Sesriem to Aus make sure you take highway D707 instead of staying on C27 - the scenery is amazing!