Baskets and Lobsters

Countryside south of Luanda (click on the photo to make it bigger)

Saturday we meet up with an expat at a bar at the end of the Ilha which is the long barrier peninsula that creates Luanda Bay.  The Ilha is filled with bars and higher end restaurants on one side and a very pretty beach on the other.  Although the beach is pretty the general consensus is not to enter the water due to pollution.  I had my first Angolan beer called Cuca and enjoyed some nice weather.  The plan was to then drive down to the Kwanza River area and look for a local basket weaver.  The Kwanza River is the southern edge of the "safe" zone that we can travel - if we want to go further we have to have security approval and typically a second vehicle is assigned for safety (mostly risk of car trouble).  As you go south in Luanda the city opens up to countryside and you start to see some cattle and greenery and they have Baobab trees here which area really cool (we saw them in Tanzania) - here they are called Imbondiero trees.  After about an hour we found the basket weavers and bought a few baskets.  Angola is a haggle sale country but the prices were really too good to haggle.  We bought a basket with a lid that stands about 3 feet tall for roughly $16 - it took them 4 days to weave.

Basket Shopping

On the way back the expat we were with wanted to buy lobster - there are two spots on the road that have ladies selling them so we stopped.  The road is about 200 yards or so from the water and they have buckets and buckets of live lobster to sell - they hold them up by their antennas to showcase them.  The drivers typically don't interact much but when it comes to dealing with locals they do ensure they have a presence - so the driver got out to assist with the negotiations.  Our friend wanted a few lobster but didn't like the price  (about $6/kg or about $3/lb) so he said we would drive to the next place - the vendor said she was going to call ahead and tell them the price!  As were are about to leave on lady offers us the whole basket of lobsters for about $58.  This intrigued our friend so after a bit of negotiations he got a bucket of lobster for $45 - there must have been 20-25 lobsters in the bucket!  We loved that she was brave enough to offer the whole basket when he only wanted 3 to start.

The driver and the lobster lady packing up the basket of lobsters

But of course now what to do with 25 live lobsters!  We put them in a cooler in the back of the car and headed to a local bar (really just a shanty on the side of the road) and gave them about 8 lobsters (our friend knew the family from past visits) then we headed back to our friends apartment to eat lobster.  I was not too keen on killing them so Jason learned how to do it and prepped about 16 lobsters for dinner - we had the driver join us and he took a lot of them home to his family.  I was pretty hesitant to eat lobster caught in the local waters that we bought off the head of a lady on the side of the road but I did it - it was pretty tasty and best yet we didn't get sick!  So we lived to tell the tale.

Cleaning the lobster

Jason had the hard job of prepping the lobster for dinner

We rounded out the week with a bit more exploring on Sunday and Monday - Jason had the day off on Monday.  Tuesday we got internet in our apartment which was pretty amazing turnaround time (3 business days) and it works almost as good as home.  I have meet some other spouses and seen a few new stores and participated in a few activities like walking and Canasta.  It feels as though I will have plenty to keep me busy during the days but I am sure it will take awhile to find my niche.

Sunset view from our friends apartment (in a different building then us) 

Many of these building are unfinished (with no current work occurring) due to the oil downturn