Around Lubango

by Dan Grec · December 16, 2017

The Road Chose Me Volume 2 OUT NOW!!
The Road Chose Me Volume 2: Three years and 54,000 miles around Africa

The sprawling city and statue of Christ

The city of Lubango sits in the mountains, giving it a fantastic climate. Never too hot, and always cool at night, exactly what I have been dreaming of. The city also has quite a few ex-pats and a lot of recent Western developments like supermarkets and all the rest. After roaming the city it’s nice to realize I could buy anything I need here like batteries or tools – the kinds of things I have not seen for many months. Above the city is an enormous statue of Christ, right next to a massive sign that reminds me of the Hollywood sign.

The statue is huge

Lubango sign

The Serra Da Leba Pass is an extremely impressive mountain road that climbs exactly 3,300 feet (1 kilometre!) up the mountains. Simply for fun I drive from top to bottom and back up again, a mean climb.

The impressive switchbacks go on and on

From the bottom of the pass looking up

In camp a creature briefly lands on the roof of the Jeep that I think must have been a bird. I eventually track it down and follow it for a while before figuring out it’s the biggest and most colorful grasshopper I have ever seen, with extremely bright red and blue on the wings.

The grasshopper ready to spring

The red and blue are hard to believe

Randomly one afternoon the rear tailgate of the Jeep will not open. Locked or unlocked, the button feels completely disconnected from the mechanism. Hmmmm. My entire camping setup revolves around my rear tailgate table, so if I can’t open it camping becomes a lot less fun. I need to fix this, and become determined.
After crawling through from the rear doors I am able to pop-off the cover and can just contort my head and hands enough to figure out how the mechanism works. Luckily I didn’t build my cabinets too close!
After twenty minutes I manage to pop it open from the inside, then get to work pulling it all apart. I discover a single screw has worked it way out, disconnecting the button from the mechanism that actually unlatches the tailgate. Happily the screw is lying nearby and I’m able to put it all back together without any problems and add some locktite for good measure.
Now I understand it better, I move my pull cord so I can now open the tailgate from the inside easier than ever.